Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter

We emailed Tuning Letter 2016 No. 2 to our subscribers on August 6. This issue covered IBM's recent Continuous Delivery strategy, provided an introduction to Blockchain, introduced IBM's Doc Buddy app for iPhone and Android that lets you look up most z/OS messages even if you don't have access to the Internet, together with Brocade's David Lytle we shed light on the dark magic of FICON Buffer Credits and explained why this topic will become more important in the future, plus all our regular...

We had a great week at SHARE in Atlanta last week, and with four presentations, we were busier than usual.  We've just posted our presentations on our website.  If you have questions, please let us know. Session 19155 - Benchmark every week? Why? Are you crazy?  Cheryl describes benchmarking techniques. If you're a newbie to capacity planning, performance, or chargeback, this session is a must. And if you're sure you know what you're doing, come see how the z13 might be changing things for...

We're madly finishing up the second issue of Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter and also creating our presentations for SHARE in Atlanta that starts on July 31.  Busy, busy, busy!  If you'll be at SHARE, you can find us at the following sessions: 8/1, Mon, 12:30-1:30 pm, Room A706 - Session 19077 - Lunchtime BOF: z/OS Requirements, Cheryl 8/2, Tue, 1:45-2:45 pm, Room L401 - Session 19155 - Benchmark every week? Why? Are you crazy?  Cheryl describes benchmarking techniques. If you're a newbie to...

Readers of Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter will be familiar with Alain Maneville, from IBM France. Alain co-wrote an article about HiperDispatch for the Tuning Letter, and is also the author of the LPAR Design tool.  The LPAR Design tool allows you to enter your LPAR configuration and model the impact that changes in an LPAR’s weight or its number of engines will have on the CPC HiperDispatch topology.  We highly recommend the use of this tool if you want to optimize your HiperDispatch topology....

New Partnership with H&W Computer Systems Watson & Walker has formed a partnership with business software company H&W Computer Systems to develop and deliver new software products. We will supply knowledge and direction while H&W will focus on developing the software and supporting it. "We're really pleased that H&W will be collaborating with us to produce software for the mainframe community based on the decades of knowledge and experience of both our firms,” said Cheryl....

Frank is in Munich this week, attending the Technical University conference.  The agenda looks really exciting, with sessions on the latest enhancements to WLM and RMF, a load of sessions about controlling software costs, hot topics like Blockchain and Spark, the latest hardware (z13s and DS8880), Parallel Sysplex (of course!), Bob Rogers’ ever-popular Sysprog Goody Bag, Harald Bender's four sessions on the zEvent Mobile application, and many many others.  Frank told me that he needs to master...

Cheryl and I just finished taking part in the 2.5-day Nordic GSE 2016 conference in Reykjavik.  We really enjoyed the conference.  Everyone made us feel so welcome, and it was great to have a chance to finally meet people that have subscribed to the Tuning Letter for many years.  The organization was flawless, and they had dinners organized every night and tours this weekend for those that were able to stay for the weekend.  There were loads of excellent presentations, great support from many...

On May 13, 2016, IBM Flash10863 was updated to inform users that all internet delivery of z/OS product and service orders must use a secured download method by May 22. A summary of the flash was provided on May 5 by Marna Walle in her SHARE blog, “Are you electronic delivery secure?”.  Essentially, you can no longer use standard FTP for obtaining software, but must instead use FTPS, HTTPS, or “store and forward”.  The encrypted options have been available for years now, so hopefully you have...

In our Cheryl's List #190 (February 24), we sent a survey to our readers to determine how extensively some of the newer z/OS technologies were being accepted. The survey is still open if you'd like to take it or see the original questions - at www.surveymonkey.com/r/RJ57FBL. Thanks so much to the 220+ people who have already responded, the table below shows the results of the survey. This list is sorted in ascending order based on  'Currently using', so the least exploited features are listed...

We emailed Tuning Letter 2016 No. 1 to our subscribers on May 3. This issue covered the new IBM z13s, a summary of enhancements added to z13 as part of the z13s announcement, an analysis of IBM’s LinuxONE strategy, something old and something new for SMF (a description of enhancements to SMF records in z/OS 2.1, and a description of the soon-to-be-delivered SMF Streaming capability), a review of the updated zPDT 2016 Sysplex Enhancements Redbook, analysis of our recent z Systems Technology...