Hopefully all our readers are aware that the first face-to-face SHARE conference in two years is taking place in Dallas, Texas next week. Because this is the first transition back to a live format, this will be a truncated conference, in terms of its duration and the number of tracks. Rather than the normal five days, plus Sunday, this SHARE will run from Monday, March 28th to Wednesday, March 30th, with the usual ancillary sessions on the preceding Sunday.
For those that are unable to attend in person, there is a Live Access option that provides access to a subset of sessions. You can find more information on the SHARE site at: https://www.share.org/Events/SHARE-Dallas-2022/Registration. The recordings of that subset of sessions will be available to in-person attendees and Live Access registrants until May 31st.
Due to the pandemic and the shortened format, Frank is the only W&W attendee at this conference. As a result, rather than our usual tag-team format, Frank will be presenting our Watson & Walker zRoadshow session on his own this time. That session is on Wednesday afternoon at 2:15 (Central time) in the Cumberland AB room. His colleagues that normally have to drag the microphone away from him will be eager to hear from attendees if he finishes on time, given that he has the whole session to himself. 😊
Some other sessions that caught our eye include:
- z/OS Performance Hot Topics and MVS Performance Opening. This is a must-see session for us at every SHARE.
- IBM SMF Explorer – The Modern Way to Work with SMF Records. This was originally called SMFpy, and was included as a Statement of Direction in the z/OS 2.5 announcement. With SMF in the session title, how can you go wrong?
- Intro to WLM Management of CICS and IMS Workloads. We still encounter many sites that manage their transaction managers using WLM velocity goals, rather than transaction-level goals. If you work in one of those sites, you should attend this session by Peter Enrico to see if it is time for a change of strategy.
- Installing z/OS V2.5 Using z/OSMF Software Management. IBM’s move to replace CustomPac-driven ServerPac installs with z/OSMF-driven installs has been the topic of great debate. If you have not tried the new z/OSMF method yet, check out this session with Kurt Quackenbush (Mr. SMP/E) so you know what the future holds for you.
- A DR Test a Day Keeps Downtime Away. This session my Mike Shorkend is always very popular and loaded with helpful tips. With dire predictions of hacking and ransomware attacks arriving by the hour, this might be an excellent time to pick up some tips on improving your resiliency.
- A Different “Weigh” to Define LPAR Weights. Another customer-presented session. In this one, Jim Horne shares his experiences and tips when it comes to setting up your LPARs. This could be a very timely session for anyone considering a CPU upgrade in the foreseeable future (wink, wink).
- Just Say No: A Case for Eliminating I/O Priority Management. If you have followed IBM’s recommendation and enabled WLM I/O Priority management, come along to hear John Baker’s case for disabling it.
- Introducing IBM z/OS Change Tracker for z/OS V2.5! A brand new z/OS feature. This definitely sounds like something that would be of interest to any system programmer. Wouldn’t it be great to have a tool that proves that you really didn’t change anything!
- LNL: Insights You Can Gain from Integrated Visibility Across All Types of RMF/SMF Data. Free lunch AND you get to listen to award-winning presenter Todd Havecost talk about getting more value out of your SMF data – what more could one ask for?
These are just a subset – there are enough interesting sessions to keep you going for weeks.
Finally, we have a tip for adding sessions to your ‘My Schedule’ on the slayte website. You might expect this to be obvious, but it took me a while to find it:
- Logon to the event website (share.slayte.com)
- Select Technical Agenda in the left pane
- Find a session that looks interesting
- Click on View, over to the right of the session title, to see the session description
- In the session description, click on the little green circle to have that session added to your ‘My Schedule’.
If you are going to be at SHARE, please stop Frank if you see him and say hello. And we hope that you’ll be able to attend our zRoadshow session on Wednesday afternoon.
Safe travels, enjoy the conference, and Stay Tuned!