1. 40th Anniversary of S/360 and IBM Announcements
2. Special Offering on Video Tape Performance Classes
3. Typo Correction
1. 40th Anniversary of S/360 and IBM Announcements
Today, April 7th, IBM celebrated the 40th anniversary of the System/360 by announcing several major additions to the mainframe field. IBM has a separate Web page for this anniversary (www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/40years/) where you can read about the history of the mainframe and download a special PDF file commemorating this event. If you click on ‘Read mainframe history’ on the right, you’ll have access to what occurred each decade. I especially liked the article written by the Clipper Group (upper right). I started in mainframes the year after this announcement, so I’ve been able to follow the evolution of the industry. It’s been quite a ride, and gets better every year!
This set of announcements is one of the largest in several years and will affect all mainframe users. Our next TUNING Letter will be out in a few weeks and has many pages describing these new announcements and their impact on installations of all sizes.
We’re extremely excited about the heart of the announcement: the latest line of small to mid-range processors. Called the z890, this single machine can be configured into one of 28 different capacities, designated by a feature code. You can configure the machine as a one-way to a four-way with up to seven speed ratings ranging from 26 MIPS to 1365 MIPS. Starting at about $200,000 (US), this machine fills the need for a low-end box and yet provides a machine that can be upgraded to more than twice the capacity of the largest z800. The good news is that IBM is providing the same MSU reduction that they provided on the z990 (this reduces software costs by about 10%). On the other hand, IBM is no longer providing the MSUs that relate to capacity, so you need to be careful and avoid using the MSUs for capacity purposes. A 100 MSU z890 has about 10% more MIPS than a 100 MSU z800. We’ll cover this in much more detail in our upcoming TUNING Letter, along with our new CPU Chart.
A second major announcement introduces an assist processor, similar to IFLs and ICFs, but designed to process only Java code. The intention of the zSeries Application Assist Processor (or zAAP) is to provide CPU cycles for Java work, such as WebSphere and DB2, without increasing the software costs on the rest of the machine. Why should you pay more for IMS software when you add another processor for WebSphere? Although IBM put some solutions in place for such instances (Variable Workload Level Charges), few of the other ISVs currently provide the same options. The zAAP can significantly reduce the costs for Java on the mainframe, although we still have several technical and charge back questions as to how it’s all going to come together.
There are also enhancements to the z990 (such as zAAP support), a new “Baby” Shark (the Model 750), enhancements to z/OS 1.6, a new release of z/VSE and a new release of z/VM.
You can find these announcements at http://www.ibm.com/news/us/, then click on ‘announcements’ at the left.
Some of the more important announcements include:
z890 – New Low-Range to Mid-Range Processors (announcement #104-117)
zAAP – zSeries Application Assist Processor (#104-117 and #104-118)
“Baby” Shark (#104-119)
z990 Enhancements (#104-118)
z/VSE 3.1 (#204-055)
z/VM 5.1 (#204-057)
2. Special Offering on Video Tape Performance Classes
We stopped teaching classes in 1999, but our videos have gone on teaching new performance analysts and capacity planners ever since then. Our week-long classes with video tapes and course materials have until recently been offered on our Web site for between $1995 and $2195. We are now pleased to announce that we will be offering them for $1500 each.
The basics presented in these videos haven’t changed since Cheryl taught them. There have been some new measurement fields and some new facilities, such as IRD, but the concepts, the logic, and the reports simply haven’t changed that much. If you have some new system programmers, performance analysts or capacity planners, these courses can provide their training for a fraction of the cost of other alternatives. Learn how WLM really works, what sysplex, shamplex and parallel sysplex are all about, how data sharing works, how to interpret RMF and CMF reports, which SMF records provide the most valuable insights, and how best to analyze your system performance.
The four classes available are:
Advanced OS/390 Performance & Capacity Planning (filmed May 1999)
OS/390, Parallel Sysplex & Workload Manager (filmed October 1998)
Advanced MVS Performance and Measurement (filmed in late 1995)
Exploiting MVS/ESA Facilities (filmed in late 1995)
See www.watsonwalker.com/classintro.html for a description of the courses.
3. Typo Correction
Zion Botzer from Leumi Card pointed out an IBM error found on page 5 of our TUNING Letter 2004, No. 1. The title for APAR OA06168 is incorrect on the IBM APAR database. The title is “Various RMF Problems Caused by OA05167.” The actual APAR that caused the problem is OA05197, notOS05167.
Stay tuned!