Short Takes

Here some short messages on publications, sites, events, podcasts . . .

• Sysprog.org : Mainframe Systems Programming
  I like to refer to some good or promising sites once in a while and this is one of them. This site wants to collect all kinds of information for the mainframe systems programmer. It has a very nice section on mainframe websites and blogs itself even with a small review on each site. The homepage is also interesting because the Something to read part intends to gather information from different sites so you have a central point referring to all kinds of new information which is mainframe related. It has my blog included and I hope others will follow.

• Red Hat-IBM-RealDolmen event : the presentations
  Some time ago I wrote about the joint Red Hat - IBM - RealDolmen event, but I still had to give you a link to the presentations. Well, they're all over here. I particularly liked the presentations about Red Hat subscription model and offerings and Why and how to conduct a Proof of Concept?

• When did IBM first open its offices in my town ?
  This is a nice FAQ I came across via the IBM-MAIN discussion list. It's from the IBM Archives site and there are other interesting, intriguing, funny questions like e.g. 'What is the origin of IBM’s “THINK” motto?' or 'What was the IBM type ...' starting from Type 1 up to Type 7656, What is the origin of the term “Big Blue?”. It also gives a historical overview of the mainframe.

• Abis DB2 newsletter
  Recently, Guido Indesteege from ABIS (a Belgian Training & Consulting Company) drew my attention to their DB2 newsletter. This is a newsletter covering application programming, best practices, maintenance, new functionalities . . . Unfortunately for some readers : it only appears in Dutch !
  

BCOOL with COBOL

COBOL has turned 50 on September 18, 2009. Though I spent quite some years programming COBOL myself, I didn't pay that much attention to it. But yesterday I came across this page on eweek.com : '20 things you might not know about COBOL'. Nice. Worth mentioning ? Perhaps.

And then yesterday evening my eldest son came from school and told me he wrote his first COBOL program. Coincidence, synchronicity, how do you call that ? So of course I asked what he wrote and they did some simple calculations to start with. "Oh yeah, the compute statement, no ?". I just couldn't resist it. Had to play the smart ass (not a COBOL expression). But still, it's nice to see that some schools still see the relevance of teaching that old COBOL language. By the way, it's also one of those schools participating in the Academic initiative. So, they're also offering a mainframe education.

So that's why I'm posting the link after all. So my son and his co-students can perhaps pick up the relevance of COBOL through this little slide show. And if they want to challenge their teacher why they still have to study COBOL they might throw in this quote from Edsger Dijkstra : "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence".

By the way : BCOOL is an acronym of COBOL.

A draft, a book and a technote

If you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, then shame on you : three types of publications you find on the IBM Redbook site. The book is the final product while a draft is a publication that's not yet entirely finalized, but is already worth publishing on the site. A Technote is a short, usually very practical text, on one particular subject.

The book : 'DB2 9 for z/OS: Distributed Functions'
It consists of 4 parts

• Distributed Database architecture and configurations : the authors "introduce the concepts and protocols of DRDA and describe the layout and the components of the possible configurations where DB2 for z/OS can play a client or server role"
• Setup and Configuration : "a description of the steps needed for the installation of a distributed environment"
• Distributed Applications : Application programming and data sharing
• Performance and problem determination

The book also contains lots of samples.
And if you live in the Belgian region, you might want to go to the joint DB2-CICS-SOA GSE meeting next Thursday where there's also a session on 'Talking with DB2 for z/OS : today's distributed connectivity options'.

The Draft : 'Batch modernization on z/OS'
"As a large portion of the workload on z/OS is processed in a batch mode, it is not difficult to justify a dedicated publication on this matter.
These days there are many different technologies that can be put at work in a batch environment on z/OS. This Redbook demonstrates that batch on z/OS is not only COBOL, JCL and a job scheduler anymore. This book also demonstrates that z/OS offers a sophisticated environment for batch that you may not have implemented on z/OS yet.
(...) The book also includes a chapter on future developments in batch processing."

The Technote : 'Converting LPAR Weights to Logical Processor Allocation'
Plain and simple, but useful : "This Tip describes how to calculate the portion of a shared logical processor assigned to an LPAR."
--> Link seems to be no longer working. Workaround : you can Google for lpar weight redbooks. It gives you the non-working link to the document, but you can still find it via the 'in cache' link.

My third Blogoversary

Time flies . . . when you're having fun !

Three years already and it seems like yesterday that I was writing my first post. I just took a look at the number of posts I made and I see I'm living up to my promises. I'm still hitting an average of two posts per week.

The one thing I miss from time to time is some interactivity. Don't be shy to leave a comment or drop me a note or a mail. I might be having second thought about Twitter, but it sure has a lot more interactivity going on. On the other hand, I see Twitter more as a source of references to the real content that's still more often found in blogs.

So I'm just going to stop this with the same words I posted last year : thanks for stopping by from time to time and don't hesitate to leave some comments if you have any kind of remarks.

As Apu Nahasapeemapetilon (from The Simpsons) would say : "Thank you, Come again".

New initiative : Mainframe Linux Wiki

I think this is an initiative worth mentioning and I hope it'll be a successfull one. It was cross-posted by Mark Post on the Linux-390, IBMVM, and IBM-Main Discussion lists : "With the assistance of Marist College (and Velocity Software who owns the domain name), I've put up a Wiki at http://wiki.linuxvm.org/wiki/ for people to contribute content". This should become a wiki for mainframe Linux an z/VM and it's now up to people like you and me who want to share their knowledge and experience with the rest of us.

Suggested topics so far include :

• Technical Presentations
• Technical Documentation
• Relevant IBM Redbooks
• Installation on z/VM
• Installation in an LPAR
• Performance Management
• Backup and Restore
• Projects and Software

For the moment only the 'Technical Presentations' has content with already a nice collection of presentations from previous Share, WAVV, System z Expo ... meetings.

As I said, I hope this becomes a success story !

Sampling Techdocs : July - August 2009

Here we are again with some new and interesting reading material from TechDocs. I've mentioned the first two before, but hey, it was holiday season back then and they are really valuable documents.

• Presentation : z/OS System Initialization Logic (IPL)
  "This presentation describes general processing involved initializing z/OS System from the IPL process until the system is ready to start JES2 or JES3." The major steps described are : the hardware process of loading z/OS, the loading and initialization of the nucleus, the initialization of general system resources, Master Scheduler Initialization. All I can say about this one : veeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyy nice !
  
  
  
• Technical Document : OSA-ICC experiences. Usage guide for z/OS and z/VM
  This is a very nice document for any one who wants to install the OSA-Express Integrated Console Controller (OSA-ICC) support of the 1000BASE-T card. It really takes you by the hand through chapters like OSA-ICC definitions on HMC, OSA-ICC VTAM Definition on z/OS, Implementing an OSA-ICC connection for z/VM and Connect to TSO using PCOMM & OSA-ICC. If you're still a first time OSA-ICC installer, this is the document to start with.
  
  
• Technical Document : Restore Server Time Protocol configuration information across a Power on Reset
  One can now save an "STP configuration across PORs and power failures for a single server and a two server STP-only CTN". This 2-page document outlines "the prerequisites, set up required, and steps needed to enable this functionality".

• Flash : Withdrawal of z/OS Function Beginning with z/OS Release 5 Through Current z/OS Release
  "This flash lists those items IBM has announced intention for removal in a specific z/OS release. These items have already been announced in previous IBM z/OS announcement letters. This is a collection of those items being removed. Consideration should be given to this list when planning your migration to a z/OS release". The Flash has been updated for z/OS 1.11

• White Paper : IBM Encrypted Storage Overview and Customer Requirements
  "This document is intended to contain critical information that you will need to know in order to manage IBM encrypted storage and to comply with IBM requirements for using IBM encrypted storage". It's the Word document you need. It contains chapters on Encryption Concepts, TKLM (Tivoli Key Lifecycle Management), DS8000 Disk Encryption, Tape encryption, Best Practices for Encrypting Storage Environments, IBM Guidelines and Requirements for Encrypting Storage Installations and IBM Guidelines and Requirements for Key Server Management.
  

Well that's it for now. As I always say : just check them out !

Upcoming Events (Belgium) and Webcasts

You know I keep an agenda up to date on this blog, but those reading the blog via RSS (or other) feeds might never see it. So, since I see some really interesting events coming up, I thought I'd mention them here too.

If I have to put some in the spotlights, I think the CICS Web Services Webcasts will be interesting. Oh, by the way, I stumbled across these through @IBM_CICS on Twitter. So Twitter might prove usefully after all ;-). I see some very interesting agendas for the joint GSE meetings on September 23 and 24. And I'm following the three day PoT on zVM and zLinux.

September 11, 2009
GSE Security Group Meeting on z/OS Security
Information and registration

September 22, 2009
Webcast: CICS Web services Part 1 - Development
Information and registration

September 23, 2009
Joint GSE z/OS and GSE Storage Working Group Meeting at IBM Forum Brussels
Information and registration

September 24, 2009
Combined GSE DB2, CICS and SOA Working Group Meeting at IBM Forum Brussels
Information and registration

29/09/2009
Webcast: CICS Web services Part 2 - Deployment
Information and registration

September 29, 2009
PoT - Introducing Web 2.0 in Your Company at IBM Forum Brussels
Information and registration

October 9, 2009
PoT - COBOL - PL/I Application Development for IMS at IBM Forum Brussels
Information and registration

October 5-8, 2009
IDUG Europe in Rome
Information and registration

October 14-16, 2009
PoT - Introduction to zLinux & zVM at IBM Forum Brussels
Information and registration

FICON Express8 Performance

In a previous post I pointed out the announcement of the new FICON Express8 cards. Now there's already a white paper on the performance. Here's a graph taken from that study :


You can find the entire white paper over here : 'IBM System z10 FICON Express8 Channel Performance Version 1'.

Thanks to Jan Tits from IBM Belgium for pointing this out to me.

Red Hat Webinars : Get the Hype on System z

Yesterday I attended the joint IBM - Red Hat - RealDolmen event on Red Hat on System z. There were some really nice presentations. If you couldn't attend the session, I'll give you the links as soon as they're available on the web.

Red Hat really has a very dynamic Benelux team and I guess it's no different elsewhere. They have dedicated people focusing on System z and if you still think zLinux and Suse are synonyms, then think again. In a couple of years they now have gained a share of almost 40% of the Linux on System z market.

If you want to learn more about it or for that matter about Linux on System z in general, you should really have a look at the three webinars they are giving on Red Hat on System z. I just watched the playback of the first one : 'What's all the Hype about System z?' and I must say it's really worth spending an hour's time on it. It's also a great presentation for people not involved into mainframe up to now. It gives e.g. some explanations on 'mainframe-speak' and it elaborates on things we use to take for granted. And that are exactly the arguments you'll need to convince non-mainframers of the value of the mainframe. Ok, you got the message : check it out !

There are two more webinars coming up :

• 'z/VM vs. Distributed Hypervisor Matchup: z/VM Holds the Title by Reed Mullen (IBM) and Shawn Wells (Red Hat) on September 17, 2009 at 8 p.m. Brussels Time
• Current & Future Linux on System z Technology by Hans-Joachim Picht (IBM) and Shawn Wells (Red Hat) on September 24, 2009 at 5 p.m. Brussels Time
  

Putting a new face on z/OS

I borrowed the title of this post from an article on z/OS in a CCR2 newsletter dating from 2005. Oddly enough, that almost exactly matches the title of the announcement of z/OSMF : 'IBM z/OS Management Facility V1.11 -- A new face for z/OS (ZP09-0276)'. I can't resist to give you a quote from that article.

"z/OS users today must master an assortment of user interface (UI) styles: TSO command line, ISPF panels, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), even Web-style UIs. To complete a task such as applying service, they often must interact with different UIs while flipping through a variety of publications. That's today. On the horizon is a new z/OS management console that will be headquarter central for z/OS management tasks".

So, the goal was "to simplify and modernize z/OS management for 'zNextGen' - the new generation of IBM System z9 and eServer zSeries IT professionals" in order to "make life easier for z/OS novices and experts alike".

A year later we had the announcement of 'IBM's Five year march to Mainframe Simplification'. The goal was "to enable technology administrators and computer programmers to more easily program, manage and administer a mainframe system -- as well as to increasingly automate the development and deployment of applications for the mainframe environment". Areas on which to focus were automated configuration checking, modernizing the mainframe user interface, improving software asset management technologies and modernizing the mainframe's development environment with visual tools. If we look at these targets wen can definitely say that progress has been made. Look e.g. at the development environment. But there's still room for improvement.

So, now, here's z/OSMF (z/OS Management Facility). It's "a new product for z/OS that provides support for a modern, Web-browser based management console for z/OS (...) The z/OS Management Facility is intended to enable system programmers to more easily manage and administer a mainframe system by simplifying day to day operations and administration of a z/OS system. More than just a graphical user interface, the z/OS Management Facility is intelligent. Automated tasks can help reduce the learning curve and improve productivity". It surely offers some interesting features and is definitely worth trying out. An example ? "Tasks taking up to 20 minutes, such as collecting and sending dump data, can now take as little as 30 seconds (or 8 key clicks) with z/OS Management Facility". This looks impressive and as far as I've heard, it actually is.

Here's an image of the browser user interface :

Click on picture for larger view in new window

For the moment you see four functionalities on the tree menu on the left :

• Configuration contains the Configuration Assistant task which provides a guided interface for configuring TCP/IP policy-based networking functions.
• Problem Determination contains the Incident Log task which provides a consolidated list of problems, along with the details and the diagnostic data captured and saved with each problem. It also facilitates sending the diagnostic data for further diagnosis
• Links contains links to sites for system management tools and information. Some initial useful links are provided
• z/OSMF Administration contains administrative tasks that allow you to manage z/OSMF users, roles, and links

I took this from the latest z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter which has several introductory articles on z/OSMF. There's also a z/OSMF Web page and at the bottom of it you'll also find the Program Directory and the User's Guide.

Oh, and have I told you that it's completely free. It's sold as IPLA software with a cost of zero dollars and a yearly S&S of also zero dollars, which is pretty much the same in euro. So, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't give it a try !

The zPrime discussion - Violation vs. Exploitation ?

Here's an interesting blog entry at Data Direct which was brought to my attention by Mike Nelson : 'Violation vs. Exploitation: IBM Clarifies Authorized Use of IBM Specialty Engines/Processors' by Gregg Willhoit, Chief Architect at Progress DataDirect.

There was already a letter form Mark Anzani (IBM) circulating regarding IBMs position towards zPrime, which you can also find on the DataDirect blog. Apparantly Gregg Willhoit asked for more information and he now reproduces a new letter by Mark Anzani on his blog. You can read it over here.

I think the message remains the same : "non-Eligible Workload running on the Specialty Engine will cause the software running on the Specialty Engine to be chargeable" (first letter) allthough perhaps a little bit more explicitely stated in the second letter : "To be clear, if customers use Specialty Processors/Engines to process workloads beyond the IBM authorizations, then customers must pay the hardware, software and maintenance pricing associated with full CP capacity". In addition Mark Anzani says "In particular, IBM sells (...) MES upgrades for customers who wish to convert Specialty Engines/Processors to CP capacity in order to execute general purpose workloads".

Still, I'm curious how this will turn out in the long run. Aren't you ?

IBM Announcement - Enterprise Cobol for z/OS V4.2

Almost two years after Enterprise Cobol for z/OS V4.1 IBM yesterday announced 'IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS, V4.2 (ZP09-0281)'. It becomes available on August 28, 2009. Emphasis is on enhancements to XML parsing and usablility improvements.

The highlights

• Further enhancements to XML parsing using the z/OS XML System Services parser
• A new facility that lets users customize message severity
• A new compiler option, BLOCK0, lets programs take advantage of system-determined block size for QSAM output files
• COBOL user-defined words such as data names and program names can now include the underscore character (_)
• Compiler listings display CICS options in effect
• Enterprise COBOL applications using object-oriented syntax for Java interoperability can now run with Java 5 or Java 6

Enterprise Cobol V4.2 requires z/OS 1.9 or later.

Customers running on earlier versions should know that V3.3 was End of Support as of April 30, 2007. The versions 3.4 and 4.1 haven't been given an End of Support date yet.

Red Alert for z/OS 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10 with fix and HSM PATCH enabled for OA22507

Here's a new Red Alert :

Abstract:
Possible data loss for z/OS 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10 with fix and HSM PATCH enabled for OA22507

Description:
Only users of HSM with the PATCH enabled for APAR OA22507 to change GDG scratch processing during migration are affected. With this function enabled HSM may erroneously invalidate data sets which would prevent the data sets from being moved to a new tape volume during RECYCLE processing. The data may be lost if no backup exists.

Please see APAR OA30149 for additional information and actions to determine exposure.

Recommended Actions:
Please remove the PATCH to prevent the problem until fix for OA30149 is available and can be installed.

If you want to have en overview of all past Red Alerts, then take a look over here. You can also subscribe on the same page so you'll be notified by mail of any future Red Alert.

z/OS V1.11 - Smart, adaptive, trusted, efficient

Last week IBM announced z/OS V1.11 : 'z/OS V1.11 - Smart, adaptive, trusted, efficient (ZP09-0277)'. I'm not going through all the details here as it's far too extensive. So I will focus on a couple of details I find interesting and give you some links to more information.

First of all there's quite some attention to simplified management which seems to be a new step in the Five Year March to Simplification which was announced in 2006. However, I'll come back to that in a next post about the new z/OS Management Facility.

There's a couple of things to tell about the specialty engines too. First "DB2 utilities sorting fixed-length records using IBM's memory object sorting technique, especially LOAD, REORG, and RUNSTATS utilities, will have a portion of the workload offloaded to a zIIP". But there's more : "z/OS V1.11 is enhanced with a new function that can enable System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) eligible workloads to run on System z Integrated Information Processors (zIIPs). This function can enable you to run zIIP- and zAAP-eligible workloads on the zIIP". Yes, that's right, if you have no specialty engines for the moment or you only have a zIIP, you can run zIIP-eligible ànd zAAP eligible workload by acquiring or using just one zIIP. That might be good news for smaller customers. It makes you wonder about the difference between zAAP and zIIP and whether the zAAP will eventually be phased out ?

Also take a look at the statements of direction. There are quite some of them. I just want to point out one, which will not affect that many customers, but still, I see some customers that will be affected : its the one stating to "discontinue delivery of software on 3480, 3480 Compressed (3480C), and 3490E tape media". There are alternatives of course with IBM strongly recommending to switch to Internet delivery when ordering z/OS products. If this is not an option IBM also intends to deliver on DVD media.

z/OS 1.11 will become available on September 25, 2009 and can be ordered from September 11, 2009 onwards. Last possible order date for z/OS 1.10 CBPDO or ServerPac is October 13, 2009.

And here are some additonal links to more information on z/OS 1.11

• General information on the IBM z/OS page
• What's new in z/OS 1.11
• Migration : there's the z/OS 1.11 Migration Guide. There's also an article of Marna Walle in the new Hot Topics Newsletter (p. 25). I see that Marna Walle is also giving two migration sessions at the Share Conference in Denver. So for those (like me) not attending, you might want to check out the Proceedings section at the Share website after the event for the presentations. I'm sure there will be other interesting presentations on z/OS 1.11 as well.
• The z/OS library with all manuals in PDF and BOOK versions
• The z/OS V1R11 Information Center
• You know there's also a webpage gathering all the current and past Statements of Direction ?

Mainframe going strong

OK, I know I don't have to convince you readers of this blog of the strengths of the mainframe. An often heard comment during presentations or meetings is "I wish my management knew about this" or "tell that to my management". And that's exactly one of the difficulties we're often facing. More and more managers do not have a mainframe background any more. They definitely do not take it for granted to take the mainframe along in the equation. But the best advocates for the mainframe are the mainframe people themselves who have the most contact with their managers.

I think it still boils down to the remarks Marcel den Hartog made a couple of years ago in his presentation '10 Reasons to fall in love with the mainframe' which you can still download over here : 'Nice, but how do we tell the others ?'. I quote some of it :

This is all nice but . . .

• New applications are often NOT developed on Mainframe
• Mainframe people are not replaced when they retire
• We do more with less, and less and less

So:

• We must promote our box AND ourselves more and better
• We must emphasize the good things and make sure the “bad” things are seen in context (expensive is not always expensive…)
• We have to think like “them”….

This is a nice starting point if you have to convince the 'others'.

So I thought I might also try and help a bit myself. In the three years I've been blogging now, I've also tried to put the mainframe strengths in the spotlight from time to time. So, all of my posts that might help you in your struggle to convince others about the mainframe are now labelled 'Mainframe going strong'. You can find all labels at the right hand side of the blog. Or just click here.

How did I come to this ?
Well, I saw two different sources telling me how great the mainframe is and how much it is still used and what an important workload is still running on the mainframe. And my reaction was, you don't have to convince me ! So I thought, why not put this all together so it can help you to convince your management with valuable arguments. The two sources ?
The first one is @MainframeZone on Twitter. OK, yes, I'm taking my daily look at Twitter too, nowadays. @MainframeZone has posted, euh, tweeted about some very nice positive articles etc. on the mainframe.
The second one is yet another survey from CA (next to the ones I mentioned before). Here's the title of the press release summing up the content of this survey : "Survey Reveals Mainframe Persists as Cornerstone of Multi-Tier Enterprise Computing - Respondents Cite Reliability, Resilience, and Security Among Platform’s Most Compelling Advantages". The survey results can be found over here.

And while I'm at it : don't forget this all time favorite : 'The Dynosaur Myth'. If you don't know this one, you surely have to check it out. The last update is from five years ago, but lots of it is still very relevant.

Well, I hope this will help some people convincing their management to re-think the role of the mainframe. Go on, go tell the others now !