z/OS 2.3 Preview Announced
As you are probably aware, IBM issues two announcements for new z/OS releases. The preview is normally issued in the spring and contains just a list of line items that IBM is confident will be in the release. The actual full announcement with all line items is issued in the fall. IBM just provided their preview for z/OS 2.3 on February 21, 2017 – US Announcement 217-085, and it’s full of goodies that we’ll be covering in future Tuning Letters. The announcement confirms the previous statement of direction (SOD) that z/OS 2.3 will not run on a z196, z114, or z10. If you are running one of these older processors, you should be looking at an upgrade soon. Another SOD that affects most of the customers we know is that the next release of z/OS (for now, we’ll call it z/OS 2.4) will be the last release to support HFS. One of your projects should be identifying any HFS files and migrating them to zFS files.
If you’ve been a reader of our Tuning Letter or blog, you certainly know that we have been great supporters of z/OSMF (z/OS Management Facility) for years. If you haven’t installed z/OSMF yet, now is the time. You can’t read the announcement without realizing that z/OSMF is now a critical and essential component of z/OS. The good thing is that it’s much easier to install now than in the early years.
If you’re coming to SHARE, be sure to check out session 20526 – What’s New in z/OS 2.3: Silicon Valley Edition, by IBM’s Gary Puchkoff and Tom Shepherd, Monday at 1:45 pm.
SCRTPro – Our New Offering to Help Contain z/OS Costs
In addition to the sessions that Frank listed in our previous blog entry, we’ll be giving a vendor session on Tuesday, March 7 at 1:45 pm called “SCRTPro – A New Offering to Contain Mainframe Software Costs”. In this session we’ll be unveiling a new Watson &Walker service that will help you navigate the software costs jungle. This is a new session, so might not be in your schedule yet, but will be held in room 210H. We hope to see you there! And if you can’t make it to SHARE, we’ll be sending out a press release on Monday, March 6. Here is the description of our vendor session where Cheryl will be describing this new service:
SCRTPro – A New Offering to Contain z/OS Software Costs, Cheryl Watson
Mainframe software accounts for more than half of the mainframe IT budget in many enterprises. But how do you control something that is ever-changing, fiendishly complicated (IBM alone has over 20 different pricing options for mainframe software), and uses terminology that sounds like a language of its own? Traditionally, techies have left responsibility for software contracts to the Software Asset Management group, but that group often doesn’t understand the technology or the terminology. As a result, most sites just pay their bills and hope for the best. Outsourcing doesn’t make the problem go away, because software costs are a significant contributor to the cost of your agreement.
In this session, Cheryl shows how the new Watson & Walker service can help you do the following: identify the cost of your software *before* you submit your SCRT (Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool) reports to IBM; let you confirm that your IBM invoice is accurate (you’d be surprised at how often it’s not); perform “what if” scenarios to predict the savings or costs of moving LPARs, changing hardware, adding work to an LPAR, removing work from an LPAR, moving software between LPARs, growing your workloads, or reducing your workloads; and determine how much savings, if any, can be realized by moving to Country Multiplex License Charges (CMLC), as well as showing how to reduce the “uplift” of CMLC.
Wouldn’t you like to be able to contain, manage, and lower your mainframe software costs? Come to this session and see how SCRTPro can help. It’s not software on your system; it’s Software Asset Management as a Service (SAMaaS).
Stop By Our Booth at SHARE in San Jose
As you can see above, we’ve got some great things going on at Watson & Walker these days, and on Monday we’ll be showing our new offering related to IBM z/OS software costs: SCRTPro. Come to our vendor session at SHARE on Tuesday or stop by our booth at SHARE. We decided on a booth at the last minute, so we will be in booth 217 in case we are not on your map. But look us up, come by, and let’s talk about your costs :).
Deep SHARE Discount for Anyone Under 35!
I received this note from Warren Harper of the SHARE zNextGen project. This is a significant discount from the regular registration, and applies to both this SHARE in San Jose (March 5-10) and SHARE in Providence, RI (August 6-11).
I have wonderful news to announce – SHARE and IBM have joined forces to give a significant registration discount for people new to z – those born during or after 1982 (so under 35). The discount allows you to register for the whole week for $975. To qualify for the discount, send a note to registration@share.org and give the proper credential (photocopy of valid ID with birth date during or after 1982). You will then get an email back with a discount code that you can apply during registration.
This code is exclusive to people who are not IBM employees or SHARE Ribbon wearing volunteers.
This offer is only valid in 2017 or until it runs out. If you are eligible for the discount but have already registered, contact registration@share.org so that you can receive the credit.
Thanks Warren! Wowza!