In this issue, I’ll cover the following:
1. Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter 1999, No. 3 Summary
2. CMG Australia
3. SHARE in Chicago
1. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter, 1999, No. 3 Summary
The 1999, No. 3 TUNING Letter issue should be mailed the end of next week. Current electronic subscribers (see Cheryl’s List #28) should receive their PDF files by Monday.
The Management Issues section is included below to give you a sense of the scope and contents of the issue. The page numbers refer to pages in issue No. 3, of course. The TUNING Letter is published six times a year, with an average of forty pages per issue. See our Web page for details!
Our Great New Offering
Now for only $695 you can have ALL of the past issues of the TUNING Letter, and that price includes six MORE issues delivered via email! It’s all searchable (PDF format) and there’s an attractive multi-site price also. See page 26 for details.
OS/390
Our focus this issue is on OS/390 releases R5 through R10. (R10 will be available in September 2000.) Experiences from users say that the installation of OS/390 is becoming simpler, but only if you follow IBM’s recommendations for data set naming and organization. (It’s a big one-time effort, but well worth it.) Also see my OS/390 maintenance recommendations on page 37. The performance of UNIX, HFS files, and TCP/IP, which was greatly suffering prior to R5, has improved dramatically. A large problem for many shops occurred when vendors used the IUCV API for TCP/IP, which stopped being supported in R5. In order to obtain the best performance for any e-business, ERP, or Java application, it will pay to be on the most current release of OS/390 available. Our focus on page 13 provides user experiences, a list of facilities in each release, and my recommendations.
There is little overhead for legacy systems when moving to the new releases except for the increase in virtual storage, so I’ve included two articles (page 25 and 47) on how to reduce the virtual storage requirements of new releases. Every site should be able to provide their users with a 9MB to 11MB private region. Those who provide less are doing their users an injustice (and causing more overhead on the system).
What’s New
Amdahl has just begun to post list prices on the Web for some of their CMOS processors (see page 34). This is a GREAT boon for S/390 sites! And at $2600 per MIPS, it’s additional support for proof that the mainframe is NOT dead and is available at prices competitive to UNIX systems. The last six months has brought us announcements of almost 200 new S/390 processors ranging from 70 MIPS to 280 MIPS for a uni-processor and providing up to 3200 MIPS in a 16-way model. If you’re considering one of these models with faster, but fewer engines, I’ve listed some cautions on page 34, along with information on IBM’s latest LSPRs and their change to their benchmark jobs. Finally, an free upgrade available for DB2 V5 users is almost a necessity if you want to improve the performance of your DB2 processing, especially for ERP applications.
S/390 News
In our S/390 News on page 5 we cover the following: reminder about SAS default options for Y2K, MLPF’s LPRTOD warning, new Y2K feature of SUF (S/390 Service Update Facility), warning about moving dates backward, EREP Y2K incompatibility, problem with dynamic linklist, new location for TASID freeware tool, low utilization problem with WLM-managed batch initiators, WLM APARs relating to I/O priority management, PDSE storage problems, addition to RMF for ICF LPARs, invalid RMF data, high I/O rates due to VLF, increased storage limits in OS/390 UNIX, the latest WSC flashes (including one relating to required maintenance on OS/390 R7 to obtain the rewritten HFS facilities and another one providing OS/390 Web-Sphere recommendations), some nifty WSC Hints and Tips (including one to display formatted SMF records under ISPF), and new DB2 redbooks. Our Net section provides new URLs for HLASM and TCP/IP.
Elsewhere
Our Q&A on page 36 provides recommendations on why you would want to convert CICS programs to 31-bit and suggestions on OS/390 maintenance. In our Cheryl’s List starting on page 38, I cover the following: Y2K page URL, new S/390 processors, new LSPR results, a notice that our Quickstart policy is now available in downloadable format, notice about the closure of WLM APAR OW37742, updates on previously mentioned DB2 APARs and some nifty new DB2 redbooks, pointer to the URL that now contains all of the session handouts from the last SHARE, and more comments on IBM’s OS/390 Coexistence Policy.
CPU Chart
Our latest CPU Chart is included with this issue. This includes IBM’s G6 processors, Hitachi’s Pilot P9 models along with their new Trinium series, and Amdahl’s GS2000 models. It has been updated to include results from IBM’s revised LSPR ratings and changes to Amdahl’s GS800 series. Our CPU Chart now contains over 900 processors, and is the only CPU Chart to provide MIPS by workload in addition to the normal processor groups and MSU ratings.
2. CMG Australia
CMG Australia is fast approaching. Here’s a message from Huy Nguyen, Director of CMG Australia Ltd.
“CMGA’99 will be held at the Gold Coast International, (sunny) Queensland, Australia, on the 1st – 3rd September, 1999. This year’s conference covers up-to-date enterprise topics, both in the mainframe and open systems areas. CMGA’99 will address all the industry hot topics including E-commerce, Software Asset Management (SAM), Cost Accounting and Chargeback, Benchmarking, Parallel Sysplex, Capacity Planning, and of course Year 2000.
“In addition to the conference, there is one day dedicated to seminars presented by industry leaders. There are topics ranging from “Practical Considerations of Going to OS/390 Workload Manager” by Steve Samson to ‘TCP/IP Performance” by Adrian Cockroft of Sun Microsystems.
“CMGA also has a hot online magazine for members from our Web site. It contains current topics and issues that members need and wish to know.”
Conference Information: http://www.cmga.org.au/cmga99/info.html
CMGA Conference Program: http://www.cmga.org.au/cmga99/program.html
CMGA Pre-Conference Seminars: http://www.cmga.org.au/cmga99/seminars.html
CMGA Journal: http://journal.cmga.org.au
3. SHARE in Chicago
I’m just about to head for Chicago for the SHARE conference. I’ll be giving two sessions while I’m there. Please stop by and say hello.
0080 – Is Performance Tuning Dead? – Monday, 9:30am
2543 – Cheryl’s Hot Flashes – Friday, 9:30am
If you’re concerned about performance and capacity planning, I’d like to invite you to join our EWCP (Enterprise Wide Capacity and Performance) project. Our project opening is session 2500 on Monday at 1:30pm. If you think you’d like to be involved in the project, please join our working sessions starting Sunday at 3pm.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned!