1. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2006 No. 1
2. See You at SHARE
3. BMC MAINVIEW and 17+ Processors
4. Talking to a Real Live Human
5. Corrections to Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2006 No. 1
1. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2006 No. 1
The forty-seven page 2006 No. 1 TUNING Letter was emailed to subscribers on February 24, 2006. 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:
Exploiting zAAP Processors
Many installations have installed zSeries Application Assist Processors (zAAP) to improve the performance of their Java work while lowering their software costs. If this applies to you, then you need to be aware of some recent enhancements that may allow your zAAP processors to perform even better. Modifications have been made to the z/OS dispatcher that will change the way it determines when to route work to a zAAP processor versus a general purpose processor. The intent of these changes is to improve the utilization of the zAAP processors without sacrificing Java performance. No new parameters have been added to achieve this, but the way the existing parameters are processed has changed slightly. If you use zAAP processors, please make sure to read about these fixes on page 4, and then read our more detailed article on page 34.
The New zIIP Processor
Speaking of specialty processors, have you heard about the new IBM zIIP (System z9 Integrated Information Processor)? The zIIP is similar to the zAAP, in that it is designed to offload certain categories of work from the general purpose processors, allowing you to postpone processor upgrades and control software license costs. The zIIP is designed to handle work running in an enclave in SRB (Service Request Block) mode. The first component that will exploit the zIIP is DB2, but it is hoped that other software (both IBM and non-IBM) will soon follow suit. Please see our article on page 38 for more details about this new processor. The zIIP will not be available until later in 2006, but you might want to learn about it now and determine whether it will benefit your organization.
Securing External Media
The z/OS operating system provides good security for active data, but how about data that have been transferred to tape or other external media? It seems like almost every week there is a new story in the press about the loss of backup tapes that contain sensitive information about customers and clients. If you have concerns about this potential problem, make sure to read our article on page 40. We provide you some details about a new IBM product that can be used to encrypt data residing on external media. We also identify some other products that claim to perform the same function.
Elsewhere in This Issue
• Dedicating processors to an LPAR doesn’t always provide the benefit you might expect, as we describe in our Q & A section on page 24. • Please see page 5 if you use PPRC or have HDS disk devices, where we identify some IBM fixes that you need to investigate. • If your organization is spending more time and money in order to comply with various government and industry regulations, you might be interested in a new compliance issues survey available through the SHARE organization. The report is a cost item, but the summary is free (see page 19). • IBM has a whole series of free seminars designed to introduce you to new software solutions, and we describe those on page 13. • If you are migrating to z/OS 1.7 and using JES2, you might find that your JES2 exits will need some major reworking. Please see page 17 for information about locating and downloading some excellent reference materials that can assist in this effort.
2. See You at SHARE
The next SHARE user conference is next week, but it’s not too late to register. We plan to be in Seattle for the conference (March 5-10th), and hope to say hello to many of you there. Visit the SHARE Web site athttp://www.share.org for the full agenda of sessions, and for information about registration and housing.
If you attend SHARE and will be staying through Friday, please try to attend Cheryl’s Hot Flashes #15 presentation (session number 2509) at 9:30 a.m. We will have our usual collection of helpful tips, useful resources and important fixes for you to investigate.
The most well-attended sessions at SHARE will probably be the z9-109 hardware sessions and the z/OS 1.7 sessions. But if performance and capacity planning are your main interests, you should be drawn to the EWCP (Enterprise Wide Capacity & Performance) project sessions. Here are some sessions that we think shouldn’t be missed:
Kathy Walsh from WSC is presenting several sessions during the week, and her sessions always provide exceptional information:
2500 – EWCP Project Opening and WSC z/OS Performance Hot Topics
2516 – Everything zAAP
2517 – Framework for Doing Capacity Sizing for zSeries Processors
Kathy is also chairing session 2518 (zPCR User Experiences), where two non-IBM speakers will share their experiences with the new zPCR capacity planning tool.
Two other EWCP sessions from IBM include:
2525 – To MIPS or Not to MIPS – That is the Question, Gary King
2561 – Java Performance for zSeries, James Perlik
If you’re looking for alternatives to IBM mainframes, you might be interested in two other sessions:
2824 – Flex-ES as a Host Platform for z/OS, Gary Eheman
2890 – Mainframe Integration – Don’t Stop at Linux – This presents an alternative to the small to mid-size zSeries machines.
3. BMC MAINVIEW and 17+ Processors
BMC Software recently sent customers an Alert that relates to a problem that can occur when using their MAINVIEW product on a machine with more than 16 processors defined. This is taken from the problem description:
BMC Software is alerting users of MAINVIEW for OS/390 version 2.7.01 and later to a problem. This flash describes a PTF for MAINVIEW for OS/390 to prevent the problem from occurring. If you have any questions about the problem or the PTF, contact BMC Software Customer Support at 800 537 1813 (United States or Canada) or call your local support center.
Problem: The MVScope CPU monitor function can overlay common storage when it is used on an LPAR with processor IDs greater than 15 (that is, 16 through 31).
Problem origin: The problem was introduced by PTF BPY6588, which is part of the z/OS 1.6 support.
Problem description: The common storage obtained by MVScope to collect processor usage information is large enough to hold only data for the first 16 logical processors (IDs 0-15). If a logical processor with an ID of 16 through 31 is online, MVScope might attempt to store data in the area that follows the collection area. If this storage is not in use, an 0C4 abend occurs. If the storage has been obtained by another function, it will be overlaid, possibly resulting in a system failure.
This problem is documented in APAR BAY7032.
Solution: Apply the correcting PTF BPY7223, which will be available by the end of February 2006. After it becomes available, this PTF can be downloaded by using eFix PTF Distribution Services on the BMC Software Customer Support page at http://www.bmc.com/support_home.
Workaround: Do not request MVScope monitor sessions on LPARs with any processors online that are numbered 16 through 31.
Because this is a potentially serious problem, and because we know many of our subscribers use this product, we thought it would be prudent to pass along this warning.
4. Talking to a Real Live Human
We have all had the frustrating experience of trying to call a company, only to get lost in their phone tree system without any hope of ever talking to a real human being. Some of these systems will allow you to break out and speak with a live person, but you need to know the secret code, and they vary from system to system.
Someone else must have been frustrated too, because now there is a Web site that lists phone numbers of common companies, along with the actions you need to take to get out of the phone tree and talk with a real person. The current listings are for the United States and the UK, but other countries are promised. Visit http://gethuman.com to access this useful information.
Select “Database” from the menu bar on the left to see the US numbers and codes. To view the UK database, select the “World” option, and then click on UK. You can also select “Tips” to display other useful information, such as how to find a toll-free number for a company that has one but doesn’t want you to know about it.
5. Corrections to Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter 2006 No. 1
After sending out our latest TUNING Letter, we found a minor typographical error. This will be corrected before this issue is placed on the yearly CD-ROM/DVD.
On page 29, in the section “More zPCR Results,” we list two model numbers for z990 processors. The first model that is listed (for a 16-way z990) should be 2084-316 rather than 2084-116. The second model number listed (for two 8-way z990s) should be 2084-308 rather than 2084-108.
Stay tuned!