1. We’re Off to China!
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2000, No. 3 Summary
3. SHARE Conference
4. CMG Conference
1. We’re Off to China!
Tom and I are leaving tomorrow for three weeks in China: Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, the Yellow Mountain, Xian, and Beijing. We’re VERY excited! We won’t be taking our computer along, so don’t expect any technical replies until I return in mid-July. (BoxScore users, please be sure that technical questions are routed to support@watsonwalker.com, where they will be forwarded to me.)
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2000 No. 3 Summary
The 2000, No. 3 TUNING Letter issue is just being completed. Electronic subscribers should receive their TUNING Letter within the next few days. Printed issues should be mailed by the end of the month.
Linux on S/390
One of the most important management items in this issue concerns the availability of Linux on the S/390 platform. Why is this important to you? Because Linux is a free operating system and is the fastest growing operating system being distributed on servers today. This means a significant increase in the number of people who understand Linux and applications that will be moving to Linux. But why on the mainframe? Because the mainframe is a much more stable environment. Many sites believe that the 99.999% availability of S/390 is what is really needed for this operating system upon which thousands of Web servers will be based. For our full article, see page 12.
Old Machines Obsolete?
One of the more controversial announcements by IBM was made on May 16, 2000 when they indicated that the Spring 2001 release of OS/390 will no longer run on some of the older (but still fairly recent) machines. See our article on Architectural Level Set on page 14 and a review of OS/390 R9 and R10 starting on page 16.
CF Levels
Another important article in this issue covers the confusion surrounding Coupling Facility Control Code. The article is especially interesting if you have multiple vendors participating in a parallel sysplex. (Page 19.)
Free DASD Tuning Aid
The hottest article for performance analysts is on page 8. It describes how to use SMF records to fine-tune your DASD subsystem. The data is remarkable (and it’s free!). For example, you can get actual I/O response times by data set and job!
Elsewhere in This Issue
LPAR capping does not cause significant overhead, despite what you may have heard (page 4). The same page lists a performance APAR that cost one site double the MIPS in uncaptured time and another APAR that helps correct a wait state problem at IPL. Looking for an inexpensive way to train performance analysts? See page 4. Our sections on The Net and Pubs & APARs provide several useful Web pointers and redbooks. Our Q&As on page 25 include the following: how to run ADABAS in goal mode, why and how to run a two period TSO, what to do after goal mode is running successfully, and how to move HFS files.
3. Upcoming SHARE Conference
It’s that time again – the summer SHARE conference! I’ll be giving one session on Friday morning at 9:30am: Session 2543 – Cheryl’s Hot Flashes IV. I hope to see you there. Here is a note from Tom Manning of SHARE:
SHARE, a leading user-run organization of IBM customers, will host its summer 2000 conference from July 23-28 in Boston. The event features nearly 1,000 hours of in-depth technical education, highlighted by:
- A keynote address from Linda Sanford, general manager of IBM’s Storage Subsystems division
- Expansive program offerings across nine topic areas relevant to large enterprise systems professionals
- A special program track dedicated to privacy and security, specially geared toward e-business considerations
- A one-day “Health Check” Workshop (additional fee required) on e-business security
- Unique opportunities to interact directly with top IBM developers
- Deeply-discounted professional certification testing
- A comprehensive products and services exhibition with nearly 100 participating vendors
- Nightly professional networking events and much more
Discounted advance registration rates are available through July 6. For more information – including the latest schedule of events, full session abstracts, and online registration – visit http://www.shareinboston.org/boston or contact SHARE at sharehq@share.org or 888-574-2735 (888-5SHARE5).
4. Upcoming CMG Conference
It’s also not too late to start thinking about CMG 2000. It’s being held in Orlando, Florida December 10-15, 2000. I’ll be giving a session on Interpreting RMF Reports. I’ll let you know when it’s scheduled. For more information on the conference, please check out http://www.cmg.org.
Stay tuned!