SPARTA News March 2013

March 2013

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

Welcome to spring, I think. Here we are in March and another roller coaster ride with the weather. I believe that January was warmer than March has been. It made for a cold trip to Charleston to celebrate my wife's retirement from the state, but it was still good to get away for a long weekend. Martha and I love to visit Charleston; it's a wonderful getaway that is drivable. She is in her "decompress" phase of retirement now. I still get the little "You have to go to work and I don't" sayings from her in the mornings!

Last month Ed Webb and I (mostly Ed) talked to you about SHARE in San Francisco. We both had to do this tongue in cheek since neither of us was allowed to attend. The big news out of SHARE was z/OS V2.1 which is scheduled for release in September. There are a number of new things included and a large number of outstanding SHARE requirements being addressed by this release. We will probably look more closely at z/OS V2.1 next year as we renew our ELA with IBM. Remember new versions of software also mean a price change, so plan accordingly.

Our DB2 V10 project is moving again. We've managed to get our updated billing software installed and can now proceed to migrate our remaining DB2 subsystems to New Function Mode. By the end of next month, I hope to be able to finally close the DB2 V10 upgrade project. We have also gotten a workaround from IBM to migrate the DBG subsystem to NFM as well. We had to clear out the old run time statistics tables and then perform the migration. We tested this using our DR system on the 13th and it worked correctly; in fact, we migrated the big billing DB2 subsystem DSN during the same DR test and had no issues with its migration of NFM. So I have my fingers crossed for when we do this on the "real" production system.

I'm happy to say that we are now z/OS 1.13 across the board. We put z/OS 1.13 into production during our outage on the 17th and have not had any issues with that LPAR since. Now we can begin planning to setup z/OSMF for that sysplex and migrate SMF to the system logger. I'll keep you updated on our progress in future meetings.

This month our speakers will be Duane Reller and Zamir Gonzalez from IBM to talk about the latest System z technology. I look forward to seeing you all on March 26th at LabCorp in RTP.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Mar. 26 System z Technologies by Duane Reller and Zamir Gonzalez of IBM
Apr. 30 IPv6 by Laura Knapp of Applied Expert Systems
May 21 IOF Updates by Jim Ott of Triangle Systems

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact Ron Pimblett by phone as noted below.

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.

December 2012 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V485 (dated December 16, 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 February 26, 2013 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.
•Fourteen (14) people were present of which eleven (11) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job functions.
•The minutes of the January 29, 2013 meeting was approved as published in the February 2013 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's Report. As of February 14, 2013, the balance is $706.42. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the February 2013 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 (919-833-8426).

•The March SPARTA meeting will be March 26 at LabCorp in RTP.

•Food for the March 2013 meeting will be BarBQ.

NEW BUSINESS

•Thanks to LabCorp and Brad and Tommy for hosting the February 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 8:00 p.m.

PRESENTATION

• Presented SHARE 120 (at San Francisco) Presentations by Ed Webb and Brad Carson

• Agenda (Ed Webb of SAS Institute)
- SHARE 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 2.1 and z/OS 2.1 Summary
- From the Bit Bucket

• SHARE 120 Highlights (Feb 3-8, 2013) in San Francisco
- SHARE Attendance Steady from A Year Ago (around 579
- SHARE Live! Recorded several sessions in San Francisco
- SHARE 121 is August 11-16, 2013 in Boston at the Sheraton and Marriott
- SHARE 122 is March 9-14, 2014 in Anaheim at the Marriott
- SHARE Access to Proceedings No Longer Require A Paid SHARE Membership But need a free SHARE Userid - Go to www.share.org
- Anaheim 2012 was last conference with paper evaluations
- z/OS Now on 2 Year Release Cycle – next z/OS is V2R1 in Sept. 2013
- z/OS & z/OSMF 1.13 Available in Sept. 2011
- Submit Your Proposal to Speak at SHARE in Boston by April 5, 2013

• Why Go To SHARE?
- IBM Executive Panel (session 13179)
- Several System z Executives answered Customer Q’s
- 101 customers attended
- Doug Balog, General Manager IBM Systems z, Provided this Info at Session 13176:
- 1000+ schools in IBM’s Academic Initiative for System z
- 7400+ ISV Apps run on z; 90 new ISVs added in 2012
- 220+ zBX up from 150+ in August 2012
- 180+ New Accounts since 3Q2010 zEnterprise Launch
- 56% YTY revenue growth in 4Q2012

• Quotes of Interest and Odd and Ends
- “In 1994 the 9672-R61 was fastest Mainframe at 66 MIPS, new EC12 2827-7A1 is 78,426 MIPS – 1100 times faster!!!”
- “Regarding z/OS complexity but thoroughness – There are over 40,000 unique messages that can be produced on z/OS whereas most student dictionaries contain on 50,000 words”
- “Barry Merrill’s Button Jacket weighs 57 lbs.”
- IBM plans to remove support for unsecured FTP connections used for z/OS software and service delivery October 1, 2013
- August 2012 Hot Topics magazine is a Great Reference for z/OS R13 Topics
- SMP/E V3R6 in R13 and Separately Orderable
- REXX Support in BCPii was an Accepted SHARE Requirement in Jan. 2011
- RACF Exits Can Use System REXX
- IEASYMUP in SAMPLIB (Obsolete in V2R1)

• z/OS Information Changing
- No BOOKs (in Bookmanager-format) after z/OS V1R13
- PDFs and Info Center Only after R13
- No Physical Media (DVD) - Download DVD images
- z/OS Data Area Books Are Only Available Online
- IBM Advanced Linguistic Search for PDFs

• Best Sessions That SAS Co-Workers Attended
- 12720/1 ISPF Hidden Treasures: Parts 1 and 2
- Peter Van Dyck of IBM
- AL (Allocate Like) in DSList
- Line command for member ISPF Stats
- In Edit, COMP SYSIN(/) to provide control statements
- 12718 Configuring ISPF for Fun and Profit
- 12746 & 12747 – ISPF Editor – Beyond the Basics Hands-On Labs
- 12752 – z/OSMF Hands-On Lab

• z/OS 2-Year Release Cycle
- 2-Year Cycle Became Effective in March 2012
- Official Announcement in April 2012
- Support Extensions for R12 and R13
- No Change for R11 (free support ended Sept. 2012)
- Justifications
- 5% of shops migrating to every annual release
- 60% migrate every other release
- Not enough time for exploitation of new function
- Other Reasons
- Strain on testing resources
- Reduce incremental delivery of function (EAV took 4 releases)
- Do Not Expect Twice as Much Change
- Depends but may be 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 GA22-7499-21 (multiple “flavors” on IBM’s Internet Library, one per migration path, such as 1.11 to 1.13)
- See “Migrating to z/OS 1.13” presentations from SHARE San Francisco
- 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, 2014
- z/OS 1.13 End of Service is Sept. 30, 2016

• z/OSMF V1R13
- Software Management
- Added by APAR PM74502 and others in 4Q2012
- See January 2013 SPARTA Newsletter
- See S.F. SHARE Software Manager sessions
- See IBM WSC Flash 10794 for more info
- Software Deployment Manager
- SMP/E Impact (V3.6 Required)
- Classic Interface (up to 4 TSO-lite Windows)

• z/OSMF V2R1
- WebSphere V8.5 Liberty profile replaces WASOEM
- New Configuration Workflow Application (First Exploiter is z/OSMF Itself)
- Optional Async Notification of JOB Completion
- See John Eells’ What’s New in z/OS 2.1 SHARE Session 12728 (Start at Slide 11)

• z/OS V2R1
- zAAP workloads can run on a zIIP even if a zAAP is present
- Update the values of system symbols dynamically using SETLOAD command
- Two new FTP subcommands, MVSPut and MVSGet, to simplify transfer of sequential, PDS and PDSE data sets between z/OS systems
- New zFS file system version designed to significantly improve performance for file systems with large directories
- GRS allows programs to synchronously change an exclusive enqueue to a shared enqueue
- Comments now allowed in IEAAPP00, which defines authorized I/O appendage routines
- New BPXPRMxx parameter that allows a logged in user to be logged off the system after a period of inactivity at the user's terminal
- HMC Integrated 3270 Console on System z and zEnterprise servers can be a z/OS console during and after IPL
- New PARMDD DD statement passes parameter lists up to 32,760 bytes to a program from JCL
- SYSREXX, using REXX under TSO/E, supports the CONSOLE host command environment
- REXX enhancements to EXECIO, LISTDSI, and STORAGE, and to provide a new variable to indicate the level of the operating system
- SMP/E dialog supports with multiple ISPF logical screens when different SMP/E zones are in use
- ISPF editor HILITE command flags the invalid use of lowercase characters in JCL
- ISPF editor allows regular expressions to be specified as arguments to FIND and CHANGE
- ISPF directory list display for z/OS UNIX supports SRCHFOR command
- UNIX Directory List Utility allows entry of line commands in blocks
- New generalized tracking facility (GTZ) replaces the Tracking Facility (Console ID Tracker and the EAV migration assistance tracker)
- z/OS V2.1 is last release to include the IBM HTTP Server Powered by Domino®
- New base element includes fonts from the AFP Font Collection for S/390™ (5648-B33) and IBM Infoprint Fonts for z/OS V1.1 (5648-E76), and World Type fonts that were available for other IBM OS platforms, and double-byte Asian fonts (New large file system required)
- RRSF connections over TCP/IP using IPv6
- Comments Allowed in RACF parmlib members
- RMF now offloads some processing to zIIPs

• z/OS V2R1 JES2
- JES2 Must Migrate with z/OS in V2R1
- 8 Character JOBCLASS
- Enhanced symbol processing in JCL in JES2 environments
- JCL and System Symbols Available to JOBs
- Symbols can be used in In-Stream Data
- JES2 Extended Status SSI allows programs without APF authorization to cancel, hold, purge, and release jobs, and to change their job classes

• From the Bit Bucket x’2C’ (Session 12717)
- Security Portal via IBM ResourceLink
- http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/advantages/security/integrity_sub.html
- PM73261 Provides new MAXTCPSENDQ parameter to prevent a single PC/terminal from exhausting TN3270 storage
- Review IBM’s AUTORnn default responses with each new release – especially IXC289D regarding couple datasets
- Install and Run CICS Library Center in z/OS Unix
- Self-contained (TomCat webserver imbedded)

• Brad Comments (from LabCorp):
- For IPv6, need to start using 128 bit addresses and software now (use internally first)
- zOS 2.1 versus 1.13 (see many Aug SHARE sessions online for migration hints/tips)
- PDSE Version 2 - much better (like CMS)
- Catalogs (large and growing) - see Redbooks on how to migrate
- VSAM - DFSMS Managed
- EMC - LabCorp running a beta version of EMC software
- VM 6.3 is coming with live guest migrations (only native Linux guests (not CMS))

• Contact Information
Ed Webb - 919-531-4162
Email: Ed.Webb@sas.com
Brad Carson - 336-436-8294
Email: Carsonb@labcorp.com

• The presentations ended about 9:10 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for March 2013

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $525.84 as of February 28, 2013.

Financial Report
3/01/2012 through 02/28/2013

Items of Interest


SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2013

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Mar. 26 - BarBQ
Apr. 30 - Pizza
May 21 - Chicken
June 25 - Subs
July 30 - BarBQ
Aug. 27 - DBAP Buy Your Own
Sept. 24 - Pizza
Oct. 29 - Chicken
Nov. 19 - Subs
Dec. 31 - No Meeting, Happy Holidays


Bob Rodgers, zHistorian

contributed by Ed Webb

Our long-time SHARE friend, Bob Rodgers, a well regarded and entertaining speaker who recently retired from IBM, has started a series of columns in the IBM Systems Magazine (an IBM publication) about System z, a little history and where it is heading.

His first article, titled “After its Meteoric Rise, CMOS Rocket Levels Off”, reviews how CMOS changed the z Series and what its limitations are now.

His most recent article, “As CPU Speeds Plateau, Parallel Sysplex May Offer a Boost”, describes one solution to the limits of raw CPU power imposed on the latest z Systems.

Give a look at these latest endeavors from a recent retiree.


SHARE 2013 San Francisco Presentations Are Available

contributed by Ed Webb

SHARE in San Francisco has come and gone. But you can still get much of the great education that occurs there by reviewing the presentations online.

Here’s a handy link to SHARE sessions that have presentations available. With at least 150 presentations, there is a wealth of information to be gleaned.
 
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/uploadlistall.html


VSAM Demystified: the New RedBook

contributed by Ed Webb

After a year when the SPARTA Newsletter (January 2012) talked about the draft of a new edition, the Redbook titled “VSAM Demystified” has been published (March 2013).

Sadly, the new chapter titled “Best Practices for ICF Catalog and VSAM” that was highlighted in our 2012 article does not appear in the final edition. We’ll blame the lawyers until we find out for sure.


Just Published Redbook Describes zAware

contributed by Ed Webb

A just published (21 March 2013) Redbook titled “Extending z/OS System Management Functions with IBM zAware” sets out to “explain the capabilities of the IBM System z® Advanced Workload Analysis Reporter (IBM zAware), and shows how you can use it as an integral part of your existing System z management tools.”

“IBM zAware is an integrated, self-learning, analytics solution for IBM z/OS® that helps identify unusual system behavior in near real time. It is designed to help IT personnel improve problem determination so they can restore service quickly and improve overall availability.”

Running as a separate LPAR in your zEC12, zAware runs special licensed code to monitor z/OS and warn of potential problems. One might liken it to Predictive Failure Analysis on steriods. Given PFA’s poor track record, the jury is still out on zAware.


Humor


Little Known Trivia

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
 
The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
 
The words 'racecar,' 'kayak', and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
 
There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
 
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
 
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
 
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
 
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
 
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
 
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
 
A snail can sleep for three years.
 
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
 
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
 
Babies are born without knee caps.They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
 
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
 
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
 
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
 
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!
 
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
 
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
 
The cruise liner, QE 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
 
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
 
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
 
There are more chickens than people in the world.
 
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
 
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
 
All the ants in Africa weigh more than ALL the Elephants!!
 
Now you know (a little) more than you did before!!

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

7 p.m.

LabCorp in the RTP

Free Food: BarBQ, Drink, Dessert

Program:

Latest IBM System z Technologies

Speaker:

Duane Reller and Zamir Gonzalez of IBM

SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194

First Class Postage

SPARTA Corporate Sponsors: