1. I’ll Miss You in Boston
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 4
3. IBM Press Books
4. System z9-109 Sessions at SHARE
1. I’ll Miss You in Boston
I’m afraid that I won’t be attending SHARE this month – doctor’s orders. In order to stop my real hot flashes permanently (and prevent the possibility of ovarian cancer), I recently had a hysterectomy. Although my recovery is going well, I had no idea of how tired I would be after surgery. I’ll miss seeing all of my friends at SHARE and plan to be back in the spring of 2006 with more hot flashes of the computer variety. Our TUNING Letter Editor Clark Kidd will be ably presenting our Hot Flashes #14 session (2509) on Friday at 9:30 am. He’ll also be presenting his session 2913 – Tue – 9:30 am – Finding Gold with the z/OS UNIX APIs.
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 4
The forty-seven page 2005 No. 4 TUNING Letter was emailed to electronic subscribers last Wednesday (17Aug2005). Single issues may be obtained for $135 each from our Web site at http://www.watsonwalker.com. A new CPU Chart should be out within the week. The following is a summary of just some of the contents of this latest TUNING Letter:
IBM z9-109 Server
On July 26, 2005, IBM announced its newest entry into the high-end processor market – the IBM z9-109 server. This new machine will be available in five different models and can be configured to have up to 54 processors. The smallest model with just one processor is expected to be about 35% faster than a uni-processor z990. The largest model is rated at an impressive 17,800 MIPS and will have about 95% more capacity than the largest z990. Along with the new server, IBM also introduced a new series of LSPR (Large Systems Performance Reference) values for both the new z9-109 and the existing zSeries processors. These values were different from what we’ve seen in the past because they provide two ratings for each model – one when run as a stand-alone system and one when run as part of an LPAR. This is a useful change, but it will require everyone to change the way they estimate processor performance and capacity. IBM also announced an upgraded version of an existing capacity planning tool that should prove to be very useful when planning for new processors. We have always encouraged our users to take advantage of such tools, because they can protect you from poor decisions and save you time and money. Make sure to read our article starting on page 35 for all the details on the new z9-109 server and related announcements.
Announcement of z/OS 1.7
The formal announcement of z/OS 1.7 also occurred on the same day that the new z9-109 server was announced. Although our previous issue contained an extensive article about this new operating system release, there were some exciting new features revealed that had not been mentioned in previous announcements and presentations. Please see our update article on page 42 for all the details.
Logical Channel Subsystems
Many large organizations are running into limitations related to the number of devices that may be attached to a processor. One solution that IBM has introduced for the z/Architecture machines (the z890, z990 and z9-109) is the concept of Logical Channel Subsystems or LCSS. This allows multiple device configurations to be defined within the same server and assigned to the LPARs running in that server. If you want to learn more about LCSS and determine how it can benefit your organization, please see our article on page 14.
Elsewhere in this Issue
On page 28 we mention a nasty problem that can result in invalid catalog entries being created for Generation Data Sets (GDS). There is a nice enhancement to the IDCAMS EXAMINE command that helps you tune your VSAM data sets, and we give the details on page 30. If you use the SAS product and your system time is configured to use leap seconds, then make sure to read about the important SAS fix described on page 32. There have been some nice enhancements to the SDSF product since z/OS 1.4 and we describe those on page 22. Page 7 provides details about a tool that can provide some useful security reports if you use both RACF as your security product and the IBM DFSORT utility. Best of all, the price is right because it can be downloaded for free from http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/racf/racfice.html.
3. IBM Press Books
We would expect that IBM probably publishes more documentation than any other organization, with the possible exception of governmental agencies. You will find our TUNING Letter filled with links to many of the books and papers they publish. But did you know that IBM also has a division that specializes in retail books designed for professionals and students? And if there’s a book inside you that’s just waiting to get out, they might even publish it for you. Here’s a quote from their Web site:
IBM Press publishes books that are authored by eminent architects, engineers and consultants, as well as business leaders, with contributions from other experts working in the IBM community. While the majority of books are written by IBM employees, IBM Press also accepts book proposals from authors outside of IBM.
You can visit their Web site at http://www.ibm.com/ibmpress/ to see the books that are currently available, plus they promise to add new publications each month.
4. System z9-109 Sessions at SHARE
Our latest TUNING Letter provides a good deal of information about IBM’s new System z9-109 server, but there will also of course be lots of good information at the SHARE conference in Boston next week.
IBM has worked with SHARE to come up with six new sessions that will deal with various aspects of this new server. We mentioned three of these sessions in our latest TUNING Letter, but they have added three more since then! Here are the six sessions:
2847 – Introducing the IBM System z9 109: Processor, Memory and System Structure; Monday, August 22, 1:30 p.m.
2849 – Introducing the IBM System z9 109: Channel Subsystem, I/O Infrastructure and Connectivity; Monday, August 22, 3:00 p.m.
1816 – IBM System z9 Announcement: Management Discussion; Monday, August 22, 4:30 p.m.
9202 – Linux Platform Options – Selecting Linux on IBM System z9 and IBM eServer zSeries; Tuesday, August 23, 1:30 p.m.
2867 – LPAR Advanced Topics; Tuesday, August 23, 3:00 p.m.
2852 – A z/OS Systems Programmer’s Guide to Migrating to a New IBM System z9 109 (z9-109); Thursday, August 25, 9:30 a.m.
If you or your management is interested in learning more about these new servers, it would be a good idea to try and attend these sessions. We hope to see you there.
Stay tuned!