SPARTA News

August 2023

SPARTA President’s Corner

contributed by Randy Springs

This month, we will again be holding our SPARTA meetings via Zoom format. We'd like to consider going back to our in-person meetings if we can find an appropriate venue. Let us know if you have any suggestions for a meeting location.

For our August meeting, join us for an interesting presentation from Matt Hodak of IBM Washington Systems Center. Matt will provide an overview of IBM z16 Family of processors. Invite your fellow systems programmers to join us for this informative and interesting virtual meeting.

Please join your colleagues online at a special time, 3 p.m. on Tuesday, August 1, on Zoom. Watch for speaker details and meeting connection information coming your way soon.

Randy Springs
Retired (Truist)

Future Speakers (subject to change)

August 1, 2023 (Special Time 3-4:30 p.m.) - IBM z16 Family Overview by Matt Hodak of IBM Washington Systems Center

September 12, 2023 (Special Date) - TBA

October 3, 2023 - SHARE New Orleans 2023 Report by Ed Webb of SPARTA

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.

2023-2024 SPARTA

Board of Directors

Randy Springs - President

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

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

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

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

Coronavirus Change: All meetings for the foreseeable future will be held online at 7 p.m. via the Zoom App. The link to meeting is sent to SPARTA Mailing list within 24 hours of the meeting time for security reasons. Stay safe.

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 distribution List is maintained by Chris Blackshire; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Chris at chrisbl@nc.rr.com.

April 2023 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V505 (dated April 24, 2023) 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 July 11, 2023 Meeting

• The July 11, 2023 meeting was called to order at 7:03 PM by Randy Springs, the SPARTA President.

• This Thirty-fifth (April 2020 to July 2023) virtual SPARTA meeting was held via the Zoom Software.

• Eleven (11) people were present at the virtual meeting.

• The business portion of the meeting followed the presentation.

• An abbreviated name and work-only round table was conducted so the speaker would know his audience.

OLD BUSINESS

• The minutes of the June 6, 2023 meeting as published in the July 2023 Newsletter were approved.

• The June 30, 2023 Treasurer's report (there was No Activity to-date in 2023) as published in the July 2023 Newsletter was approved. As of June 30, 2023, the current balance is $994.51.

• 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 at 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.

• 2023 meeting dates, 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 next SPARTA monthly meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

• The annual dues have been suspended (motion passed in the March 2021 monthly meeting).

• Thanks to Randy Springs for online hosting the July 11 meeting via Zoom.

• There are currently about 100 people on the SPARTA e-mail distribution list.

• Send any e-mail address changes to Chris Blackshire so he can update the SPARTA distribution List. The SPARTA meeting notices are being sent via a simple distribution list maintained by Chris.

• Randy Springs is looking for a new Treasurer volunteer. He projects about 2 hours per month is needed.
- Contact Randy Springs if you are interested.

• Randy Springs has setup a SPARTA group on LinkedIn. Please join.

• There was discussion about a possible 2023 in-person meeting, depending on vaccinations and room availability. Stay tuned.
- Randy will contact Bill Johnson to determine the LabCorp meeting place status.
- Jay Hall will look into using a NCSU Centennial Campus room.

NEW BUSINESS

• We will continue meeting virtually for now with a future in-person meeting date TBD. Stay tuned.
• The Business portion of the meeting ended about 8:20 P.M.

• The Presentation started at 7:05 PM.

• Presentation Topic: Unlocking Performance Monitoring Data for Analytics via Improved Observability

By Todd Havekost, Senior z/OS Performance Consultant at IntelliMagic

• Agenda
• Integrated Visibility
• Challenges to Deriving Value from SMF Data
• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know **
• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know ** Other Teams
• Integrated Visibility Examples
• WLM Service Class Goals (72.3) & CICS Transactions (110.1)
• Address Space (30) and Db2 Accounting (101)
• CICS Transaction (110.1) and Db2 Accounting (101)
• Dataset Performance (42.6) and Db2 Buffer Pools & Databases (102)
• XCF Activity (74.2) & “Almost Everyone”
• ISTXCF Messages
• TCP/IP Uses of XCF
• SHARE Presentation – Gus Kassimis, IBM
• Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter – XCF Article Series
• Deriving More Value from SMF Data
• Benefits of Integrated Visibility – Webinar
• Upcoming zAcademy Webinars By IntelliMagic

The online presentation and demo ended about 8:05 PM.

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

See the SPARTA webpage for all recent presentations including this one.

• Contact Info:
Speaker: Todd Havekost, Senior z/OS Performance Consultant at IntelliMagic
Email: todd.havekost@intellimagic.com
Interesting resource: https://www.intellimagic.com/key-people/todd-havekost/

• The July 11, 2023 monthly meeting ended about 8:20 P.M.

Treasurer’s Report for July 2023

contributed by Randy Springs

The balance in the account is $994.51 as of July 31, 2023.

SPARTA Financial Report
07/01/2023 through 07/31/2023

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2023

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Aug 1, 2023 - BarBQ
Sept 12, 2023 - Pizza (Labor Day holiday is Monday Sept 4)
Oct 3, 2023 - Chicken
Nov 7, 2023 - Subs
Dec 5, 2023 - BarBQ

IBM z/OS V2.5 2Q 2023 enhancements

contributed By Ed Webb

"IBM z/OS is designed to keep applications and data available, systems highly secure, server utilization high, and to enable agile development. z/OS continuous delivery (CD) offers clients the opportunity to use new z/OS functions, capabilities, and technologies by applying service rather than upgrading to a new z/OS release.

This quarter's CD update further extends the capabilities of z/OS V2.5 as well as recent hardware deliveries with key features that include the following:

• z/OS Change Tracker enhancements. Now available as a z/OSMF plug-in.
• Digital signatures for z/OSMF ServerPac and CBPDO software packages.
• New union file system (UFS).
• Data set file system (DSFS) enhancement.
• z/OS UNIX utilities enhancements.
• zIIP enablement of IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Python.
• zlib compression library enhancement.
• ICSF support for the IBM z16.
• Validated Boot for z/OS.
• Customized Offering Driver enhancements.
• Hold DFSMSrmm housekeeping enhancement."

Learn more about these June 30, 2023 updates in this announcement from IBM.

Enterprise-Based AI Ignites New Use Cases

contributed By Ed Webb

"In [Elpida Tzortzatos, IBM Fellow - CTO AI for IBM Z and z/OS] opinion, generative AI is in high demand with the rise of consumer-focused artificial intelligence (AI) offerings. The development of large language models designed to facilitate generative AI has ushered in a new era of innovation, bringing the benefits of AI and machine learning to new audiences.

While this technology can be used to produce consumer-facing applications that can write poetry or create a meal plan, generative AI, and the foundation models technology that generative AI is built upon, will have a more profound impact on the enterprise. According to the 2023 IBM Institute for Business Value CEO Study, 75% of CEOs surveyed believe that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI, and 50% of respondents are already integrating the technology into products and services.

But how can a company make the most of these advancements and maximize potential benefits?

Enterprise data is often the key to unlocking value from AI. Mission-critical data and applications, such as data related to revenue generation, logistics, or regulatory compliance, can provide invaluable insights when AI is applied. By applying AI techniques, such as traditional or generative AI for model training, fine-tuning, and inferencing, companies have the opportunity to gain insights from their mission-critical data and applications. Notably, many of these mission-critical applications are built on the IBM Z platform.”

Read the rest of Elpida Tzortzatos' SHARE blog entry to learn more about IBM Z and generative AI.

Have You Joined the IBM z/OSMF Guild Yet??

Contributed by Ed Webb

"Welcome to the z/OSMF Guild.
Join our z/OSMF subject matter experts as we deep dive through technical demos, learn about improvements to the platform and engage our community in a dialogue about what a modern desktop experience is."

One of the most active, and helpful, IBM Communities is the z/OSMF Guild. Meeting online about once a month, the Guild presentations cover a number of z/OSMF topics of interest. And you hear from those IBM experts that we see at SHARE: Xiao Zhen (Joey) Zhu from IBM z/OSMF Development and Hiren Shah of IBM z/OS Cloud Provisioning & Management, and several others depending on the topic. Recordings of the Presentations and handouts are available online at the Guild website. They usually fill one hour (and keep to only the hour) with lots of questions and many answers in the chat. With more than 250 attendees at each live session, the sessions are of broad interest but also touch on a lot on specific situations and possible resolutions. Join the z/OSMF Guild, it's free, and worth participating in as z/OSMF and its plug-ins provide more interfaces to z/OS applications.

Humor

Wit and Wisdom continued

contributed by Ed Webb

Nobody ever forgets where the hatchet is buried.
Experience is what you get when you expected something else.
Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot; anyone driving faster is a maniac.

It's A Pun-y World!

contributed by Ed Webb

Why was the math book so sad?
Because of all of its problems. 

My fear of moving stairs is escalating.

I finally got around to watching that documentary about clocks.
It's about time.

What's the difference between a piano and a tuna?
You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.

I'm not a fan of elevator music. 
It's bad on so many levels. 

I kept wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger....then it hit me.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Special Time: 3 p.m.

Location: Online

Information about access to our online meeting will be sent to our e-mail list by Tuesday, August 1.

Free Food before meeting: Your Food at Your Home

Program:

IBM z16 Family Overview

Speaker:

Matt Hodak of IBM Washington Systems Center

SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:

July 2023 Presentation outline

• Presentation Topic: Modern Analytics with Mainframe Monitoring

by Todd Havekost, Senior Performance Consultant of IntelliMagic

• Agenda
• Integrated Visibility
• Challenges to Deriving Value from SMF Data
• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know **
• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know ** Other Teams
• Integrated Visibility Examples
• WLM Service Class Goals (72.3) & CICS Transactions (110.1)
• Address Space (30) and Db2 Accounting (101)
• CICS Transaction (110.1) and Db2 Accounting (101)
• Dataset Performance (42.6) and Db2 Buffer Pools & Databases (102)
• XCF Activity (74.2) & “Almost Everyone”
• ISTXCF Messages
• TCP/IP Uses of XCF
• SHARE Presentation – Gus Kassimis, IBM
• Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter – XCF Article Series
• Deriving More Value from SMF Data
• Benefits of Integrated Visibility – Webinar
• Upcoming zAcademy Webinars By IntelliMagic

• Integrated Visibility

• Challenges to Deriving Value from SMF Data
- Primarily used in reactive manner
- Siloed tooling across disciplines
- Need to anticipate desired views in generated static reports
- Focusing analysis when dealing with massive data volumes
- Declining expertise with retirements of tenured staff

• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know **
- 30 – Address space level
- 42.6 – Dataset performance
- 70.1 – CPU at system level
- 71 – Paging, large frames
- 72.3 – CPU by SC; WLM PI
- 74.2 – XCF activity
- 74.4 – Coupling Facility
- 110.1 – CICS transactions

• Db2 Team ** Needs to Know ** Other Teams
- 30 – Address space level - - - CPU by connection type
- 42.6 – Dataset performance - - CPU by correlation ID (e.g.,
- 70.1 – CPU at system level - - Db2 Call Attach job name)
- 71 – Paging, large frames - - - CPU by auth ID (e.g., DDF)
- 72.3 – CPU by SC; WLM PI - - CPU by plan
- 74.2 – XCF activity - - - - - - - - Elapsed time by CICS tran ID
- 74.4 – Coupling Facility
- 110.1 – CICS transactions

• Integrated Visibility Examples
- WLM goals (72.3) & CICS trans (110.1)
- Address space (30) & Db2 accounting (101)
- CICS trans (110.1) & Db2 accounting (101)
- Dataset perf (42.6) & Db2 buffer pools (102)
- XCF activity (74.2) & “almost everyone”
- MQ accounting (116) & CICS trans (110.1)
- Coupling facility (74.4) & Db2 (& others)
- Large frames (71) & Db2 buffer pools (100)

• WLM Service Class Goals (72.3) & CICS Transactions (110.1)
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• Address Space (30) and Db2 Accounting (101)
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• CICS Transaction (110.1) and Db2 Accounting (101)
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• Dataset Performance (42.6) and Db2 Buffer Pools & Databases (102)
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• XCF Activity (74.2) & “Almost Everyone”
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• ISTXCF Messages
- Graphs not copied: see presentation PDF

• TCP/IP Uses of XCF
- TCP/IP takes advantage of the communication capabilities of the XCF in a sysplex in three different ways:
1. It maintains awareness of the status (health) of a TCP/IP instance within the sysplex.
2. It determines workload levels within each LPAR in the sysplex through Workload Manager (WLM)
3. It can send IP traffic among the LPARs.

www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos-basic-skills?topic=sysplex-cross-system-coupling-facility-xcf

• SHARE Presentation – Gus Kassimis, IBM
- So what should I use for what type of routing?
- - VIPAROUTE is often the best choice for connecting routing
- - - Exploits network redundancy
- - - Often as fast or faster than XCF
- - - Does not use Coupling Facility CPU cycles, which often is a limited resource
- Potential Significant CPU Savings
- - VIPAROUTE Usage
- - - Use case: 600 MIPS savings in XCFAS & TCP/IP AS
- - - Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter 2015 #1, pp 32-34
- - - Graphs not copied: see presentation in PDF

• Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter – XCF Article Series
- Transport Class Simplification – Tuning Letter 2020 No. 2
- XCF: A Reliable (But Often Overlooked) Component of Sysplex – TL 2022 No. 2
- Using New XCF Metrics to Optimize XCF Buffer Use (Part 1) – TL 2022 No. 3
- Using New XCF Metrics to Optimize XCF Buffer Use (Part 2) – TL 2022 No. 4
- To receive reprints of IntelliMagic written articles in the Tuning Letter contact sales@intellimagic.com

• Deriving More Value from SMF Data
- Primarily used in reactive manner
- - Automatically assess key metrics to proactively identify potential risks to availability and performance
- Siloed tooling across disciplines
- - Common interface into data types across platform promotes collaboration
- - Shared customized dynamic dashboards provide common views across teams
- Need to anticipate desired views in generated static reports
- - Dynamic navigation explores alternative analytical paths based on current view
- Focusing analysis when dealing with massive data volumes
- - Context sensitive drill downs to quickly focus on desired subset of data
- Declining expertise with retirements of tenured staff
- - Intuitive visibility expedites bringing newer staff up to speed
- - Interactive dialogs enable customized reports without coding

• Benefits of Integrated Visibility – Webinar
- Insights You Can Gain from Integrated Visibility Across Types of SMF Data
https://www.intellimagic.com/resources/zos/webinar/zacademy-insights-you-can-gain-from-integrated-visibility-across-types-of-smf-data/

• Upcoming zAcademy Webinars By IntelliMagic
- July 27 | 2 PM ET
- - MQ: How to extract Insights and Optimize Performance Using SMF Data
- August 24 | 2 PM ET
- - Metro Global Mirror (MGM) Monitoring in GDPS Sites
- September 28 | 2 PM ET
- - Unraveling the z16: Understanding the Virtual Cache Architecture and Real-World Performance

The presentation and demo ended about 8:05 and the meeting ended at 8:20 PM after the business meeting.