Cheryl’s List #166 – August 11, 2013

by | Aug 11, 2013 | Cheryl's List

1.   About Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter 2013 No. 2
2.   About Cheryl Watson’s System z CPU Chart – July 2013
3.   SHARE in Boston

1.  About Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter 2013 No. 2

The 69-page 2013 No. 2 Tuning Letter was emailed to paid subscribers on July 17, 2013. You may visit our website at www.watsonwalker.com to obtain subscription information and the table of contents. The following is the Management Summary from that issue, talking about just some of the contents of that Tuning Letter:

z/OS 2.1 Preview
It’s been two years since the last release of z/OS, and the upcoming (September) release of z/OS 2.1 looks to be the largest release of z/OS we’ve seen since z/OS 1.4. We’ll have many more details in our next Tuning Letter, but the article in this issue will give you a hint of the scope of the release. In our last Tuning Letter, Cheryl described the many enhancements of 2.1 that can be implemented in your current releases by just applying some APARs. In this issue, she shows you dozens of features in 2.1 that are a direct result of customer requests, specifically through the mechanism of SHARE requirements. We’ve always been supporters of the SHARE conferences, and the response from IBM to requests from SHARE requirements shows that support to be well-founded.

Exploiting z/OS
We continue our series about exploiting enhancements that are already in the z/OS releases that you’re running today by going into the benefits and the effort required for two z/OS features – Base Control Program internal interface (BCPii) and Extended Address Volumes (EAVs), two very different facilities in terms of complexity and use. EAVs are complex to implement, and are of primary interest to very large installations. BCPii, however, is simple to install, simple to use, and can provide many benefits to shops of all sizes. Cheryl’s guidelines and extensive references will point you in the right direction

Other Important Topics
WebSphere Liberty Profile is a significant enhancement to WebSphere Application Server (WAS) providing both performance improvements and a much smaller footprint. But the most important benefit, in Cheryl’s opinion, is its use in z/OSMF. z/OSMF is the z/OS Monitoring Facility that Cheryl is so enthusiastic about. It’s a tool for system programmers that is designed to reduce the time to handle many typical tasks. It gets better with each release, but the main drawback has been its dependence on a WAS OEM (a special WAS for use just by z/OSMF). The problem was that WAS OEM was so large and slow and took so much DASD space that nobody could find a test LPAR to even test it on. In z/OS 2.1, z/OSMF will be using the Liberty Profile and it will be usable in every installation.

Another important item in this issue is the description of a new and free tool from the IBM Washington Systems Center called the IBM System z Batch Network Analyzer (zBNA). Because more installations are moving to more but smaller CPs, batch windows may start to elongate. zBNA will help you model the effect on your batch window due to changing processors. It’s one of those tools that you really need to use before a processor upgrade.

If management is considering moving from a mainframe to a distributed environment, we point out some important reading and opportunities that should be considered before making that move. Here are links:

SHARE Highlights
IBM and users present such valuable information at each SHARE conference that we can’t recommend it highly enough as a major education investment. If you can’t afford to send someone to SHARE, you’ll find Cheryl’s highlights of SHARE to be extremely useful. Out of almost 600 sessions, Cheryl selects some of the best for you to concentrate on. 

Elsewhere in This Issue
You’ll also find many other useful items throughout this newsletter: User experiences with increased CPU time in DB2 and DB2 zIIP eligible time • A description of the SMF Type 42, subtype 6 record for tuning data sets • Some very important IBM announcements, including a major update to COBOL • A continuing section on Social Media • Some important parmlib changes due to APARs • and our usual collection of New Function, SMF, Information, and HIPER APARs to help you identify useful maintenance. 

2.  About Cheryl Watson’s System z CPU Chart – July 2013

The 88-page PDF of the July 13 Cheryl Watson’s System z CPU Chart and the accompanying Excel spreadsheet of 1077 processors was emailed to paid subscribers on August 8, 2013. Subscribers to the Tuning Letter receive the CPU Chart at no additional charge. Special pricing is also available for the ISVs who want multiple copies for all of their offices. You may visit our website at www.watsonwalker.com to obtain subscription information.

For those of you unfamiliar with our CPU Chart, we provide an Excel spreadsheet with an entry for 1,077 IBM System z processors. For each processor, we provide the following information in one single location, as well as recommendations on how to use each field:

Model number, number of CPs, IBM PCI, MIPS (low RNI, low-average RNI, average RNI, average-high RNI, high RNI), multi-processor effect, service units per second, uni-processor service units per second, common name, processor group, software MSUs, MIPS per software MSU, hardware MSUs, MIPS per hardware MSU, STIDP, STSI model, architectural level set, general availability date, MIPS per CP (low RNI, low-average RNI, average RNI, average-high RNI, high RNI), % difference average to low, % difference average to high, speed of specialty processor, % difference to specialty processor, MSU in power save mode, % difference in power save mode, z/OS 1.11 values if available (average MIPS, % difference between 1.11 and 1.13,  SRM seconds per real seconds, z/VM high RNI MIPS, z/VM high RNI MIPS per CP, z/VM percent difference from average RNI MIPS, Linux low RNI MIPS, Linux low RNI MIPS per CP, and Linux percent difference from average RNI MIPS.

This version of the chart contains the 156 new zBC12 processors that IBM announced on July 23, 2013. These range from a 50 MIPS uni-processor to a 6-way that’s almost 5,000 MIPS. For most current users of the z114 and z10-BC models starting at E01, there is a very similar zBC12 for a straight migration. For z114 and z10-BC customers with models from A01 through D05, it is a little tougher to find a one-for-one migration, and you might need to change the number of CPs. We give you not only the CPU charts covering these new models, but we give you some useful options for migration. The pricing options we describe make these new business class machines worth your time to investigate.

In addition to the CPU Chart and usage, we also provide an in-depth analysis of the zEC12s, the changes in the August 2012 LSPRs, and an in-depth analysis of the zBC12s.

3.  SHARE in Boston

We’re about to head out for the SHARE conference in Boston (August 11-16), and can hardly wait. There will be plenty of new material presented by IBMers, customers, and software vendors about z/OS 2.1 and the zBC12 processors. On Friday at 9:30, I’ll be giving the next presentation in my series of ‘Exploiting z/OS – Results from the SHARE Survey’. As people upload their presentations, you’ll be able to download them from the SHARE website at www.share.org. You might need a SHARE logon id, but these are available even if your company isn’t a SHARE member.

Stay Tuned!

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