In this Cheryl’s List:
1. z Systems Technology Exploitation Survey
2. SHARE 2016 in San Antonio
3. Compuware White Paper
4. HIPER APAR OA49474
5. LPARDesign Spreadsheet
1. z Systems Technology Exploitation Survey
Who doesn’t love to know what their peers are up to, and how they are positioned vis-a-vis other mainframe customers? Not us, certainly!
Last week, we sent out a request to complete our z Systems Technology Exploitation survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RJ57FBL). The uptake was very positive – thank you to all that completed the survey. We will provide a summary of the results at our zRoadshow session at SHARE in San Antonio next week, and also in the next issue of Cheryl’s List. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, there is still time.
In addition to providing you with valuable insight into what other z/OS sites are doing, we will be using this data to help us to decide what topics we should include in future Tuning Letters. Our mission is to help our readers get the best value possible from your z/OS systems. Knowing what capabilities you are using today, and which new technologies you are not embracing yet, ensures that we are providing help where it is most needed.
2. SHARE 2016 in San Antonio
As I write this, I’m getting ready for the SHARE conference in San Antonio next week. As always, this conference is chock full of interesting sessions. Despite the fact that Cheryl and I both attend, and we work together to cover as many sessions as possible, there are still sessions that we would love to see, but that we are unable to get to. For that reason, we sign up for the SHARE Live service. This gives us the ability to ‘attend’ some key sessions after the conference, and also attend (in person) other interesting sessions that are on at the same time. If you are unable to physically attend the conference, signing up for SHARE Live gives you access to a recording of a subset of the conference sessions. You can get more information at http://www.share.org/salive.
If you are interested, the following are just some of the sessions that we think will be especially interesting at this SHARE:
Monday, 15:15-16:15, Session 18050, zNextGen Project Opening and Keynote: z Systems – It’s Been a Bumpy Ride, by Paul Robichaux. [Editor’s Note: I didn’t have a chance to listen to the preview of this presentation, but I did listen to Paul’s fascinating ‘z Systems – Beyond the Bumps’ presentation, available on the New Era website at http://www.newera-info.com/PR1.html. Highly recommended for anyone that is interested in technology and our future, mainframe or otherwise.]
Monday, 15:15-16:15, Session 18626, Workload Management (WLM) Update for z13, z/OS V2.2 and V2.1, by Horst Sinram and Andreas Henicke.
Tuesday, 10:00-11:00, Session 18018, What’s new in z/OSMF 2.2?, by Joey Zhu.
Tuesday 15:15-16:15 and 16:30-17:30, Sessions 18321 and 18322, The new IBM z13s and z13 GA2 Updates Part 1 of 2: Server Structure, z/Architecture and Crypto Enhancements, Operating System Support, and Implementation Considerations, by Harv Emery.
Wednesday, 08:300-09:30, Session 18455, SDSF Product Update for z/OS 2.2, by Gary Puchkoff.
Wednesday, 10:00-11:00, Session 18345, SHARE Live!: Achieving Significant Capacity Improvements on the IBM z13: User Experience, by Todd Havekost (our article about Holistic Capacity Planning in Tuning Letter 2015 No. 4 was based on Todd’s experiences).
Thursday, 08:30-09:30, Session 18597, RMF: The Latest and Greatest, by Peter Muench.
Thursday, 08:30-09:30, Session 18456, Containing MLC Costs For Mobile and New Workloads, by Cheryl Watson and Frank Kyne.
Friday, 10:00-11:00, Session 18017, SHARE Live!: The Cheryl and Frank zRoadshow, by Cheryl Watson and Frank Kyne.
Friday, 11:15-12:30, Session 18002, Bit Bucket x’33’, by Tom Conley, Ed Jaffe, Sam Knutson, and Skip Robinson. SHARE just wouldn’t be SHARE without closing out the week at the Bit Bucket session.
That is just a small sample of the interesting sessions that we will be attending next week. We’re sure there are many others, and we’ll be busy between now and then, scouring the agenda to find the sessions that will provide the most interesting information for you.
3. Compuware White Paper
Since Chris O’Malley took over as CEO of Compuware, they have really been on a tear. They announced the alliance with BMC. They have the well-regarded and supported annual CIO Mainframe Survey. And they have been very vocal about the vital role that the mainframe plays and the need for mainframe customers to invest in education and tooling.
Compuware’s most recent White Paper, Mainstreaming the Mainframe, makes very interesting reading. It describes the history of the mainframe from the perspective of how it ended up where it is today; with its own unique skill requirements and tools. But as the article discusses, the mainframe’s data and applications can’t, and shouldn’t, just be moved to another platform. Rather, their value to the enterprise should be recognized and maximized. It then goes on to propose an alternative for the future, where the DevOps tool set and staff are expanded to manage the mainframe alongside the enterprise’s distributed platforms.
This paper makes very interesting reading for technicians. But I believe that it is even more important that application architects and senior IT management review it. The paper is only 6 pages long, so it doesn’t require a large investment of your time. But the concepts that it puts forward could radically alter the future of the mainframe in your enterprise.
4. HIPER APAR OA49474
Tuning Letter 2015 No. 4 mentioned a HIPER APAR, OA49474. The APAR describes a problem whereby a flood of SRBs can be assigned the scheduler’s dispatching priority. If the scheduler happens to be running at dispatching priority of FF at the time, those SRBs would be end up also having a dispatching priority of FF.
Just after we sent that Tuning Letter, we received an email from one of our readers to let us know that they had been impacted by the problem on two of their systems. They found that when the SRBs had a dispatching priority of FF and the defined capacity was being hit, even system tasks were not dispatched, resulting in serious problems.
This can be a difficult and time-consuming problem to diagnose. We recommend that you install the PTF for is APAR on your systems as quickly as possible (fixes are available for z/OS 1.13, 2.1, and 2.2). You should also read the APAR text for information about how to diagnose the problem.
5. LPARDesign Spreadsheet
The HiperDispatch FAQ in Tuning Letter 2015 No. 4 mentioned the LPARDesign tool that was written by Alain Maneville from IBM France (Alain and his colleague Maxime Rochemir co-authored the HiperDispatch article). The tool is used to model how changes in an LPAR’s relative weight can impact the number of Vertical High, Vertical Medium, and Vertical Low CPs and zIIPs each LPAR will have. You can download the tool from the WLM website at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/wlm/WLM_Further_Info_Tools.html#Design.
As mentioned in the article, IBM can change the HiperDispatch algorithms at any time. Alain does his best to update the tool to reflect any relevant changes. However, there is no mechanism to inform people that have previously downloaded a copy of the spreadsheet that it has been updated. Therefore, any time you plan to use the tool, we recommend that you go to the website above and download the latest version.
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
====================================================
Thanks for subscribing to Cheryl’s List!
Please note that this email service is not intended to match or even summarize the large scope and volume of information we provide in Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter. The Tuning Letter is published four times a year and includes four PDF issues delivered via email along with an annually updated and searchable DVD of all back issues since 1991. A single-site subscription rate is $1260. Multi-site subscriptions are also available. See www.watsonwalker.com/publications/tuningletter for details. Past tables of contents are at www.watsonwalker.com/publications/tuningletter/tables-of-contents, and some FULL SAMPLE ISSUES can be found at www.watsonwalker.com/publications/tuningletter/sample-issues.
If you obtained this from someone else and would like your own copy in the future, just go to our Web page at http://www.watsonwalker.com and fill out the form under “Cheryl’s List.” That signs you up, and it’s free! It’s a one-way list, from us to you. If you send a “reply,” it will come just to us, not to the other members of the list. We never share your address or information with anyone else. To unsubscribe or change your email address, use the Web page and password mentioned in your welcome message. Or, you can send an email request to admin@watsonwalker.com. Past Cheryl’s List issues, starting with issue #1 from December of 1996 can be obtained at www.watsonwalker.com/archivesb.html.
In Cheryl’s List, we provide updates to our full newsletter, Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter. We’ll also let you know if anything of importance has been added to our website, and tell you about our other products and services, including BoxScore and GoalTender, our two software offerings.