1. He Does Exist!
2. Update to Tuning Letter 2015-3
3. IFASEXIT Performance and zEDC Support
4. Watson & Walker Consulting
5. Erase-On-Scratch Enhancement in z/OS 2.2
6. Updated SMF Reference Summary
7. GSE/IBM Conference in Boeblingen
8. HSM Support for zEDC
9. z/OS 2.2 Education Assistance
10. Our Calendars
11. A Thought for the New Year
1. He DOES Exist!
I’ve been in this business for … a long time now. I’ve had the privilege of working all around this world of ours, and I’ve met people of every shape and size, color, religion, and nationality.
But all of that pales into insignificance compared to an experience at a SPARTA User’s Group meeting in Raleigh in early December. Ron Pimblett was kind enough to ask me to present about zEDC to the group’s meeting, and the nice people at the SAS Institute graciously hosted the event (complete with free M&Ms!) at their beautiful campus close to Raleigh Durham airport.
So, there I was in the run up to Christmas, presenting to a group of people about compression. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a jolly big man, with a red shirt and white beard.
Yes, that’s right – Santa Claus is a mainframer! AND he was in my session (I guess that compression would be of interest to someone trying to fit one billion gifts into a small red sleigh).
I would like to thank Duane Reaugh, a member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, for providing me with the highlight of my career, and for brightening up an already very enjoyable evening.
2. Update to Tuning Letter 2015-3
Subscribers to the Tuning Letter will have read our User Experiences article in the most recent issue about how to use SORT to extract information from SYS1.MANx SMF data sets. Just after we published the Tuning Letter, the provider of that information, ‘Jim’, sent me an email pointing out that I had omitted one critical line from the SYSIN statements (RECORD TYPE=V). He also provided a more detailed example of how he uses SYNCSORT to extract just a subset of the records.
In this example, Jim is using SORT to extract SMF data for record type 30 subtypes 4 and 5 for TSO users from the SYS1.MANx VSAM data set. More standard fields can be specified, such as time of day (if you know how to translate the SMF time field into a proper value – Jim has defined sort SYMNAMES statements that name each minute of the day, such as TOD1429 for 2:29PM) or any other fixed position fields within an SMF record. Here is a sample job (take note of the parms on the EXEC statement as well as those specified on the SYSIN);
//* SORTMANX SORT TO EXTRACT SMF FROM SYS1.MAN* FILE TO PROPER VBS FILE
//SORT EXEC PGM=SORT,PARM=’VLTEST=0,MSG=AP,NORC16,GMSG’
//SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
//SORTOUT DD DISP=(,PASS),UNIT=3390,SPACE=(CYL,(100,20)),DSN=&&T1,
// DCB=RECFM=VBS
//SORTIN DD DISP=SHR,DSN=SYS1.MAN2
//SYSIN DD *
* VSAM SMF HAS THE RDW FIELD INCLUDED AS PART OF THE RECORD DATA.
* INREC BELOW SKIPS PAST THAT RDW, SORT REBUILDS A PROPER RDW, AND THE
* REST OF THE VBS RECORD GETS PROPERLY COPIED.
* WHEN USING INCLUDE/OMIT CARDS, ADD 4 TO ALL THE REGULAR SMF FIELDS
RECORD TYPE=V SPECIFY VARIABLE RECORDS FOR VSAM INPUT
INREC FIELDS=(1:1,4,5:9) RESERVE RDW SPACE, SKIP RDW IN DATA RECORD
INCLUDE COND=(10,01,BI,EQ,30,AND, RECORD TYPE LIST
23,04,CH,EQ,C’TSO ’,AND,
27,02,BI,EQ,L(4,5)) SUBTYPE LIST
SORT FIELDS=(11,4,PD,A,7,4,BI,A)
/*
So, thank you, again, to ‘Jim’ for sharing. We hope that our readers will benefit from this, and more readers will be encouraged to follow his example and share their experiences and tips.
3. IFASEXIT Performance and zEDC Support
The normal interface for extracting SMF records from a log stream is to use the IBM-provided IFASMFDL utility. An alternative is to use the LOGR SUBSYS statement in your JCL so that you can run your own program ‘directly’ against the SMF log stream. However, the performance of this option has (how can we say this nicely….) left room for improvement. Also, IFASEXIT currently doesn’t support zEDC, meaning that this is not an option if you use zEDC to compress your SMF log streams.
IBM is currently testing APAR OA49157 that will address both the performance issues and the lack of zEDC support. The planned availability date is the current quarter (Q1 2016).
4. Watson & Walker Consulting
At its most basic, our mission in Watson & Walker is to gather information, enrich it, and pass it back to our customers in a format that is valuable and easily consumed. Our Tuning Letters provide a vehicle for disseminating this information; they also provide a base for regular interaction with our customers. Our classes and participation in conferences are a way for us to pass on more detailed information in an interactive environment. They also give us an insight into the challenges facing our customers. The third area that we operate in is consulting. This allows us to provide specialized skills and experience that many customers no longer have, and work together to address the issues affecting your installation.
One topic that has been particularly active recently is working with customers on vendor audits. Cheryl has been very busy helping customers who are being audited by their software vendors. It seems like the same vendors are aggressively hitting many of their customers, sometimes with dire results. Cheryl provides both extensive skills in this very specialized area and an unimpeachable reputation for honesty and fairness that makes her perfect for these situations.
Both Cheryl and Alan have extensive experience working with outsourced customers and their unique situations. If your company is considering outsourcing, or you are due to renegotiate an existing outsourcing contract, remember that the contracts are written by the outsourcer for the outsourcer’s benefit. The outsourcee owes it to themselves, and their shareholders, to have their contracts reviewed by people like Cheryl and Alan who can fine-tune the contracts to protect everyone.
Many outsourcing contracts are based on measurement and charging metrics that do not allow for the benefits of IBM’s many software-pricing options to be realized by the outsourcee. This can be a significant contributor to overall cost (software typically accounts for 25-30% of IT costs) so it is prudent, and a good investment, to obtain advice from independent consultants who have the specialized knowledge and experience in this area.
Alan and Cheryl have both seen bad things happen in outsourcing situations, not because of greed or incompetence, but because of basic misunderstandings between the parties in the arrangement. As with so many things in life, the key to a harmonious coexistence is a comprehensive agreement up front of the roles, rights, and responsibilities of both parties.
If you would like to discuss your challenges and requirements, and how Watson & Walker can help you, please email us at consulting@watsonwalker.com.
5. Erase-On-Scratch Enhancement in z/OS 2.2
In Tuning Letter 2015 No. 3, we mentioned an unannounced enhancement to the Erase-On-Scratch function that was delivered in z/OS 2.2. In z/OS 2.1, IBM increased the number of tracks that would be erased with a single request from 1, up to 255. In z/OS 2.2, the number was increased again. In the Tuning Letter, we said that the number of tracks was ‘more than 11,000’. The actual number is 12,240 tracks.
While discussing this with a friend in IBM, we heard that there is a recent increase in customer interest in Erase-On-Scratch. We don’t know if this is related to the focus we have been giving this function in the Tuning Letter, but whatever the reason, we think this is a positive sign and encourage more of our readers to evaluate this if you have not done so already.
6. Updated SMF Reference Summary
If you use Cheryl’s SMF Reference Summary, you should be aware that there was an update at the end of September to include z/OS 2.2 (the list of changes is on Page 23 of the PDF). If you don’t use the SMF Reference Summary, we encourage you to take a few minutes to review it. It is the most comprehensive, cross-vendor, source of information about SMF records that we are aware of, and anyone that works with SMF should have a copy on their desk.
7. GSE/IBM Conference in Boeblingen
Cheryl and I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the joint GSE/IBM conference in the IBM lab in Boeblingen, Germany in September. Both of us enjoyed the conference immensely. It was so nice to have a chance to meet many of our long-time customers face to face. In this age of online communication, it is great to be able to put a face to a name and to have a chance to swap experiences and tips.
The following are just some of our highlights from the conference:
- Cheryl asked for a show of hands to see how many customers in the audience were using SMF log streams (Cheryl is a big fan of SMF log streams). When at least 95% raised their hands, Cheryl broke into a huge smile and said ‘Oh, you are such good customers!!’.
- And 75% responded when she asked who was using z/OSMF. In the US, the percentage is closer to 10-15%. We think the difference is the amount of money that German companies (and, we think, European companies in general) invest into education. Part of this is due also to the combined efforts of the German IBM team and the Guide SHARE Europe (GSE) organization. They sponsor conferences and classes around Europe, and companies actually pay to send their people. Everyone wins. Both Cheryl and I were VERY impressed with the skill level we found from the attendees.
- It was also great to see so many young people at the conference. It turns out that GSE and IBM have a program called the Under 30 Working Group that encourages young people into System z and has a special track for them at the GSE conferences. Anyone that is closer to the opposite end of their career should be thinking about this as a way of growing the generation that will run the systems that pay our pensions!
- We had a chance to have a joint meeting with the RMF and WLM Development groups, as well as with members of the Capacity Provisioning Manager and System Automation groups. This was Cheryl’s first visit to Boeblingen, and the two groups welcomed us like long lost family members. We were delighted to have a chance to have a group photo with them – another one to add to our gallery.
- We had a lovely evening in a local hostelry with some of our good friends from the IBM zChampions group that also happened to be in Boeblingen at the same time.
One of our observations at the conference, and at our classes in Hamburg in November, was the high level of exploitation of recent z/OS enhancements by the German customers. We hope that other IBMs will look at this and emulate whatever it is that IBM Germany are doing that results in customers getting so much value from their z/OS investments.
And if all that wasn’t enough, we also had a chance to visit Motor World in Boeblingen and the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. One of Cheryl’s favorites was the IBM computer museum, where she was able to see some of the original machines she worked on: 1620, 700, the first S/360, the first IBM PC, a 1403 printer, and a 2311 disk drive. All-in-all, this was one of our most productive and most enjoyable trips yet. We hope that IBM and GSE Germany will be kind enough to ask us back again in the future.
8. Enhanced HSM Support for zEDC
Thanks to Keith Winnard of the ITSO, and Glenn Wilcock of DFSMS Development for telling us about APAR OA48394.
The original HSM support for zEDC contained ‘an opportunity for enhancement’ (‘bug’ is such an unpleasant term ☺ ) whereby HSM might actually use MORE CPU when using zEDC, rather than experiencing the reduction you might expect. However, once the APAR is applied, a significant MIPS savings can be achieved as a result of the reduction in the number of blocks that are processed by DFSMShsm thanks to zEDC compression. In addition to reducing the MIPS consumption by up to 15%, elapsed time may be reduced by as much as 25%. Also, since zEDC can achieve a higher compression ratio than a tape control unit, virtual tape space may be reduced by as much as 37%. The reduction in the number of blocks written to tape also reduces the overall MIPS and elapsed time required for RECYCLE processing.
For more information about this enhancement, refer to Glen’s IBM DeveloperWorks blog entry.
9. z/OS 2.2 Education Assistance
I’m sure that all of our readers know IBM’s Marna Walle. But you might not have seen this IBMMAIN entry from Marna:
z/OS V2.2 IBM Education Assistance
We’ve recently placed on the web (http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/pages/IBMIEAV22avail?Open) new materials associated with z/OS V2.2. If you’re not familiar with IBM Education Assistance (not to be confused with IBM Education Assistant), these are modules that can give you “soup to nuts” information on a specific new function in z/OS. Or, it might contain all the enhancements in a specific component for z/OS V2.2.
It’s a great place to go shopping for new functions that might interest you in z/OS V2.2. All enhancements are sorted by interest area to help you find an enhancement that may appeal to you: Availability, Scalability & Performance, Usability & z/OSMF, Industry & Open Standards, Security, Networking, and Installation & Migration. We’ve got approximately 100 modules available, so there’s something for everyone.
The modules are usually provided in PDF format. They all follow a template to make them easily understood. The template looks like:
Overview, Usage & Invocation, Interactions & Dependencies, Migration & Coexistence Considerations, and Installation.
We hope that this material will help you discover and use new z/OS functions in a easy way. Of course, this information is supplemental to the official publications, but with this information sliced “horizontally” across books, it may be able to see the larger picture from these modules than reading in just one book.
Please send any feedback about the IBM Education Assistance for z/OS material (especially praise and thanks!) to Marna.
10. Our Calendars
After a hectic November, Cheryl and I have seen enough of the inside of aircraft to keep us going for the foreseeable future. However, the next SHARE conference is already looming on our calendars. The conference is being held in the beautiful city of San Antonio, Texas, from February 28th until March 4.
Cheryl and I are doing two sessions this time. The first one will be about the technical impacts of IBM’s Mobile Workload Pricing and z Systems Collocated Application Pricing options. We’re sure you have all heard about the financial aspects of these options, but this session will discuss what they mean to you, in terms of how you configure your transaction managers, database managers, LPARs, and WLM policy. There is a LOT more to this topic than you might at first think.
Our second session will be our Cheryl and Frank zRoadshow on Friday morning, where we summarize down into a mere 70 slides (it is only a 1-hour session, after all) all the latest z Systems news and distill the high points of the SHARE sessions for the week. And who knows, we might even come up with a new Irish joke or two.
The session times and titles are:
- Thursday, 08:30-09:30, Containing MLC Costs For Mobile and New Workloads
- Friday, 10:00-11:00, SHARE Live!: The Cheryl and Frank zRoadshow
For more information about the conference, refer to the event web site at http://www.share.org/sanantonio. We hope we will see you there – please stop by and say hello.
Apart from SHARE, we will be busy finishing the next Tuning Letter, working on a variety of consulting engagements, and working on some new offerings. I think it’s going to be another exciting year…
11. A Thought for the New Year
Finally, we would like to help you start the new year with a little laugh.
This joke/tale is about an Irish doctor and one of his patients that is somewhat obsessive about his health.
The patient (we will call him ‘Sam’) comes in for his annual medical. He tells the doctor (Dr. Murphy, of course) that his objective is to live to be 107 years old. Dr. Murphy comments that that is quite a goal and proceeds to ask him some questions about his lifestyle…
Dr Murphy: ‘So, Sam, what do you get in the line of exercise?’
Sam: I start my day with a one mile swim, followed by a five mile run, and then an hour of pumping weights in the gym. And I finish every day with the same routine, only in reverse.’
Dr. Murphy: ‘I see. And how about your diet, do you watch those calories?’
Sam: ‘Oh definitely. I have a strict regimen of 947.2 calories every day. No fats, no carbs, no cholesterol. I don’t eat any meat or any processed food. But on Sundays, I do treat myself to an extra 2.8 calories, but I extend my run by 395 yards to compensate for that.’
Dr. Murphy: ‘Interesting. How about booze or cigarettes?’
Sam: (looking horror-stricken) ‘Oh goodness no, I have never touched a drop of liquor, and my runs and my route to and from work are specifically designed to not be within 950 yards of any designated smoking area.’
Dr Murphy: ‘And late nights?’
Sam: ‘In bed by 8 every night, up at 03:47 every morning for my swim.’
Sam: ‘So, what do you think Doctor, will I live to be 107?’
Dr. Murphy: ‘Well, probably. But I can’t imagine why you would want to.’
The moral of this story is – life is short, no matter if you are 9 or 90, so enjoy your work, your family, and your friends to the full. We hope that you will all have a happy and healthy 2016.
That’s all for this Cheryl’s List. Don’t forget that we love to hear from our readers, so if you have any interesting (or harrowing!) experiences, or any good Irish jokes, please let us know. You can contact us on technical@watsonwalker.com.
Stay Tuned!
Frank Kyne
Editor, Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter
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