Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter

Free GSE UK Conference Some of our favorite times have been at the GSE (Guide SHARE Europe) UK region conference. Due to Covid-19, they’ve gone to a no-charge Virtual Conference that is being held between November 2 and 12, 2020. They do ask that you donate to a charity, but that’s only fair. They expect a total of 120 sessions over the two weeks, although not all sessions are finalized yet. They hope to return to a traditional in-person conference in November 2021. Don’t wait - register now...

IBM Red Alert We think this is important enough to let all of our subscribers know about. If you've downloaded HOLDDATA between 1:15AM ET on Sept 10 through 7:30PM ET on Sept 11, you should redo it, as shown below in IBM's recent Red Alert. Red Alerts: Red Alert / z/OS family - all hardware, OS, and related software / Enhanced HOLDDATA for z/OS is incomplete Affected Domain All users of Enhanced HOLDDATA for z/OS who downloaded Enhanced HOLDDATA between 10 September 2020 at time 06:15 GMT and...

Subscribers to Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter can find the latest, 158-page, issue on our publications website (https://watsonwalkerpublications.com/).  No matter what your job role is, if you work with z/OS, we're sure that you will find interesting and valuable information in this issue.  Specifically, we have: Timely tips for anyone considering a CPC purchase or upgrade.  The Watson & Walker team has over 200 years of mainframe experience, including time in IBM, in other vendors, and...

SHARE is Now Virtual (and Cheap!) Note: Temporarily paused due to technical difficulties! Will notify you of new schedule when it becomes available. For only $199 (SHARE members & faculty) or $399 (non-members) or free (students) you can virtually attend SHARE this month. We don't understand why everybody isn't taking advantage of this great training. If you've never been to SHARE, this is a great opportunity to see why we consider it a must-have for our own education. You can find more...

My, how our world has changed in the last few months.  I keep feeling like I woke up in that Outbreak movie, and am expecting Dustin Hoffman to show up in a hazmat suit any moment. Well, if you have spent the last few weeks watching reruns of Outbreak, Pandemic, Contagion, and countless other depressing movies, we have great news for you.  If you have been hiding under a stone, you might not be aware that IntelliMagic started their series of FREE zAcademy sessions back on April 16.  Our new...

We are delighted to announce that the latest issue of Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter, as well as the May 2020 CPU Chart, are both available to subscribers on our publications site now. Tuning Letter 2020 No. 1 contains: A description of the latest changes to IBM's Tailored Fit Pricing model. In Tuning Letter 2019 No. 4, Cheryl described the benefits and drawbacks of IBM's Tailored Fit Pricing option. Cheryl felt that TFP, like nearly all pricing options, would be a good fit for some sites, but...

The latest issue of Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter, 2020 No. 1, is now ready.  However, our publishers, like many of our subscribers, are experiencing unprecedented volumes and demands for their services.  As a result, the availability of the Tuning Letter on our publications site will be delayed until May 18th.  This issue contains articles that are particularly timely for anyone that is considering a CPC upgrade at the moment, so we wanted to get it out to our readers as quickly as possible. ...

These are scary and hectic times that we are ALL going through.  No matter where you live or what you do, your life is being impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.  With all of this going on, it is easy to lose track of less immediate issues, such as the upcoming End-of-Support dates for several key IBM products, specifically: COBOL V5 (both 5.1 and 5.2) reached end of support on April 30th, 2020. Db2 V11 reaches end of support on September 30th, 2020. z/OS V2.2 reaches end of support on...

It seems that every new news cycle brings yet more evidence that the world is falling apart in front of our eyes.  In times like this, it is up to our readers to make sure that the systems that support their companies and their customers do not fall apart.  To help you achieve that, Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter 2019 No. 4, now available on our Publications website provides the following articles: Cheryl's Guide to buying a CPU upgrade.  Judging by IBM's fourth quarter results, and the number...

Good news for all our Tuning Letter subscribers - the 131-page 2019 No. 3 issue of the Tuning Letter is now available on our Publications website.  This issue includes: IBM announced the z15 family of mainframe processors on September 12th, 2019.  On first glance, the announcement looked like a rehash of all the IT industry buzzwords du jour - Cloud, Crypto, Analytics, DevOps, Open Source, and so on.  The z15 has many security-related enhancements, but for the rest of us, it initially seemed...