Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter

Subscribers to Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter can find the 149-page Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter, 2021 No. 1, issue on our publications website (https://watsonwalkerpublications.com/).  The last quarter has been an action-packed one, so regardless of which group you work in, we believe that you'll find information in this issue to make your job a little easier or a little more interesting.  In this issue we have: The latest installment in Todd Havekost's series of articles about what you can...

Here at Watson & Walker we love SMF data.  And judging by the volumes of it that most z/OS sites generate, we are not the only ones.  SMF can tell you just about anything you could want to know about what is happening on your systems.  The downside of having that vast sea of information is that it takes up lots of space - we have clients that generate over 2.5TB of SMF data per day.  And if you are like nearly every other z/OS customer, you send at least some of that data to distributed...

In case you have missed it, effective April 30, 2021, IBM is removing support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 from its software download servers, and all connection attempts after that date will have to use TLS 1.2. If you currently download files using HTTPS, then you should not be affected.  However, if you use FTPS to download the files, then you will need to make some changes to your system.   The details are too long to go into here, so you should refer to Marna Walle’s excellent SHARE Blog post...

[vc_row][vc_column][us_single_image image="2647"][vc_column_text]In this crazy world in which we find ourselves, it is easy to lose track of familiar milestones - for example, the annual SHARE Winter conference.  If you haven't been keeping abreast of developments in SHARE, there are a lot of things about this year's Winter SHARE that you should be aware of: It starts today!  And it will run until March 24th. It is virtual.  So, no travel costs, and no 4-hour flights sitting beside someone...

Subscribers to Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter can find the latest, 123-page, issue on our publications website (https://watsonwalkerpublications.com/).  In her Cover page introduction, Cheryl said “You'll find this newsletter to be jam-packed with so many tuning recommendations that I think it will be one of our most popular issues ever.” We hope that you will agree. Specifically, in this issue we have: A ‘News’ section that is even more information-loaded than ever.  Some of the topics that it...

Subscribers to Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter can find the latest, 140-page, issue on our publications website (https://watsonwalkerpublications.com/).  No matter what your job role (or 'persona', to use the 'in' terminology) is, if you work with z/OS, we’re sure that you will find interesting and valuable information in this issue.  Specifically, we have: Information about the new Z Sort Acceleration function on the z15. Exactly how does it work?  What performance benefits does it provide? ...

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...