1. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 5
2. August 2005 z/OS CPU Chart
3. Red Alert for CICS Transactions Using PL/I or C/C++
4. Cheryl at CMG 2005
5. z800 Processor Removed from Marketing
6. Corrections to Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 5
7. Google Earth
1. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 5
The forty-seven page 2005 No. 5 TUNING Letter was emailed to subscribers on October 19, 2005. Single issues may be obtained for $135 each from our Web site at http://www.watsonwalker.com. The following is a summary of just some of the contents of this latest TUNING Letter:
New zPCR Tool for Processor Capacity Planning
It is not unusual to get a frantic phone call or email from a reader who is in the middle of a processor upgrade crisis. Despite a good deal of planning and expense, a recently upgraded processor is not delivering the performance that was expected. When we investigate these situations, we usually find that the customer did not do enough planning prior to the upgrade, listening only to the promises of the hardware vendor. Or perhaps the planning was based upon faulty methodology. This type of situation does not do much for your credibility, and it will often cost your organization a lot of money to correct the situation. You can avoid this kind of embarrassment by doing the proper planning using an accurate forecasting tool. Fortunately, IBM has improved their zPCR processor capacity planning tool, and will make it available at no cost later this year. Make sure to read our article on page 34 to find out more and to get some Web site pointers to current zPCR resources. You can access this tool now through IBM, even though it won’t be available for general use until later.
SHARE in Boston
We attended the SHARE conference in Boston since the last issue of the TUNING Letter, and came home with lots of good information to share. We cover some of the highlights in our SHARE Trip Report starting on page 28. In addition to learning about new tools such as zPCR, there were many sessions that presented recent and future enhancements to z/OS and the Workload Manager. We brought back too much information to pass along in one issue, so expect to see more SHARE gems in future TUNING Letter issues as well.
Cheryl’s Hot Flashes
We always end the SHARE week by presenting our Hot Flashes session on Friday morning. This is the session where we pass along important hints and tips that have come our way during the SHARE week and since the previous SHARE. This is the fourteenth time that we have presented this session, and we hope that the material continues to be useful. We have included a summary of this latest Hot Flashes session on page 23. Even if you attended the session in person, please read this section to get updates since the material was presented.
New LSPR Values
For many years, IBM has published LSPR (Large System Processor Reference) values for all of its processors. These values are useful for comparing different processors, and are usually the basis for the CPU Charts published by vendors (including our own CPU Charts). When the new z9-109 processors were announced in July of this year, IBM also introduced a new series of LSPR values that were quite a bit different from previous values. Although we think these new values will lead to more accurate calculations, they will also cause some confusion and misunderstanding until we all learn to adapt to them. We explain these new values in our article on page 13, and give some advice and recommendations. Our new z/OS CPU Chart was recently published, and an updated version of ourBoxScore software that also includes these changes will be available very soon.
2. August 2005 z/OS CPU Chart
We have created an updated version of our popular z/OS CPU Chart that reflects the latest LSPR values produced by IBM in July of this year. The CPU Chart now contains three sets of ratings – one for users running z/OS 1.4, one for users running z/OS 1.6 in a single image, and one for users running z/OS 1.6 with multiple images. We think having these different rating values was a great decision on the part of IBM, and it will lead to more accurate forecasts when using the CPU Chart.
The August 2005 version of the CPU Chart was emailed to TUNING Letter subscribers on September 29, 2005. An alert reader, Don Holstein from ChoicePoint, Inc., noticed that the architectural levels for the z9-109 processors were incorrect, so a corrected version of the CPU Chart was sent on October 3, 2005. Please check and make sure you are using the files that were sent in the later email. Even if you do not subscribe to the TUNING Letter, you may purchase a copy of the CPU Chart by visiting our Web site at http://www.watsonwalker.com.
Using the Excel version of the CPU Chart can be a bit tricky, particularly when scrolling through the large number of columns and rows. One technique that helps is to freeze the heading rows and the left-most columns so that they do not scroll off the screen. We usually do this before sending the Excel file, but neglected to do that with the latest version. This is something that you can easily correct yourself, and these are the steps for doing it:
Open the CPU Chart with Excel. On the bottom of the sheet you will see four tabs – ‘Intro’, ‘zOS 1.6 Multi-Image’, ‘zOS 1.6 Single Image’, and ‘zOS 1.4 Single Image’. Click on any of the tabs BUT ‘Intro’ to display one of the CPU sheets. Click on the E3 cell. Then select “Window” from the toolbar and the “Freeze Panes” option. This should freeze the top two heading rows and the left-most four columns so that they don’t move when scrolling. Repeat this same process with the other two CPU sheets. Finally, click the ‘Intro’ tab at the bottom to make that the current sheet and then save the file. You should only have to do this once, because Excel will then remember the freeze pane options each time you open the chart.
3. Red Alert for CICS Transactions Using PL/I or C/C++
Several readers and IBM contacts have sent us information about a new Red Alert. These are issued by the IBM software support group when serious software defects are found, particularly defects that could lead to outages or data loss. This latest Red Alert deals with a potential loss of data when running CICS transaction programs that were compiled with the Enterprise PL/I or the C/C++ compilers. Both of these compilers support an AFP (Additional Floating Point) compiler option that allows the use of twelve additional floating-point registers. All of the z/OS task-switching routines support the saving and restoring of these registers, but CICS does its own task switching and does not preserve them. That means that a CICS transaction program could lose control, and then receive control back again with different values in the AFP registers.
Those using the Enterprise PL/I compiler who may have this problem should investigate APAR PK12521. After the corrective service is installed, any CICS transaction programs that use the AFP option must be recompiled. Users of the C/C++ compilers who may have this exposure should investigate either APAR PK12800 (for the OS/390 compiler) or PK12801 (for the z/OS compilers). After the corrective service is installed, any programs that use the AFP option must be recompiled. If the maintenance is not available or you do not wish to install it, another option is to recompile the affected programs with the NOAFP option. Note that doing this may cause the programs to run slower.
To read the Red Alert, visit http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/support/zseries/ and click on the “Red Alerts for zSeries” link. Then select item 2005.10.06 (AFP Issue). There is also a Flash available on the Washington Systems Center (WSC) technical support Web site. Please visit http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/ and search for FLASH10417.
4. Cheryl at CMG 2005
Cheryl has been invited to speak at the 2005 CMG convention to be held December 4-7 in Orlando, Florida. She will be presenting session 501 (z990 and z9-109 Performance and Capacity Planning Issues) on Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. This is a revised and updated version of her popular session that was previously presented at SHARE. Please make sure to drop by and say hello if you will be there.
The CMG conference is one of the best places to find in-depth information on performance and capacity planning. And remember that CMG occursafter the Florida hurricane season!
For more information about the convention and registration, visit the CMG Web site at http://www.cmg.org.
5. z800 Processor Removed from Marketing
IBM has announced that the zSeries 800 processor (z800) will no longer be available for purchase from them after the end of this year. This was contained in Announcement Letter 905-220 that was issued on 4Oct2005.
To read the full text of the announcement, visit http://www.ibm.com/news and search for the letter number. The suggested replacement product is the newer z890 processor.
6. Corrections to Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2005 No. 5
Here are two corrections to the TUNING Letter that was sent out this week. The errors will be corrected before the issue is placed on the CD-ROM.
MIDAW
In our latest TUNING Letter we included an article on MIDAW support on pages 43-44. This included the following quote from Brian Currah of BDC Computer Services:
Both z/OS 1.6 and z/OS 1.7 users need to apply PTF UA20813 (for APAR OA10984) because it provides the capability to enable and disable the MIDAW facility. This function was not part of the support provided in the z/OS 1.7 base level code.
We had changed the quote slightly to emphasize that APAR OA10984needs to be applied by both z/OS 1.6 and z/OS 1.7 users. But in making this change, we had also made the quote incorrect. PTF UA20813 applies only to z/OS 1.7 users, and z/OS 1.6 users should install UA20812 to obtain the same correction.
IDCAMS
David G. Rawson from EDS Australia pointed out another error on page 41. We said: “Use IDCAMS to delete the GDG base entry – ‘DELETE gdgbasename GDG RECOVERY.’ This will delete the base entry and all the associated data sets.”
David wrote:
“This will only remove the base and not the data sets themselves. We got hit by this problem also. One thing that did cause problems are data sets that wrapped over 9999 generations. We had to sort these in descending sequence before re-cataloging them. One strange thing that I still plan to return to . . . having rebuilt the GDG base I had assumed it would be empty . . . one was not. It had a deferred entry present. I need to find out how this got there . . . I am assuming at this stage it was cataloged outside of the base . . . but I am not sure.”
7. Google Earth
In our Hot Flashes session at SHARE, we suggested that users investigate the Google Maps Web site at https://maps.google.com. We had also mentioned this in Cheryl’s List #97. This is similar to other mapping Web sites, except that we really liked some of the features, such as the option to view a satellite map.
This prompted a suggestion from a reader that we should also investigate the new Google Earth software. The program does not run through a Web browser, but must be downloaded and installed on your computer. You can download it from http://earth.google.com. The Google Earth software works better if you are running on newer hardware and have a fast Internet connection. Refer to the Web site for more specifics about hardware and software requirements.
When you run the program, it allows you to travel around the planet via satellite photos. You can zoom in and zoom out, and go in any direction and to any continent. It’s almost like flying around in your own jet. Some popular places are already bookmarked, such as the Grand Canyon, the island of Manhattan, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. You can also search for your own addresses (much like Google Maps) and then bookmark them too. Once you find a particular location, you might also want to find the nearest ATM or gas station. You can do this via check boxes that allow certain things to be identified on the map. You can locate restaurants, lodging, banks, shopping malls, grocery stores, schools, and many other things. It’s kind of like playing a video game that uses real locations and photographs. What will the folks at Google come up with next?
Stay tuned!