Guide Share Europe annual conference

The Guide Share Europe (GSE) UK Annual Conference is taking place on 13-14 November at Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, Near Towcester, Northamptonshire NN12 8QH, UK.

Sponsors this year include IBM, Computacenter, PKWARE, CA Technologies, Attachmate Suse, Vanguard, Compuware, GT Software, RSM Partners, Blenheim Software, Sett, and Red Hat. And there will be over 30 vendors in the associated exhibition.

There’s the usual amazing range of streams – and, to be honest, there are a number of occasions when I would like to be in two or more places at once over the two days. The streams are: CICS, IMS, DB2, Enterprise Security, Large Systems Working Group, Network Management Working Group, zLinux, Storage Management, TWS (Tivoli Workload Schedular), Automation, New Technologies, Software Asset Management, MQ, Application Development, and Assembler Training.

There are also keynotes from Mark Anzani, VP and CTO for System z at IBM. And there’s the not-to-be-missed “Dealing with difficult people” session from Resli Costabell.

That means that at this year’s conference there will be well over 140 hours of education covering most aspects of mainframe technology – more than last year. This year, there will be 14 streams of ten sessions over the two days, plus Assembler Training, plus four keynotes.

There is still time to register, and the organizers are expecting the daily total of delegates to exceed 300 – as it did last year.

A number of the streams have 101 sessions at different times during the two days to give newcomers and those unfamiliar with parts of the mainframe infrastructure a basic understanding of the that mainframe technology and how it works.

You can find out more details about the conference at www.gse.org.uk/tyc/.

If you’re still debating whether to go, let me recommend it to you. The quality of presentations is always excellent. And the networking opportunities are brilliant. If you are going, I look forward to seeing you there.

2011 at iTech-Ed Ltd

Well, as another year comes partying to an end, and everyone stops checking their e-mails on their smartphones or tablets and finally starts to let their hair down and enjoy a glass of something alcoholic, I thought I’d review the year through the lens of my company – iTech-Ed Ltd (www.itech-ed.com).

January started the year, as most Januaries do, with the publication of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. The 2011 edition is still available for download from www.arcati.com/newyearbook11. The 2012 edition will be available in a couple of weeks. As always the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook  includes its annual user survey, an up-to-date directory of vendors and consultants, a media guide, a strategy section with papers on mainframe trends and directions, a glossary of terminology, and a technical specification section. And each year, it gets downloaded by around 15,000 mainframe professionals.

February saw the launch of the new series of Virtual IMS user group meetings. The user group is now sponsored by Fundi Software and hosted at www.fundi.com/virtualims. The first speaker was Jim Martin from Fundi Software, whose presentation was called, “Solving the problem when IMS isn't the cause”.

In March, everyone seemed to be talking about cloud computing.

April’s meeting of the Virtual IMS user group included a presentation from Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software. His talk was called, “Simplify and improve database administration by leveraging your storage system”.

In May, Mark Lillycrop, Director of Arcati Ltd and I took part in a ‘Scheduled Chat’ in the ‘House of Mainframe’ section of CA’s May Mainframe Madness month. May also witnessed the launch of the new Virtual CICS user group – again sponsored by Fundi – with its Web site at www.fundi.com/virtualcics. Our opening presentation was from Fundi’s Jim Martin talking about, “Solving the problem when CICS isn't the cause”.

In June, I was asked by ITToolbox to lead a discussion in the Data Center Infrastructure section of their Web site. At the Virtual IMS user group meeting, Gary Weinhold a Systems Engineer and Verna Bartlett Head of Marketing with Data Kinetics talked about, “MSU reduction due to in-memory table management with (any) IMS applications”.

In July, I was selected for the Destination z (www.destinationz.org/) member spotlight. The Virtual CICS user group saw a presentation from Jeff Geminder, Principal Consultant with CA, called, “Cross-enterprise application performance monitoring and CICS-specific drill-down: approaches to finding the performance problem needle in the heterogeneous haystack”. I was also a guest blogger on the Destination z Web site.

In August, my article CICS Top Performance and Tuning Issues was published in z/Journal. I had a guest blog published on Destination z. The Virtual IMS user group had a presentation from Scott Quillicy, CEO and Founder of SQData. His talk was called, “IMS replication for high-availability”.

For the September meeting, Charles Jones, from the Product Management group at Rocket Software, gave a talk to the Virtual CICS user group called, “CICS TS 4.2: Leveraging event processing and high-performance Java”. I wrote a guest blog for the Destination z Web site.

October saw a presentation from Rosemary Galvan, Principal Software Consultant – IMS, with BMC. Her talk to the Virtual IMS user group was called, “Database Performance – Could Have, Should Have, Would Have”. I had a guest blog on the Destination z Web site.

In November, my Mainframe Update blog at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com was a finalist in the Computer Weekly Social Media Awards 2011. Also in November the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook user survey was launched. And Eugene S Hudders, president of C\TREK Corp, gave a presentation to the Virtual CICS user group called, “CICS TS Performance – Tuning LSR Pools”. I also had a guest blog on the Destination z Web site.

And finally, in December, I had an article entitled, Ways to Save Money and Improve IT Services published in z/Journal. The final speaker for the year at the Virtual IMS user group was Suzie Wendler, a Consulting IT Specialist in the IBM IMS Advanced Technical Skills organization, who talked about, “IMS V12”. I chaired a webinar for SQData entitled, “How Important is Continous Availability of Critical Applications to Your Company?”And there was a guest blog on the Destination z Web site.

What else, well apart from a full year of writing and consultancy work,  I was made an IBM Champion for the third year running.

Looking forward to 2012, we have the launch of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook in January, and a presentation from Andrew Smithson of IBM Hursley on CICS Transaction Gateway V8.1 for the Virtual CICS user group.

If you do celebrate it, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I’ll be back blogging in January.
Trevor Eddolls

Mainframe chatter

Mark Lillycrop, Director of Arcati Ltd, and I were asked to take part in CA’s May Mainframe Madness. We were part of a ‘Scheduled Chat’ in their ‘House of Mainframe’ section on 5 May. It was enjoyable chatting to other mainframe professionals and it was very interesting the direction the conversation took.

Clearly, there were two main strands to the conversation. One was the difficulty of convincing (converting?) non-mainframers of the potential of the mainframe. The second was the success of z/Linux at installations.

Looking at z/Linux success first, Murray Theriault told us: “I think what sold it for me was the idea that I could put up 100 z/Linux machines on the same box and have a very small footprint, not to mention no power costs”. Similarly, Marie Kennard added: “Same here – the app we’re putting onto zLinux currently runs on dozens of boxes, most of which are reaching EOL and needed replacing”.  Someone else reminded the group about Aliantz in Australia, saying that they’d “flipped their whole farm to z/Linux in a weekend with little to no outtage”. This led CA’s Reg Harbeck to comment: “zLinux seems to be taking over a decade to become an overnight sucess...”

So it appears that z/Linux is making headway in those sites that already have a mainframe and Linux servers. And it’s definitely the case that the arguments for doing so are irrefutable. Moving some of the applications or even all of them from other Linux platforms is a positive step and the sites doing so are going to see huge benefits in terms of performance, reliability, and, of course, cost savings both in man-power and outages.

But even the success stories seem to be the result of a battle between mainframers and management whose model of computing and whose expectations are the result of using Microsoft Windows. A lot of the hour long discussion was spent on how to get managers in organizations that have mainframes to appreciate what they have, and to understand how to exploit the mainframes potential. The truth is that there’s an even bigger battle to be fought and that’s to get IT people and IT managers at non-mainframe sites to appreciate the opportunities that a mainframe brings.

During the discussion it was said that ‘good news’ mainframe stories don’t make much of an appearance in the IT press. If they did, that would be one way that people would get to hear about mainframes. Mark suggested that many people view mainframes as: “Old, expensive, and your dad’s technology”. And yet, anyone who takes money out of an ATM (hole-in-the-wall) machine is probably linking to IMS on a mainframe. They just don’t know it. The press were not only blamed for sins of omission, but also sins of commission – for printing the same old stories containing the same old wrong assumptions about mainframes.

I reminded the chat room about William Data Systems ZEN product family and how users can control their network from the latest iPad gizmo, or get reports on their smartphones about what’s going on on their network. And, obviously, there was a lot of talk about cloud computing and mainframes – and how they go together like “peas and carrots” (well Forest Gump would have said that if he’d been logged in!). The point is that mainframes aren’t “your dad’s technology”, they very much embrace the very latest technologies and do it in a way that is secure and comes with all the benefits of years of successful operation in banks and airlines, etc.

I did think to run a competition, at this point but I don’t have a prize to give out. However, I would be interested in hearing people’s ideas of how managers and staff at mainframe sites and the rest of the IT world who aren’t mainframers can be convinced of the importance and proven-reliability of mainframes. You can e-mail me at trevor@itech-ed.com with your comments and I’ll put them together in a future blog.

Other topics that we discussed during our hour included the importance of virtual meetings with the current financial constraints when organizations are less-and-less keen to fund travel/hotels/food etc for people to attend. We looked at green computing and how this issue will most-likely grow in importance with future regulation. The fact that the word ‘legacy’ is actually a compliment. (How many of you have printers that don’t work with Vista or Windows 7, and just have to live with it?) And we suggested names for the next version of z/OS including z/2020 and z/Cloud.

All-in-all it was an enjoyable ‘Scheduled Chat’ in the ‘House of Mainframe’. Good luck CA for the rest of the month of mainframe madness.

Network management issues

I want to know what’s going on on my network – what do I do? Well this seemingly simple question has a complicated answer, which is historical and all to do with the separate worlds of the mainframes and everyone else coming together to give us our current complicated environment. Just to summarize, mainframes used SNA and VTAM to communicate and everyone else used TCP/IP. Sometime in the 1990s, all this came together. In addition, we now  have people on iPads and smartphones using our networks – in fact, we can have people on iPads and smartphones controlling our networks!

So, in terms of software, what are our choices for network management?

IBM has Tivoli OMEGAMON XE for mainframe networks, which allows you to monitor VTAM and TCP/IP networks and identify problems within those networks.

CA has its CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP IP and CA NetMaster Network Management for SNA products, which allow users to “proactively manage” their network. And there are a number of other more specialized products including CA NSM NetMaster Option, which lets you “manage your mainframe networks from CA Unicenter Network and Systems Management”.

SDS has Vital Signs for IP and Vital Signs for VTAM, which are both monitoring software.

William Data Systems has a whole range of products including ZEN OSA MONITOR for OSA performance monitoring and management, ZEN IP MONITOR (IMPLEX) for IP performance monitoring and management, ZEN EE MONITOR (FERRET) for APPN/HPR and EE monitoring and management, ZEN TRACE and SOLVE (EXIGENCE) for network problem determination, ZEN FTP CONTROL (FTPALERT) for audited FTP monitoring and management, ZEN EE SECURITY (APIAS) for secure EE deployment across any network, and ZEN AUTOMATION for automating network and operational tasks.

In fact, William Data Systems has just release Version 4.7 of ZEN TRACE and SOLVE, which includes more customer-suggested z/OS network tracing and solution capabilities to help busy z/OS network support people do more in less time – they claim.

If you are plagued by mainframe network issues, you may well be interested in the new features they’ve incorporated into ZEN TRACE and SOLVE V4.7, including:

• The new “Peek” function, which provides in-flight viewing of active IP traces. This means that it is now possible to view an active trace while it is still running, tracking its progress ‘in-flight', and then stopping it when the condition being sought in the trace is detected. This can save considerable CPU costs and user time.
• Traces originally captured in OSAENTA, libpcap, or Sniffer format can now be imported into ZTS. This can make network problem solving both faster and easier.
• As well as being able to accept commands from the operator console, ZEN TRACE and SOLVE now adds the ability to issue any commands (including ZTS commands) from JCL. When combined with the capabilities provided by the new import features, this enables different trace formats to be automatically imported into ZTS for analysis. This greatly simplifies the whole network problem solving process.
• Tracing of IPv6 is now faster and easier with the provision of improved Flow display text descriptions for recognizable packet contents, as well as the capability to search using IPv6 format addresses.
• Tracing packets in large Sysplex environments is inherently complex, but ZEN TRACE and SOLVE v4.7 now makes it easier by providing improved facilities for expanding encapsulated data used by Sysplex protocols such as GRE and VIPA Route. Being able to view and expand encapsulated payload data is a vital tool for rapid problem diagnosis in large Enterprise networks.

If you’re finding network management is an issue, it might well be worth a look.

CA provides May Mainframe Madness

Last week I was talking about the benefits of virtual user group like the Virtual IMS group (at www.fundi.com/virtualims) and the Virtual CICS group (at www.fundi.com/virtualcics). I was suggesting that attending this kind of group meant you didn’t need budgeting approval for time away from the office (meals, hotel rooms, travel, etc) and so made life easier for busy mainframe professionals. CA has taken this idea one step further – they’re devoting the whole May to mainframes, and doing it all virtually!

Details of CA’s May Mainframe Madness can be found at www.ca.com/content/page/May-Mainframe-Madness-2011.aspx.

CA describes it as the largest mainframe-focused event of its kind. They also say it’s the, “largest virtual Mainframe trade show in the world”. The information on the Web page currentlys says: “Every day brings new insights, tools and strategies to help you understand and maximize the strength and relevance of 21st century mainframe solutions. There are more than 100 valuable sessions over every business day in May, so you won’t want to miss a thing! Learn what’s new and find out how mainframe solutions from CA Technologies are leveraging Mainframe 2.0, CA’s innovative strategy to change the way the mainframe is managed forever.”

You can register now for the event at www.ca.com/mmm – which redirects to a registration page. CA claims that registration takes only 90 seconds, and go on to say: “The event will feature keynote presentations on everything from debugging to new backup and recovery techniques and 150+ virtual sessions and demos, as well as technical sessions, customer case studies, on-demand education materials, and various mainframe exhibits for approximately 7,500 professionals around the world.”

So why am I telling you about CA’s event in May? Don’t they have their own PR people who get paid to do it? Well, the reason I’m mentioning it is because I’ve been invited to take part, along with long-time friend, colleague, and iTech-Ed Associate, Mark Lillycrop, who’s CEO of Arcati Ltd – the people who produce the much-valued Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, which is freely available for download from www.arcati.com/newyearbook11. Mark and I will be available in what CA calls the Networking Lounge. This is a place where people can take part in scheduled chats as well as watch videos and have unscheduled chats with other attendees.

Other areas in CA’s virtual mainframe extravaganza are the Auditorium, the Job Role Resource Center, and the Exhibit Hall.

Mark and I haven’t finalized a time and date for this event, nor have we agreed on the topics we will be chatting about – but I’m sure it will be great fun and very informative. I’m also sure that I’ll let you have the exact details via this blog, Facebook, or Twitter in plenty of time. And I look forward to meeting you then and hearing your questions.

And if you’re looking for a virtual event to attend, then next Tuesday (12 April) at 10:30 CDT, Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software, will be talking to the Virtual IMS user group. The title of his presentation is: “Simplify and improve database administration by leveraging your storage system”. You can find out more about the event including how to register at www.fundi.com/virtualims.

Johnny head-in-the-clouds

Almost everyone is predicting 2011 will be the year when cloud computing becomes a reality for many organizations. CA produced surveys towards the end of last year showing this to be part of the planning of most of the organizations they surveyed. Other surveys, like BMC’s and the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook found that cloud computing wasn’t quite on the radar of many of the people who actually do the day-to-day systems work.

This week has seen a report from IBM suggesting that 70 percent of small and medium businesses – perhaps not its usual massive mainframe users – are either planning to, or already do, deploy cloud-based IT infrastructures to improve their performance and reduce costs. For the report, IBM surveyed 2,112 business and information technology decision makers at midsize businesses around the world, and the publication is called Inside the Midmarket: A 2011 Perspective.

Also in the report was a finding that these same SMBs were moving from cost control to growth in terms of cloud computing. The report says that 62 percent of surveyed organizations are planning to increase their IT budgets in the next year or so. Now one spin on that would be that the world is out of recession and all’s good with the world. An alternative way of looking at it is to say that most sites have reduced or kept spending the same for the past two years and there’s a huge amount of pressure – like a boiling kettle – to update hardware and software.

The survey also found that 70 percent of respondents are actively pursuing business analytics to help give them some kind of insights into the huge amounts of data they’ve generated. The survey also found that 66 percent of respondents say they are embracing the benefits of cloud computing to optimize costs and redundancy while increasing uptime and scalability.

Obviously cloud computing is new to so many of the organizations surveyed and perhaps not surprisingly it was found that more than 70 percent are looking for local business partners with industry expertise for more of a consultative – rather than a purely transactional – relationship.

In other news (as they say) the new CEO at HP, Leo Apotheker is looking to make his company a leader in the development of infrastructure and platform Cloud services with an open Cloud, which many people assume will compete directly with Google's similar Cloud-based offering.

My final words of ‘wisdom’ on this matter is that we all think we know what we mean by cloud, but for many organizations it might be like shopping for a ‘car’ or ‘automobile’. You could end up with a Rolls Royce or second-hand Reliant Robin! As you work your way down into the nitty gritty details of what your organization needs, you can find cloud computing to be a fairly nebulous term!

Should you refrain from using Chorus?

On 6 December, CA announced that CA Mainframe Chorus and CA Mainframe Chorus for DB2 Database Management were available. As it’s so close to the Christmas festivities, I thought I’d introduce this blog with a Christmas-cracker-style pun – well, it is that time of year!

Originally announced in May, CA Mainframe Chorus is designed to simplify mainframe management, and it does this, the CA press release tells us, through integration, automation, and modernization. Looking at this in more detail, the product helps:

• Reduce the time and effort required to securely manage the mainframe environment.
• Enable faster problem resolution and improved service levels.
• Increase productivity for current expert mainframe staff and more rapid on-ramping of new staff.

“On-ramping”? That’s what we call a nominalization – a word referring to something you can’t put in a wheelbarrow! It sounds very dynamic, and each of us thinks we know what it means, but, of course, no-one actually does because you can’t see it or touch it etc. But let’s not pick holes in press releases or we could be here all day. And, as they say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And, as I said at the start, it’s coming up to Christmas.

Mainframe Chorus is designed to display information using a graphical user interface making the experience more familiar to younger mainframers’ previous experience of IT. This is all part of CA’s strategy to encourage younger people to work on mainframes and deal with the challenge of what’s been described as an ageing workforce. Of course, it’s not just youngsters who benefit from the new-look presentation of information, other mainframe experts can easily derive information from the screen displays.

The seven underlying products that support CA Mainframe Chorus for Database Management include CA Detector for DB2 for z/OS; CA Insight Performance Monitor for DB2 for z/OS, and CA Subsystem Analyzer for DB2 for z/OS. CA apparently plans to add additional roles such as security, storage, and workload automation in the future.

Mainframe Chorus for DB2 also allows users to optimize DB2 for z/OS performance by pro-actively monitoring thresholds and alerts that help to identify and resolve bottlenecks promptly. The data visualization capabilities allow administrators to display historical data to predict trends.

So, is Chorus a product you should refrain from using? Obviously not. It makes the mainframe easier to manage, it speeds up the identification and resolution of problems, and it extends the range of people who can use mainframe management software. If this is the sort of thing you need at your site, then it’s definitely worth a look.

Mainframe security

RACF (Resource Access Control Facility) from IBM has been around for so long that I guess we take it for granted. It is one of the “big three” External Security Manager (ESM) products for mainframes. The other two are ACF2 (Access Control Facility 2) and Top Secret, both of which are owned by CA. But, as they like to say on impartial radio and TV programmes, other security products are available!

For example, Alexandria, Virginia-based Type80 (www.type80.com) provides SMA_RT, which functions as a security monitor program product that looks for patterns of abuse and sends real-time alerts. It supports systems environments across multiple CPUs and over geographically diverse locations.

Las Vegas, Nevada-based Vanguard Integrity Professionals (www.go2vanguard.com) provides solutions for identity and access management, audit and compliance, security administration, and intrusion detection. For security management there’s Vanguard Administrator, Vanguard Advisor, and Vanguard SecurityCenter. For audit and compliance they provide Vanguard Analyzer, Vanguard incompliance, Vanguard Enforcer, and Vanguard Policy Manager. For access management there’s Vanguard Authenticator, Vanguard ez/SignOn, Vanguard ez/Token, Vanguard Tokenless Authentication, Vanguard ez/Integrator, and Vanguard PasswordReset. And for intrusion detection there’s Vanguard Enforcer (again).

Naples, Florida-based Advanced Software Products Group (ASPG) (www.aspg.com) provides a number of data security products including: MegaCryption, its file level encryption tool; ReACT, which automates the password reset and synchronization process; ERQ (Easy RACF Query), its automated ISPF RACF administrative and reporting utility; CryptoMon its ICSF analyser; and Secure/FTP, which provides a full audit trail of all FTP commands that were executed or attempted and offers online monitoring of all active FTP sessions.

While mentioning encryption, IBM has its Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility (ICSF) and a Cryptographic Coprocessor. And, of course, in terms of security, there’s also IBM’s Tivoli zSecure Suite.

Hackensack, NJ-based Bsafe Solutions (www.bsafesolutions.com) offers: Bsafe/Enterprise Security for MVS TCP/IP for network security; Bsafe/Security for CICS-MVS, providing extended security for DB2, IMS, and VSAM; and Bsafe/Enterprise Security for CICS, providing control of mainframe security from a PC.

Torrance, CA-based Data21 (www.data21.com) has ZIP/390, which enables zSeries batch jobs to send and receive PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) files.

Aliso Viejo, CA-based Quest Software (www.quest.com) has a number of security products that came with its acquisition of PassGo Technologies. Its mainframe security tools include: GoPlex, a full screen interface allowing users to control and view users logged on to any of the PassGo’s MultSess, NC-Access, or NCI/XF products; NC-Pass Network Security Managers, which protect information by directing the user to permitted applications only using their user ID and password; Defender ME uses tokens that provide security – there’s Defender ME VSSE for VTAM Session Security, Defender ME Secure for active network security, and Defender ME Authenticator for almost everything; NC-Syncom provides password synchronization spanning multiple systems, servers, networks, and applications; and NC-Access, a session manager. In addition, for VTAM networks, Quest provides: MultSess, a session manager; and NCI/XF, a programming tool for tailoring, customizing, and extending functionality for 3270 terminals and developing single point of entry VTAM network systems.

There’s definitely other mainframe software products out there, and it’s interesting to see just what is available.

Mainframes and cloud computing

Picking up IT trade papers might make you think that the only real players in the cloud computing world were Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Microsoft, with its ‘mega data centre’ in Dublin has been enthusiastic about its Office Web Apps and Facebook integration. Its Windows Azure is an environment for development, service hosting, and service management based on the cloud. It’s designed to allow developers to compute, host, scale, store, and also manage the Web apps they create. Google is working with VMware to develop a new operating system for the cloud, and plans to push the Web as a platform for enterprise-standard software development. Google now has a version of the Google App Engine for enterprise users. Amazon has its Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) – a Web service providing resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make Web-scale computing easier for developers. So where does that leave the mainframe?

To answer that question, Vanson Bourne, a market research company based in the UK undertook a survey that has now been published and is called Mainframe – The Ultimate Cloud Platform? Vanson Bourne conducted more than 300 interviews during August 2010 among IT decision makers. The sample comprised respondents in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Benelux, Scandinavia, Russia, Poland, Turkey, and the Czech Republic.

The survey results were published by CA Technologies, who revealed that 79 percent of IT organisations believe the mainframe is an essential component of their cloud computing strategy. They also found that 74 percent of respondents believe that the mainframe will have a role in any cloud computing initiative, with 70 percent agreeing that cloud computing will sustain or extend the mainframe environment.

Interestingly, and quite independently, the 2011 Arcati Mainframe Yearbook has two questions about cloud computing in its user survey. If you haven’t completed a survey yet, you can, by going to www.arcati.com/usersurvey11.

According to CA’s Dayton Semerjian: “This survey provides indisputable evidence of the mainframe's agility to perform in new IT models such as cloud computing, and on-going durability as a critical data centre platform for decades to come”. Semerjian added: “CA Technologies is addressing these needs through its revolutionary mainframe management strategy, Mainframe 2.0”.

The survey also found that 82 percent of respondents stated that they intend to use the mainframe in the future either as much or more than today – which, sadly, implies that one in five sites are reducing their mainframe usage.

54 percent of respondents felt that the most pressing issues facing them in the next 12 months is an increased demand for training.

When asked why the mainframe is considered a valuable organisational asset, responses included reliability (55 percent), its position as an established technology (52 percent), platform cost-effectiveness (48 percent), and IT attitudes toward change (40 percent).

Linked to training is the problem of an increasingly ageing experienced workforce and a reduction in the number of experienced people available to work on mainframes. The study concluded that 44 percent of IT organisations are grappling with staffing issues created by the greying workforce and difficulty in hiring new staff, and they are concerned that these challenges will make the mainframe less viable in the future.

IMS logical relationships

The latest webinar from Virtual IMS CONNECTION was entitled, “The logical answer: IMS Logical Relationships”, and was presented by Aurora Emanuela Dell’Anno, an Engineering Services Architect with CA. Aurora is an IMS and DB2 Specialist Systems Engineer, with a past in application development. Aurora has spent the past 14 years specializing in various aspects of the IBM software world, with particular attention to database management and data warehousing. Keeping pace with the times, the past years have been dedicated to in-depth work on, and study of, data warehousing realities, trouble-shooting systems installations, and application performance issues – this included getting her hands dirty with distributed platforms, customers’ implementations, and problem-solving needs in this field, all from the perspective of systems engineering and database administration. Aurora works for CA in the highly-focused Mainframe Solutions Center.

Aurora started her presentation by explaining exactly what an hierarchical database was and what relational data structures were. She then asked why IMS needed logical relationships and suggested the reason was to access segments by a field other than the one chosen as the key, or to associate segments in two different databases or hierarchies. Aurora informed the user group that IMS provides two very useful tools to resolve these data requirements: secondary indexes logical relationships.

Thinking about database design, it can be useful to normalize the data. This helps to break data into naturally associated groupings that can be stored collectively in segments in a hierarchical database. It also breaks individual data elements into groups based on the processing functions, and groups data based on inherent relationships between data elements.

The database types that support logical relationships are HISAM, HDAM, PHDAM, HIDAM, and PHIDAM. There are no logical relationships with Fast Path DEDB or MSDB.

Logical relationships are formed by creating special segments that use pointers to access data in other segments. The path between the logical child and the segment to which it points is called a logical relationship.

There are three types of logical relationships:

• Unidirectional
• Bidirectional physically paired
• Bidirectional virtually paired.

A unidirectional relationship links two segment types (logical child and its logical parent) in one direction. A one-way path is established using a pointer in the logical child.

A bidirectional physically paired logical relationship links two segment types, a logical child and its logical parent, in two directions. A two-way path is established using pointers in the logical child segments.

A bidirectional virtually paired logical relationship is like a bidirectional physically paired relationship. It:

• Links two segment types, a logical child and its logical parent, in two directions, establishing a two-way path
• Can be established between two segment types in the same or different databases.

A logical child segment exists in only one database. When going from database A to database B, IMS uses the pointer in the logical child segment. When going from database B to database A, IMS uses the pointer in the logical parent, as well as the pointer in the logical child segment.

To establish a logical relationship, three segment types are always defined – the physical parent, the logical parent, and the logical child.

Aurora explained that the pointers used in logical relationships fall into two categories – direct and symbolic. We can implement logical relationships using both types, however, a direct pointer is a true pointer.

There are four types of pointers:

• Logical parent (LP)
• Logical Child (LC)
• Logical Twin (LT)
• Physical Parent (PP).

LP pointers point from the logical child to the logical parent. An LP pointer is in the prefix of the logical child and consists of the 4-byte direct address of the logical parent.

Logical child pointers are used only for logical relationships that use virtual pairing. With virtual pairing, only one logical child exists on DASD, and it contains a pointer to a logical parent. The logical parent points to the logical child segment.

Two types of logical child pointers can be used:

• Logical Child First (LCF)
• A combination of LCF and Logical Child Last (LCL) pointers.

Because LCF and LCL pointers are direct pointers, the segment they are pointing to must be in an HD database. The logical parent (the segment pointing to the logical child) must be in a HISAM or HD database. If the parent is in a HISAM database, the logical child must use a symbolic pointer to point to the parent.

A symbolic LP pointer consists of the Logical Parent’s Concatenated Key (LPCK). It can be used to point into a HISAM or HD database.

Physical Parent (PP) pointers point from a segment to its physical parent. IMS generates PP pointers automatically for HD databases involved in logical relationships.

Logical Child Pointers are used only in logical relationships with virtual pairing. When virtual pairing is used, there is only one logical child on DASD, called the real logical child. This logical child has an LP pointer. The LP pointer can be symbolic or direct.

Two types of logical child pointers can be used:

• Logical Child First (LCF) pointers
• A combination of logical child first (LCF) and Logical Child Last (LCL) pointers.

CA’s Aurora Dell’Anno went on to inform the user group that logical twins are multiple occurrences of logical child segments that point to the same occurrence of a logical parent segment. Two types of logical twin pointers can be used:

• Logical Twin Forward (LTF)
• A combination of LTF and Logical Twin Backward (LTB).

HALDBs (PHDAM, PHIDAM, and PSINDEX databases) use direct and indirect pointers for pointing from one database record to another database record. The use of indirect pointers prevents the problem of misdirected pointers that would otherwise occur when a database is reorganized. The repository for the indirect pointers is the indirect list data set. The misdirected pointers after reorganization are self-healing using indirect pointers.

The relationship between physical parent and logical child in a physical database and the LP pointer in each logical child creates a physical parent to logical parent path. For a physical parent to logical parent path, the logical parent is the destination parent in the concatenated segment.

For a logical parent to physical parent path, the physical parent is the destination parent in the concatenated segment.

When use of a physical parent to logical parent path is defined, the physical parent is the parent of the concatenated segment type. When an application program retrieves an occurrence of the concatenated segment type from a physical parent, the logical child and its logical parent are concatenated and presented to the application program as one segment. When use of a logical parent to physical parent path is defined, the logical parent is the parent of the concatenated segment type. When an application program retrieves an occurrence of the concatenated segment type from a logical parent, an occurrence of the logical child and its physical parent are concatenated and presented to the application program as one segment.

In both cases, the physical parent or logical parent segment included in the concatenated segment is called the destination parent.

There must be one physical DBD for each of the databases in a logical relationship. All statements are coded with the same format used when a logical relationship is not defined, except for the SEGM and LCHILD statements. The SEGM statement includes the new types of pointers. The LCHILD statement is added to define the logical relationship between the two segment types. The pointers for use with HD databases must be explicit in the PTR= parameter.

When a logical relationship is used, you must define the physical databases involved in the relationship to IMS. Also, you often need to define the logical structure of IMS since this is the structure the application program perceives.

With HALDB databases, bidirectional logical relationships must be implemented with physical pairing. When loading a new partitioned database with logical relationships, the logical child segments cannot be loaded as part of the load step. IMS adds logical children by normal update processing after the database has been loaded. HALDBs use an Indirect List Data Set (ILDS) to maintain logical relationship pointers when logically related databases are reorganized.

Aurora recommended a White Paper called Converting Logical Relationships to Support Partitioned Databases written by William N Keene – who some of you will have heard speak at user group meetings and who is a regular attendee. The White Paper provides guidance and examples for converting a set of logically related databases from bidirectional, virtual pairing using direct pointers to bidirectional, physical pairing using symbolic pointers.

The presentation contained a lot more detailed information, including some thoughts on performance. Aurora concluded by stating that logical relationships resolve conflicts in the way application programs need to view segments in the database. With logical relationships, application programs can access segment types in an order other than the one defined by the hierarchy, and have a data structure containing segments from more than one physical database.

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