IBM z/OS Hot Topics - issue 29

I must have missed this one and for those who did so too, there was a new release of IBM z/OS Hot Topics (issue 29) last August. You know, I sometimes envy the people of the Hot Topics Newsletter a bit, especially when I look at the list of about sixty contributors to this newsletter. This is one hell of an organization on its own. Surely when you know that for our RealDolmen z Systems eZine there's only the two of us. But then again, we're pretty independent and we can write what we want to. No need to worry about some or other strict guidelines. But let me stop pondering upon this and get back to the topic at hand.

The main theme of this z/OS Newsletter is "Putting Security into Cloud, Analytics, Mobile, Social and Security (CAMSS)". If you're not that much into security, don't let you scare off, because only about the first half of the newsletter is about security :

• the evolution of password controls
• the most common security mistakes when configuring z/OS systems,
• Drowning in digital certificates ? Here's a lifeline
• . . .

There's also a reference to the IBM z Systems security Portal. On the 'Integrity' tab of the portal you can subscribe "to the automatic notification process to get access to the latest service information about security and system integrity APARs for z/OS and z/VM".

In the second part of the newsletter you find amongst others articles on :

• The use of the "Mega memory on z13"
• z/OSMF becoming part of the base of z/OS 2.2
• Problem determination
• The addition of Linux support to IBM zAware
• Best practices for z/OS 2.2 documentation
• . . .

As I always say, just check it out !

System z Newsletters

Once again, not sure where I picked this up the first time. It might've been some retweet from Ken Graff (@kgcanes) on Twitter. RealDolmen is not the only company publishing a System z Newsletter. Ken Graff from IBM is also composing one sometimes every month, sometimes with some larger interval. The last one was in November and Ken told me it's not likely there will be one in December. But I'll keep you posted about it via Twitter.

You can find previous editons over here. Every issue starts out with an overview of past announcements. I have the impression it focuses more on the software announcements. Which I tend to forget from time to time, so this may be a nice addition. There are a lot of references to information pages, new articles, white papers and so on. When you browse through it, there's always some or other link catching your attention. This all falls under the header of 'News'. Two other headers are 'Education and Events' and 'Teleconferences'. I guess it's pretty obvious what these are about, no ?

As I always say, just check it out !

Disaster Recovery Journal

This is an interesting journal that catches my attention every time again with interesting articles, presentations, webinars, white papers and so on. You can guess what it's all about of course. By just browsing the home page you'll come across some great content.

But let me give you a couple of examples of some interesting content.There's of course the journal itself. You can find a digital version of the latest issue and back issues over here. The latest issue deals e.g. with social media, mobile devices . . . 

Here's a couple of free white papers with topics like 'A Practical Guide to Cost–Effective DR Planning', 'Service Outages: Is Your Monitoring Strategy Working?', 'Five Things You Need to Know Today about DR Planning' and 'Cost-Effective DR Options For Mission-Critical Applications'.

There are also lots of links to the IBM site like e.g. to this presentation on 'Reputational Risk and IT' that you can download over here. Topics covered are : Why reputational risk is a critical issue, What IT risk factors most impact reputation, Six key recommendations for effective reputation and IT risk management. You can also download two more white papers on the subject : 'Apply the economics of IT Risk' and 'The Economic Impact of IT Risk'.

So, you see how one link can lead to lots of different interesting information.

Holiday Reading : IBM Systems Magazine and Enterprise Tech Journal

You might think that we have a new magazine on the block. Well, not really z/Journal (previously Enterpise Systems Journal, previously Mainframe Journal) is now called Enterprise Tech Journal in order "to reflect the changing dynamic of today's hybrid data centers". So it will have a broader perspective on multi-platform technologies in the enterprise, but still remain mainframe-centric. The articles that drew my attention were mainly the technical ones like 'CICS Transaction Gateway V8.1 : What's new and why it matters' by Paul Crockett and a good overview of Temporal Tables in DB2 by Dan Luksetich.
You'll also find a very good introduction to z/VM Live Guest Relocation (LGR) by Mark Lorenc : "The LGR function (...) can be useful for a mainframe shop running Linux applications on z/VM that require non-stop availability". And there's a column by Marcel den Hartog on "How to put a smile on the CIO's face'. If that isn't worth a look . . .
You can download the digital version over here.

IBM Systems Magazine has amongst others some interesting articles on consolidation to the mainframe. Greg Lotko tells us about the IBM vision on consolidation in 'The Performance of Many, The Efficiency of One' (you just have to love this title, don't you). He also tells about some significant differences between a DIY environment and one with zBX and Unified Resource Manager.
The next article 'Mainframe vs. Distributed' tells you about how to make a correct TCO study comparing apples with apples and warning you about some pitfalls ranging from faultive chargeback mechanisms to including "the corporate jet in the mainframe costs!" Yes, it's really there !
Then two interesting examples of consolidating on Linux on z. One of them is IBM itself and the other is Shelter Insurance. Go and read them : I'm sure you'll like the down to earth approach of Shelter Insurance.
You can find the digital version over here.

As I always say, just check them out !

Hey, What Are You Calling a “Legacy System”?

I received a mail about a couple of weeks ago with the question if I could add a link to the IBM Data Management Magazine page on my blog. Well, I must say I'm rather hesitant to add links as most of the requests I get are pure publicity and adds. And I'm not interested in those ones.

So I had a look at it and of course, this is the former DB2 Magazine of which I somehow lost track. Shame on me. In my 'former' life as a DBA I really learned a lot from that magazine. Have a look at it, you'll (still) like it. It now has a broader scope as the scope of the IBM Information Management product family has also broadened since. So, of course, as you can see on the right hand side I added the link.

But what about the title of your post, you might say. Well, let me call it another teaser to go and have a look. As I saw some familiar contributors like e.g. Bonnie Baker, I also noticed this contribution by Robert Catterall on legacy systems. How do you go about when an IT executive dismisses the system z servers as just "legacy systems" ? How do you convince someone that system z servers are more than just that stereotyped image a lot of people have of them. You might say :

“Legacy system, you say? Would that be the system that runs the applications that keep your factories humming, your trucks rolling, and your customer invoices flowing? You know, the applications that make you money and keep your business alive? You mean that legacy system?”

or

“Speaking of that System z server of yours, you must be aware that DB2 on that platform is a great data provider for those modern, multitiered, service-oriented applications on which you’re focused, right? If you’re not convinced of that, see what your own development teams are up to these days.”

Go find out yourself how Robert Catterall tackles the issue. You might get some additional ideas on how to defend that old-fashioned, legacy system next time.

IBM Systems magazine Mainframe - May/June 2011

Last week there was the May/June issue of the IBM Systems Magazine with some very good content. You can find it over here. I would advise you to subscribe to the magazine. That way you also get a link to the .pdf.

I would like to draw your attention to some articles I really enjoyed reading. There's e.g. 'Beyond Restart and Concurrency' by Carl Feinberg about minimizing "the impact of failures with restartable batch applications" using a systemwide restart facility. Trust me, an interesting read for companies who see an ever decreasing batch window or who no longer draw the line between online and batch executions.

Tami Deedrick writes a good article on ProtecTIER, more specific on the TS7680 ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway for System z. If the technical arguments don't convince you there's also a financial argument : "Acquisition can be 50 to 80 percent lower than standard virtual tape library solutions, which may help lower total cost of ownership".

Wait, there's more. There's the customer story of our own Brussels based P&V Assurances company that reduces technology costs via VPN-free access. It tells the story how the technology for connecting their agents in the front office evolved from a tightly coupled system to a "platform-agnostic access to back-end systems".

And last but not least, there's a special report with the results of a readers' survey about business challenges, mainframe staffing, adopting new technologies like e.g. cloud computing and their view on hybrid environments.

As I always say, just check it out !

Short takes

Catching up again with some short messages on the New Mainframe Executive Magazine, a definition of Cloud computing, an article on z/OS deduplication, CA May Mainframe madness and SELCOPY/i.

• The New Mainframe Executive Magazine for March/April is out. A couple of articles I liked : The consolidation experiences to Linux on System z by the Italian Gruppo Api, an interview with Reed Mullen with a more high-level approach on Linux on System z plus the various Solutions IBM is offering for it and 'Tape a collapsing star' by Randy Chalfant stating : "(...) tape will die because it can't follow or match current market conditions and requirements (...) users will simply stop writing data to tape; they'll opt for disk instead'. Want to find out more : you can download the .pdf over here.

• This is why I like reading James Governor's Monkchips. The definition of Cloud Computing is actually quite simple : "The next time someone tries to take you through 30 slides explaining the cloud you can just nod sagely, and say… “ohhhh. you mean servers, middleware and apps. Yeah I get it.” A true adherent of cloud computing !

• I wrote a little article on Protectier deduplication in our System z Newsletter and put it also on this blog. If you want to get a little more in-depth insights on z/OS Deduplication and on deduplication workload characterization, the you might want to take a look at this paper in the published papers section of the Performance Associates site : 'z/OS Data De-de-de-de-duplication' by Dr. Pat Artis.

• Perhaps a bit early to already call it a tradition but here's CA May Mainframe Madness 2010. You can register over here.

• It's not my habit to talk about third party products, but this one brought back some nice memories for me. I remember a time when there was ISPF for Windows. Perhaps it still exists and there are still people using it, I wouldn't know. But now I had a mail about a "windows style desktop on the mainframe". So, not familiarizing people with Windows by using ISPF; no, more like familiarizing people with z/OS by using Windows. I'm talking about Selcopy/i. So I took a look at their site and found an overview video. It reminded me of my time as a COBOL programmer in the early nineties. I was working for Dolmen at AnHyp at the time and one of my colleages over there, Frank van Aert, had developed or taken over some kind of self-written ISPF application which was called YP or YPN. The basic principle, though, looked pretty much the same, you edited a file and could start all kinds of operations from there on like editing files, doing listcats, jumping to ISPF 3.4 using wildcards, listing often used files, putting your cursor on it and providing all kinds of actions on it depending on the PFkey you were pressing etc. etc. It definitely saved you lots of time, so I eagerly assisted in further developing it. So far for the memories, Selcopy/i goes further than this of course, presenting it all in some windows like environment young people might like and definitely offering much more functionalities than our little application did. If you're interested, just check it out.
  Oops, not such a short take, this one. Perhaps I should try and contact Frank again, it's been a while . . .