2012-2013 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 336-436-8294
3060 S. Church St.
Burlington, NC 27215

Ron Pimblett - Vice President
DTS Software 919-833-8426
4350 Lassiter at North Hills Ave, Suite 235
Raleigh, NC 27609

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-641-6235
201 N. Eugene St.
Greensboro, NC 27401

Tommy Thomas - Treasurer
LabCorp 336-436-4178
3060 S. Church St. 919-361-7267
Burlington, NC 27215

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive
Cary, NC 27513

Meetings

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings usually are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter e-Mailings

The SPARTA policy is to e-mail a monthly notice to our SPARTA-L Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA-L Group is maintained by Brad Carson; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Brad at 336-436-8294.

July 2012 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V484 (dated July 8, 2012) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Brad Carson at LabCorp or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the September 25, 2012 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.
•The meeting was held at LabCorp in RTP, N.C.
•Thirteen (13) people were present of which ten (10) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job functions.
•The minutes of the July and August 2012 meetings were approved as published in the September 2012 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's Report. As of Sept. 10, 2012, the balance is $992.29. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the newsletter.

OLD BUSINESS

•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don't really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

•The SPARTA Web page is available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

•Brad Carson reminded everyone to leave the LabCorp conference room clean.

•Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Ron Pimblett.

•The October SPARTA meeting will be October 30 at LabCorp in RTP.

•Food for the October 2012 meeting will be chicken.

NEW BUSINESS

•Thanks to LabCorp and Tommy Thomas for hosting the meeting.

•Send any e-mail address changes to Brad Carson so he can update the SPARTA Listserv.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:30 p.m.

•Presentation by Ed Webb of SAS on the SHARE119 Conference in Anaheim, CA, Aug. 5-10, 2012.

• Agenda
- Highlights
- Why Go to SHARE?
- Quotes of Interest and Odds and Ends
- Best Sessions
- z/OS 2-Year Release Cycle
- Migrating to z/OS 1.13
- z/OSMF 1.13 and z/OS 1.13 Summary
- From the Bit Bucket

• Highlights
- SHARE Attendance Down from A Year Ago (526 versus 612 in previous SHARE)
- SHARE Live! recorded 26 sessions in Anaheim
- SHARE 120 is February 3-8, 2013 in San Francisco at the Hilton S.F. Union Square
- SHARE 121 is August 11-16, 2013 in Boston
- SHARE Website Updated in early April 2012
- SHARE Proceedings No Longer Require Membership But Need SHARE Userid (free)
- 1824 Members of SHARE
- Anaheim was last conference with paper evals. (as announced)
- z/OS Changed to 2 Year Release Cycle - next z/OS is V2R1 in 2H2013
- z/OS 1.13 and z/OSMF 1.13 were Available at the end of Sept. 2011

• Why Go To SHARE?
- Meet IBM Managers - such as Systems z VP and Line Manager Greg Lotko
- IBM Provided this Info at Session 11797:
- 150+ zBX at >100 Clients with 1100 Blades (z196 +2)
- 140+ New Accounts since 3Q2010 zEnterprise Launch
- 50% of New Accounts are First in Enterprise
- 1/5 of Installed z MIPS run zLinux

• Quotes of Interest and Odds And Ends
- “If you have z/OS in the Network, that is the “bank vault”; everything else is just an “ATM” ”
- “z/OS is the Most Securable platform but may not be the most Secured”
- “zNextGen’rs are Vitality Hires”
- z/OS Information Changes Coming
- No BOOKs (Bookmanager-format) after z/OS V1R13
- PDFs and Info Center Only after R13
- No Physical Media (Download DVD images (ISO))
- z/OS Data Area Books Are Only Available Online
- August 2012 Hot Topics magazine is a Great Reference for z/OS R13 Topics
- SMP/E V3R6 in R13 and also Separately Orderable
- IXGRPTMP and IXGRPT2 in SAMPLIB for Reports from SMF Type 88 Records
- Jack Schudel, the SHARE JES2 Project Manager, is being Retired from University of Florida
- REXX Support in BCPii was an Accepted SHARE Requirement in Jan. 2011
- RACF Exits Can Use System REXX
- IEASYMUP in SAMPLIB
- JES2 Must Migrate with z/OS in next release

• Best Sessions Attended By Ed
- Session 10613 ISPF Hidden Treasures: Parts 1 and 2 (by Peter Van Dyck of IBM)
- Session 11310 Cheryl’s Hot Flashes (Last one - the End)
- Session 11581 A Different Way to Perform z/OS Maintenance

• z/OS 2-Year Release Cycle
- z/OS Version 2 Release 1 in 2H2013
- 2-Year Cycle Became Effective in March 2012
- Official Announcement in April 2012
- Possible Support Changes for R12 and R13
- No Change for R11 (free ends Sept. 2012)
- Justifications
- 5% of shops migrating to every annual release
- 60% migrate every other release
- Not enough time for exploitation of new function
- Strain on testing resources
- Reduce incremental delivery of function (EAV took 4 releases)
- Do Not Expect Twice as Much Change in each z/OS Release (maybe 10-50% more)
- Issues
- FIN APARs (Re-Open if you need a fix before 2H2013)
- Slower delivery of New or Enhanced Function

• Migrating to z/OS 1.13
- z/OS 1.13 Migration book GA22-7499-19 (multiple “flavors” on IBM’s Internet Library, each for a specific migration path, such as 1.11 to 1.13)
- Updated for September 2011
- Updated again in March 2012
- See “Migrating to z/OS 1.13” SHARE presentations from Anaheim
- z/OS 1.6 End of Service was Sept. 30, 2007
- z/OS 1.7 End of Service was Sept. 30, 2008
- z/OS 1.8 End of Service was Sept. 30, 2009
- z/OS 1.9 End of Service was Sept. 30, 2010
- z/OS 1.10 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2011 (Two more years (until Sept. 2013) for a fee)
- z/OS 1.11 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2012 (Two more years (until Sept. 2014) for a fee)
- z/OS 1.12 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2015
- z/OS 1.13 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2016

• z/OSMF R13
- Software Deployment Manager
- ServerPac-like
- Manual JOB submission and tracking (for this release)
- SMP/E Impact (V3.6 Required)
- Classic Interface (up to 4 ISPF Windows)
- Support for Application Linking
- Software Management Task

• z/OS 1.13
- 1 Terabyte EAV Support (4Q11 DS8n00 mcode)
- IGGCATxx for Catalog PARMLIB parameters
- Lots more ALIASes per User Catalog (EXTENDEDALIAS(YES) in IGGCATxx)
- Better O/C/EOV Message Text is an Option (DEVSUPxx OCE_ABEND_DESCRIP=YES)
- User-level Mounts and Unmounts for z/OS Unix file systems
- Migration Health Check for zFS

• z/OS 1.13 DFSMS
- PDSE
- IEBPDSE Utility invoked during IPL starting in R12
- Now externalized for use in Batch or TSO
- Recommended to use before running DFSMSdss or IEBCOPY to validate PDSE Directory
- D SMS,PDSE,CONNECTIONS,DSN(…) to see Users
- IEBCOPY
- New Channel Programs so No Longer Authorized
- IKJTSOxx APAR OA37218
- ISPF Compress APAR OA37408
- Faster for Partitioned Data Sets (no faster for PDSE)

• z/OS 1.13 JES2
- Instream Data in JCL PROC or INCLUDEs
- JOBRC=MAXRC (default)
- LASTRC or (STEP.name.name) on JOB statement
- MAXRC or LASTRC on JOBCLASS in JES2 Parameters
- SPOOL Migration and Expansion
- R11 Activated, R13 JES2 on all MAS members
- CYL_MANAGED=ALLOW, EATTR=OPT on all HASPACE Allocations
- Enablement APAR OA36158 (UA64366) available
- IBM has JES2 SPOOL Migration webpage

• Session 11702 - Bit Bucket x’2B’
- testcase.boulder.ibm.com supports secured ftp to upload files to IBM
- Java V6 SR1 uses 1 MB pages
- RACF Subsystem
- Logon to Console, then issue RACF commands directly from Console

Ed also passed out his SHARE August 2012 Notes document with many more details.

•The meeting ended about 8:30 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for October 2012

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $859.49 as of October 12, 2012.

Financial Report
3/01/2012 through 10/12/2012

Items of Interest


SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2012

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Oct. 30 - Chicken
Nov. 27 - Subs
Dec. 25 - No Meeting, Happy Holidays


The Trouble with Tribbles

contributed by Ed Webb

From the SHARE blog of Mary Anne Matyaz, Manager of the Core Technologies Project:

“How in the world, you're wondering, am I going to link Tribbles to mainframes? Well, in less skilled hands it would definitely be a challenge. Ok, think it through with me...what is the most notable attribute of a tribble? Aside from small and furry, they multiply...quickly. And what, in our little raised-floor world, multiplies quickly? Small, furry servers.

I'm thinking back over a few mainframe shops that I'm familiar with that have moved off of the mainframe. One, County A, took 18 years. Another, School District B, took 12 years. (School District B invited me to the IBM-manual burning party when it was over). Even a large shop spent 8 years moving one application off the mainframe, and the database is still living on the mainframe, and being replicated. And one even wrote off millions of dollars of accounts payable rather than convert the data.”

See Mary Anne’s conclusions here (free SHARE userid required).


SHARE 2013 in San Francisco Hotel and Registration are Open

contributed by Ed Webb

SHARE will be in San Francisco, February 3-8, 2013 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. IBM will present its Preview of z/OS V2R1 and z/OSMF V2R1 as well as provide details on the newest zEnterprise system, the EC12.

Go to share.org for details on registration and hotel reservations.


The 3 Top Advantages of IBM Mainframes

contributed by Ed Webb

From Doug Balog at Enterprise Systems Media:

“My technology roots are deep within the IBM mainframe.  For that reason, I'm never at a loss for words when someone asks me why it maintains such a significant presence in the data center. Of course, there's the overall value of centralized computing; and there are the financial, business, operational and quality-of-service gains that are among its extraordinary rewards.  But over time, the IBM mainframe and its software have evolved to deliver even greater value.
The August 28 introduction of the IBM zEnterprise EC12 (zEC12), the newest member of the System z family, and the October 3 announcement of more than 30 new and enhanced System z software products together showcase the overall advantages of the IBM mainframe. These closely related launches address top-of-mind business concerns in private cloud deployments, turning data into insight and tightly securing the modern enterprise.
Now, I'd like to share with you what I consider to be the top three System z advantages for the modern data center:”

1. It’s Optimized
2. It Adapts
3. It’s Green

See the full Enterprise Systems Media article here.


Want to Know More About CICS 5.1?

contributed by Ed Webb

SHARE members can view an eLearning webcast on Nov. 8 at 10 a.m. Central Time titled “CICS 5.1: Operation Efficiency and Service Agility Through Cloud Enablement”. REview the details and the schedule for additional eLearning webcasts here at share.org.


WSC Explains How to Easily Deploy Linux on zEC12

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Nice short presentation on how easy it is to provision Linux on z/VM, err I mean the Cloud! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X5JTz46rxA


Humor


Best of New Opcodes

contributed by Ed Webb

The items below were selected from the complete list of proposed new opcodes.

Opcodes Some of the Funniest
ABC AlphaBetize Code
ACQT Advance Clock to Quitting Time
AFVC Add Finagle's Variable Constant
AWTT Assemble with Tinker Toys
BBW Branch Both Ways
BLP Boot from Line Printer
BOB Branch On Bug
BOHP Bribe Operator for Higher Priority
BOP Boot OPerator
BPIM Bury Programmer In Manuals
BPL Branch PLease
CCWR Change Color of Write Ring
CF Come From (replaces GOTO)
COM Clear Operator's Mind
CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
CVG Convert to Garbage
DAB Delete All Bugs
DK%WMM Disk Unit - Washing Machine Mode
ED Eject Disk
FS Feign Sleep
GND Guess at Next Digit
HELP Type "No Help Available"
IMBP Insert Mistake and Blame Programmer
KCE Kill Consultant on Error
MBTOL Move Bug To Operator's Lunch
PBPBPBP Place Backup in Plain Brown Paper Bag, Please
PVLC Punch Variable Length Card
RD Rewind Disk
RPM Read Programmer's Mind
RTS Return To Sender
STPR SToP Rain
UP Understand Program(mer)
UPCI Update Card In Place
WBT Water Binary

For the full list and other z/OS humor, see this Mainframe Assembler Humor site.

Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.