Subscribers to Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter can find the latest 114-page issue, 2023 No.3, on our publications website. In this issue, you will find the following articles:
- Our Recovery at Scale article in Tuning Letter 2023 No. 2 caused quite a stir, with numerous readers commenting that it made them aware of challenges they didn’t even know they had. Well, the latest installment in this series of articles (one reviewer called them “Frank’s Horror novel”) is unlikely to leave you in a better humor than the last one. Another one of our reviewers stated “If someone answered YES (to whether they can handle the challenges in your article) he would be lying.” This time around we discuss Logical Data Corruption – how would you detect it, how long would it take you to detect it, and how would you determine the scope of the corruption, and how would you recover. One of our collaborators said “We haven’t had an incident to experience the situation described in your article (yet). I suppose it is a matter of time.” The time to start preparing for the inevitable is now.
- IBM started shipping z/OS 3.1 at the end of September. We covered the enhancements that were previewed back in February in the first two Tuning Letter issues of this year. However, as you know, the Preview typically includes just a subset of the enhancements in the new release. What’s New in z/OS – 3.1 Enhancements Part 3 completes the picture, providing information about the enhancements that were added as part of the formal z/OS V3.1 announcement, or perhaps not mentioned in any official announcement material. Many shops are getting ready for their year-end change freeze, and using the time to prepare detailed plans for the Infrastructure teams for 2024. Before you make a final decision one way or the other about whether to include z/OS 3.1 in your 2024 plan, we recommend taking a few minutes to review these these articles so you can make an informed decision about when to move to z/OS 3.1.
- One of the things that really jumped out at us as we worked on the latest Recovery at Scale article was how inter-connected z/OS has become. And not only with other platforms in your company, but also with Cloud services and other businesses and government bodies you interact with. That increased interconnectivity is reflected in the growing interest in IBM’s z/OS Connect product. This product was certainly new to me, and I get the impression that the volume of requests being handled is still relatively low – which makes this the ideal time to get up to speed on understanding and managing its performance. And who better to explain the available metrics and how to interpret them than our friend Todd Havekost from IntelliMagic. Todd kindly penned the z/OS Connect EE: Strategic On-ramp to the Mainframe article for us. Not only does Todd describe the z/OS Connect Extended Edition SMF records, he also offers suggestions on where you might find related information that is not included in the z/OS Connect SMF records. If z/OS Connect has a growing footprint in your z/OS environment, use Todd’s article to stay ahead of the performance posse.
- This issue’s User Experiences and Tips article addresses two topics, at least one of which is almost definitely applicable to most of our readers. I had the opportunity to attend Rob Scott’s excellent SDSF Hidden Treasures presentation at the recent GSE UK conference. I’ve been using SDSF for a long time (a really long time!), so I was amazed at how many little functions and useful commands are lurking in SDSF that I was completely unaware of. I don’t spend nearly as much of my time in SDSF as I used to, but even with my limited use, Rob’s presentation will save me time and keystrokes – if you use SDSF, you definitely should check our Rob’s presentation, no matter how long you’ve been using it. The other ‘tip’ in this issue is a list of sources of information related to IPCS and Problem Determination in z/OS in general. If you are new to IPCS, you should definitely find some websites to add to your bookmarks. If you are an ‘old hand’ with dump reading and navigating around IPCS, we encourage you to make sure you pass those skills along to our colleagues before you head for the country club.
- Of course, we also have our review of IBM z/OS-related APARs from the last quarter. The News article provides our list of the APARs we believe warrant your attention. It also includes a review of changes to the handling of IBM announcement materials, new and updated IBM Techdocs materials, links to helpful websites, and information about upcoming conferences.
You can find the full Table of Contents here. We hope you find this information helpful and timely. Please let us know if there are specific topics you would like to see in a future Tuning Letter article.
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