SPARTA News


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July 2020


SPARTA President’s Corner

contributed by Randy Springs


Our friend, and SPARTA member, Vince Ballard died shortly after participating in our June 2 online meeting. A Celebration of Life is planned for October of this year according to his obituary.

SPARTA Member Ginger Lennon of the NC Department of Information Technology, and a co-worker of Vince, shared these thoughts about her friend.

"You were like a candle
full of light and comradeship 
Now you have returned to the source of life
in faith and gratitude
Watching over us
            “unknown author”

Vince was well known and liked amongst the State of North Carolina IT groups.  I enjoyed our many discussions about PBS documentaries and ancient Egyptian history.  He will be missed!"

Please plan to join your colleagues on Tuesday, July 7, at 7 p.m., via the internet to remember Vince and to hear about OpenShift Container Platform on Z. Look for an email that day with details for connecting to the meeting.

Randy Springs
Truist


Future Speakers

(subject to change)


July 7, 2020 - OpenShift Container Platform on Z by Filipe Miranda of IBM Red Hat


August 11, 2020 - TBA (Special Date to avoid SHARE Virtual Conference)


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.



2019-2020 SPARTA

Board of Directors


Randy Springs - President

Truist                  (919) 745-5241

3200 Beechleaf Court, Suite 300

Raleigh, NC 27604


Ron Pimblett - Vice President

MDI Data Systems

Land line 613 599 6970

Mobile 613 981 6919

190 Guelph Private

Kanata, ON K2T 0J7


Chris Blackshire - Secretary

Retired (Dell, Perot Systems, Nortel)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Durham, NC 27713


Randy Springs - (Acting) Treasurer

BB&T                  (919) 745-5241

see Randy

Springs earlier


Ed Webb -  Communications Director

Retired (SAS Institute Inc.)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Apex, NC 27523


Mike Lockey -  Web Master

Guilford Co. Information Services  336-641-6235

201 N. Eugene St.

Greensboro, NC 27401



Meetings


Meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in January), 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 T.W. Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building (1912 T.W. Alexander Drive). In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Bill Johnson. Bill 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-RTP Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA-RTP Group is maintained by Chris Blackshire; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Chris at chrisbl@nc.rr.com.


May 2020 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online


The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V499 (dated May 17, 2020) are available from www.cbttape.org.


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


Minutes of the June 2, 2020 Meeting


• The meeting was called to order at 6:00 PM by Chris Blackshire, standing in for Randy Springs, the SPARTA President.


• This fourth virtual SPARTA meeting was held via the Zoom Software.


• The presentation was given first and early (6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.) and followed by the business portion of the meeting.


• For the Roundtable, everyone introduced themselves, told where they worked, talked about working from home, and briefly described their job functions and what they've been doing at home.


OLD BUSINESS


• The minutes of the May 5, 2020 meeting as published in the June 2020 Newsletter were approved.


• The May 31, 2020 Treasurer's report (no April or May income or expenses) was approved as published in the June 2020 Newsletter. As of May 31, 2020, the current balance was $1,429.66.


• Call For Articles: 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.



• 2020 meeting dates, Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):


Date

Company

Speaker

Topic

July 7, 2020

NewEra

Fred Hein

TBD

August 11, 2020

TBD

TBD

TBD

September 1, 2020

Retired

Ed Webb

SHARE 135 Update
Virtual, Aug. 4-20, 2020

October 6, 2020

TBD

TBD

TBD

November 3, 2020

TBD

TBD

TBD

December 1, 2020

TBD

TBD

TBD


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

• The next SPARTA monthly meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, July 7, 2020.

• The 2020 membership fee are due ($30) starting in February 2020. Please pay Randy Springs.

• Thanks to Duane Reaugh for virtually hosting the meeting via Zoom.

• There are currently 96 people on the SPARTA-RTP e-mail list.

• Send any e-mail address changes to Chris Blackshire so he can update the SPARTA-RTP Listserv. You will be added by the moderator (Chris = SPARTA-RTP-owner@yahoogroups.com) sending you an invitation to Join the list.

• Randy Springs is looking for a new Treasurer volunteer. He projects about 2 hours per month is needed.
- The treasurer position duties are:
- - Collect dues and pay expenses at each monthly meeting.
- - Deposit income at the Truist bank monthly.
- - Make an updated monthly Excel income-expense list for the monthly newsletter.
- - Give a Treasurer report at each meeting.
- - One Time: Be added to the checking account authorization.
- Contact Randy Springs if you are interested.

• LabCorp Meeting Place Update: no update from Bill Johnson.

NEW BUSINESS

• None.

• The Business portion of the meeting ended about 7:35 P.M.

• Presentation Topic: z/OS Little Enhancements: Many Small Potatoes Can Make A Big Meal! Edition 2020A

By Marna Walle, Member of the IBM Academy of Technology, z/OS Systems Installation, IBM Z Systems, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.


AGENDA Topics
• z/OS Small Enhancements - Edition 2020A
- z/OS V2.2:
- - DFSMS: Revisit with update! GDG Extended (GDGE)
- - z/OS UNIX: ucat on automount’s allocany and allocuser
- - DFSMS: PENDINGDELETE for PDSE members
- - z/OSMF: Viewing or printing your Workflow
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx SYS Filter (OA49807)
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx Syntax Check (OA49807)
- - z/OSMF: Swagger support (PI96461)
- z/OS V2.1:
- - z/OS UNIX: Copy with alias support for PDS(E)
- - BCP: PDUU Support for HTTPS (OA55959)
- - BCP: Generic Tracker


• Presentation Access
- See Below for a full outline of the presentation. See the SPARTA webpage for the complete presentation.


Contact Info:
Marna Walle
Senior Technical Staff Member
z/OS System Installation and Upgrade
Z Systems Software Development, IBM Systems
Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Phone: (845) 435-4064
Email: mwalle@us.ibm.com


• The June 2, 2020 monthly meeting ended about 7:35 P.M.

Treasurer’s Report for June 2020

contributed by Randy Springs

The balance in the account is $1429.66 as of June 30, 2020. There's been no change since March 31.


SPARTA Financial Report
06/01/2019 through 06/30/2020


INCOME


Opening Balance 4/1/2019

$1429.66

Total Deposits


Food money donated

0.00

Dues

0.00

Sponsorships

0.00

TOTAL INCOME

$0.00



EXPENSES


Food

0.00

Web Site

0.00

Petty Cash

0.00

Bank Service Charges

0.00

TOTAL EXPENSE

$0.00



BANK BALANCE

1061.95

PETTY CASH on hand

367.71

TOTAL CASH

$1429.66



Items of Interest



SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2020

contributed by Chris Blackshire



July 7, 2020 - Subs 

Aug 11, 2020 - BarBQ (date changed to avoid SHARE 135, Aug 4-6, 12, 18-20, 2020 in Boston)

Sept 1, 2020 - Pizza

Oct 6, 2020 - Chicken

Nov 3, 2020 - Subs

Dec 1, 2020 - BarBQ


No Excuses! SHARE Announces Cheap Registration for Online Conference

contributed By Ed Webb


SHARE Virtual in August is well within all education and training budgets. With registration fees of $199 for members and $399 for non-members, this SHARE is one of the least expensive on record, maybe ever. and its sessions are spread over a 3 week period, so you can get much of your regular work completed in the mornings and spend the afternoon attending SHARE 3 days a week.

Review the SHARE Virtual [conference] Registration page for details.

There are fewer sessions, though up to 6 per time slot, so you can get to those sessions you had to skip when you were on-site at SHARE in the past.

Study the entire SHARE Virtual Conference agenda here.


Feds Going IPv6 Only By 2025

Contributed by Ed Webb


"How will your organization be impacted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stated direction of IPv6-only for the U.S. Federal Government? The executives of every enterprise must ask themselves, "Do you do business with any government agencies? Do you want to, or want to continue to, do so? What will your organization do when the Federal Government agencies it connects to asks that the connection be via IPv6? Do you connect to Medicare? Do you connect to the Federal Reserve? Maybe the IRS?"

The OMB is essentially calling for an implementation plan to have 80 percent of the IP-enabled resources on Federal networks be IPv6-only by 2025. If resources cannot be converted, then the Federal agency is required to have a plan to retire them. .... "

Read all of Nalani Elkins' article from the Enterprise Executive 2020: Issue 3.


Precision Time Protocol is Coming to a Z Near You

Contributed by Ed Webb


"Most of you, by nature of your involvement with IBM mainframes, are familiar with Server Time Protocol (STP). .... STP allows a collection of IBM mainframes (a Sysplex) to maintain time synchronization with each other using a time value known as Coordinated Server Time (CST). The network of servers is known as a Coordinated Timing Network (CTN)."

"Prior to the April 14, 2020, IBM z15 announcement, STP [Server Time Protocol] currently had two external time source options. One is an external NTP server, which provides up to 100 milliseconds (ms) accuracy. The second external time source option is the use of the NTP server with pulse per second (PPS). .... NTP with PPS provides 10 microseconds (us) of accuracy and requires a connection from the IBM Z server directly to the oscillator. This connection is a coaxial cable.

On April 14, 2020, IBM announced support for the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) as another external time source option for STP. PTP is a message-based time transfer protocol that enables synchronization accuracy and precision in the sub-microsecond range for packet-based networked systems."

Read Steve Guendert's excellent in-depth article from the Enterprise Executive 2020: Issue 3.


Humor



Wit and Wisdom continued

contributed by Ed Webb


• The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.
• Forgiveness of others is a gift to yourself.
• There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't

• If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
• If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
• Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.






Membership Information



Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting


Tuesday, July 7, 2020

7 p.m.


Location: Online


Information about access to our online meeting will be sent to our e-mail list by Tuesday, July 7.


Free Food before meeting: Your Food at Your Home


Program:

OpenShift Container Platform on Z


Speaker: Filipe Miranda of IBM Red Hat




SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:


DTS Software
                              logo

Rocket Software
                              logo

Software Diversified Services
                              logo

Compuware
                              logo


June 2020 Presentation outline


• Presentation Topic: z/OS Little Enhancements: Many Small Potatoes Can Make A Big Meal! Edition 2020A

By Marna Walle, Member of the IBM Academy of Technology, z/OS Systems Installation, IBM Z Systems, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.


AGENDA Topics
z/OS Small Enhancements - Edition 2020A
- z/OS V2.2:
- - DFSMS: Revisit with update! GDG Extended (GDGE)
- - z/OS UNIX: ucat on automount’s allocany and allocuser
- - DFSMS: PENDINGDELETE for PDSE members
- - z/OSMF: Viewing or printing your Workflow
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx SYS Filter (OA49807)
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx Syntax Check (OA49807)
- - z/OSMF: Swagger support (PI96461)
- z/OS V2.1:
- - z/OS UNIX: Copy with alias support for PDS(E)
- - BCP: PDUU Support for HTTPS (OA55959)
- - BCP: Generic Tracker

z/OS V2.2
- Small Enhancements
- - DFSMS: Revisit with update! GDG Extended (GDGE)
- - z/OS UNIX: ucat on automount’s allocany and allocuser
- - DFSMS: PENDINGDELETE for PDSE members
- - z/OSMF: Viewing or printing your Workflow
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx SYS Filter (OA49807)
- - BCP: HZSPRMXx Syntax Check (OA49807)
- - z/OSMF: Swagger support (PI96461)

z/OS V2.2 with APAR PH05139 (RSU1612)
- - z/OSMF: Viewing or printing your Workflow
- - What: Users might want to have a “quick view or search” of an item in a z/OSMF
Workflow, and don’t want to logon to z/OSMF.
- - Users might want to print just a small portion of a Workflow to follow, rather than using a GUI interface.
- - How to use:
- - - Create your z/OSMF Workflow, and open it.
- - - Filter the steps in your z/OSMF Workflow as you wish. This is very powerful and can cut down significantly the size of the exported file.
- - - Actions ◊ Export.
- - - Provide optional details, based on what you want.
- - Considerations:
- - - It is best to export after you have already run any discovery steps that you might have. This will also cut down significantly on the size of the exported file.
Written with keeping the very large z/OS V2.4 Upgrade in mind!

Example: Printing just the BCP steps assigned to MWALLE as an sample
Step 1: Create the workflow
Step 2: Run the first step: Discover z?OS features in use
Step 3: Filter on desired steps, via Filter
Step 4: Select all these steps, in one click!
Step 5: Export what I've filtered
Step 6: Tailor the exported file to have what you want.
Step 7: Created in a new browser tab, my generated file (HTML). Browse or search as desired
Step 8: To Print into a PDF: Right click ◊ Print. (Or, Save As ...)

z/OS V2.1 with OA57659 (November 2019) and higher:
- z/OS UNIX: Copy with alias support for PDS(E)
- - What: cp shell command with the -I option is enhanced to support copy from both PDS(E) to files, and also from files to data sets to accommodate aliases.
- - - Prior to this APAR, only PDSE support was provided.
- - - This allows files (which contain data set members with aliases) to be processed with shell commands or scripts, then upon being copied back to a data set those aliases will be preserved.
- - How to use:
- - - – cp –I –X from_ds to_file_or_dir
- - - -I (UNIX to MVS only): When the specified file has an alias and the file is copied from UNIX to MVS, the alias information is also copied
- - - -X Specifies that the data to be copied is an executable
- - Considerations:
– The aliases copied do not show up under z/OS UNIX.
– Cannot copy if the PDS(E) is open by another user or job.
– If the -I option is specified when the data set has no aliases, and is being copied to a file, then –I is ignored.
– Restriction: The -I option can only be used with the -X option

Example: Copy a PDS(E) to a file system.
Example: cp -XI "//'mwalle.product.loadlib'" /u/mwalle/Product

Summary of What We Might Want to Share:

- System Programmer & User Items:
- - DFSMS (V2.2): PENDINGDELETE for PDSE members
- - z/OSMF (V2.2): Viewing or printing your Workflow
- - z/OSMF (V2.2): Swagger support
- - z/OS UNIX (V2.1): Copy with alias support for PDS(E)

- System Programmers’ Items:
- - DFSMS (V2.2): Revisit with update! GDG Extended (GDGE)
- - z/OS UNIX (V2.2): ucat on automount’s allocany and allocuser
- - BCP (V2.2): HZSPRMxx filter
- - BCP (V2.2): HZSPRMxx syntax check
- - BCP (V2.1): PDUU support for HTTPS
- - BCP (V2.1): Generic Tracker

z/OS Summary Enhancements – Edition 2020A
- z/OS V2.2:
- - DFSMS: Revisit with update! GDG Extended (GDGE) SMS, non-SMS, tape or DASD
- - z/OS UNIX: ucat on automount’s allocany and allocuser Put new zFS in a UCAT, and have continuation
- - DFSMS: PENDINGDELETE for PDSE members Cause those deleted members to be removed
- - z/OSMF: Viewing or printing your Workflow Use filtering to save, do not have to go into z/OSMF for a quick read.
- - BCP: HZSPRMxx filter Consolidate your parmlib members across your enterprise
- - BCP: HZSPRMxx syntax check Validate your syntax before using
- - z/OSMF Swagger support Incredibly useful and helpful for REST API programs
- z/OS V2.1:
- - z/OS UNIX: Copy with alias support for PDS(E) No lost aliases for PDS and PDSE
- - BCP: PDUU HTTPS support For those that prefer HTTPS over FTP
- - BCP: Generic Tracker Helpful for upgrading and exploiting new functions

z/OS Little Enhancements - A history
- Eight older “Enhancements” presentations are on LinkedIn’s SlideShare, going back to 2013 and covering other little gems!

The presentation ended about 6:45 P.M.