Subscribers to Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter can find the latest 94-page issue, 2024 No.2, on our publications website. In this issue, you will find the following:
- A ‘passing of the baton’ letter from Cheryl to our subscribers, many of whom have been with us since Cheryl and Tom launched Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter back in 1991. In addition to looking back at the success of the Tuning Letter, now in its 34th uninterrupted year of publication, Cheryl introduces Amanda Hendley, the Managing Editor at Planet Mainframe, and the person that will drive the Tuning Letter forward to even greater success in the future.
- An Introduction letter from Amanda. For Tuning Letter readers that might not have followed the progress of Planet Mainframe, Amanda briefly describes their history and plans for the future. If you thought that Planet Mainframe was ‘just’ a website, I encourage you to read Amanda’s letter to see the full scope of their offerings. Amanda and her colleagues in the Planet Mainframe team are going to be key members of the Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter community, just as Tom and Cheryl have been for the last 34 years, so take the time to get to know them, and please give them the same great support you have given us.
- While on the topic of transitioning the Tuning Letter to Planet Mainframe, please take a couple of minutes to read the FAQ about the upcoming changes. We aim to keep the move to Planet Mainframe as seamless as possible, but some changes are unavoidable, so the FAQ is intended to explain what will change and what will stay the same.
- Given that this is the last Tuning Letter issue where Cheryl will be the owner and editor of the Tuning Letter, what could be more fitting than a What’s New in SMF? article? Cheryl is known as The Queen of SMF, so to commemorate this event, we have a list of the enhancements to SMF in z/OS 2.5 and 3.1. Not just any old list, but 22 pages of concise information about the changes to the many MVS-based SMF records, including information about which releases and/or APARs are required for each change. If you are Mister or Miss SMF in your site, put an afternoon (or an evening, with your feet up and a cold beer or a nice glass of wine) aside to see what new information is available to give you even more insights into what is happening in your z/OS systems.
- We know all our readers look forward to Todd Havekost’s articles in every Tuning Letter issue. Todd has a wealth of technical and performance experience, he flies around the IntelliMagic reports like Tom Cruise in Top Gun 17, and his experience with IntelliMagic’s many clients gives him an unmatched industry-level perspective of what is good or bad, and ‘normal’ or ‘not normal’. However, we decided that Todd was due a hard-earned break from my dumb questions, so his colleague John Ticic kindly stepped in to partner with us on this issue’s article. While System Assist Processors and I/O Processors might not be black boxes (yes, I know they live in black boxes, but you know what I mean), they are certainly opaque. So John kindly spent days researching product manuals, SHARE presentations, Redbooks, and SMF records, as well as trying things out on IntelliMagic’s own z CPC, to produce an article that brings the light of day to this mysterious part of z/OS. If I/O performance or configuration planning are your responsibility, or if you would just like to know more about z/OS in general, make sure to read John’s excellent SAPs, the ‘Other’ Specialty Engine article.
- Of course, we also have our regular helping of our ever-popular User Experiences and Tips. In this issue we have:
- ‘Distributing DFSMShsm Java hbackup Requests’
- ‘DDF Considerations for Migration to a Sub-cap CPC’
- ‘Have You Tried This Yet?’
- ‘Identifying Unique Job Instances’
- And to round things off, the News article provides a meaty list of recent New Function APARs for z/OS, CICS, Db2, and MQ, plus info about updated CPS tools from IBM, and information about upcoming user 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.
If you are not a current Tuning Letter subscriber, see our website for information about subscription rates and the ordering process.
We hope you find this issue educational and entertaining. And remember that we love hearing from our readers, so feel free to contact us any time. Take care, and bye for now.
Frank