Back in September I was talking about the 2006 version of the Arcati Yearbook – saying what a great source of information it was for mainframers. Well, the good news is that the 2007 version is now available for download. It’s free and you can get it from www.arcati.com/newyearbook07.
It’s a 2763KB download, and the PDF file describes itself as “the independent annual guide for users of IBM mainframe systems”. The Yearbook contains 147 fact-filled pages (with a few adverts – that’s why it’s free to download I guess!) – up from 124 last year.
As in previous years, the Yearbook contains pages of information and in-depth mainframe-related articles. It also contains the results of this year’s survey of mainframers.
The Vendor Directory lists vendors, consultants, and service providers in the z/OS and OS/390 environment. There is a media guide for IBM mainframers, which contains information resources, publications, and user groups for the z/OS environment. Next is a glossary of terminology, which provides definitions for some mainframe-related terms. The final part of this long and detailed section is the technical information, which is subtitled, “Hardware tales – z9, z990, z890; mainframe hardware timeline”.
The articles in the Yearbook have all been written by mainframe experts. These include: “Mainframe management: where ITIL fits in” by Ralph Crosby of BMC Software and Carl Greiner of Ovum; “Problems with worldwide pricing variations” by Barry Graham and taken from a recent Mainframe Market Bulletin; “What has IBM been doing in 2006? Spending, spending, spending!” by Mark Wilson, a mainframe consultant; “Transforming the economics of data center operations” by Steve Revell of ASG; “Securing automated file transfers to and from z/OS” by Kalle Jaaskelainen from SSH Communications Security; “Harnessing the power of legacy systems” by DataDirect Technologies’ Andy Gutteridge; “The buffer pool: change control for DB2 access paths” by database guru Craig S Mullins; “A new alternative for modernizing security” by Barry Schrager of JME (and original designer and primary author of ACF2); “Firefighting versus fire prevention” by Osman Aykut of TRILOGexpert; and “Modernize your systems with XML – quickly and easily!” by Peter Prager of Canam Software Labs.
It’s worth downloading a copy of the Yearbook simply for the survey results. It’s always useful to know what other mainframe sites are up to, and the Yearbook provides a snapshot of System z users’ current hardware and software configuration and their plans and concerns for the months ahead. The 86 users included in the survey were taken from a variety of locations with a range of hardware installed.
Interestingly, the majority of respondents believe that their Unix and Windows acquisition and support costs are growing faster than those on the System z, and they continue to use the mainframe as their principal repository for corporate data. I’ll leave you to read the full conclusions at your leisure.
Anyway, well worth a look and, as I mentioned above, it is completely free.
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