Because it’s the start of the New Year, I thought I’d review the events of 2013 through the lens of events at iTech-Ed Ltd.
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My article entitled, “IMS: Stretching Across Computing Platforms and Applications” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. My blog, “Needing That Network Guy”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 15 January had a presentation from IBM’s Nick Garrod and Ted Caffarelli entitled, “CICS V5.1 – Portfolio Update”.
On 5 February, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation from SQData’s Scott Quillicy entitled, “Best practices: maximizing the use of your IMS data through replication”. My blog entitled. “What’s Skeuomorphism and Why Should I Care?” was published on the Destination z Web site. And at the very end of February, I heard that I had been recognized by IBM as a 2013 IBM Champion – that’s the fifth year in succession.
5 March saw a great presentation by Fundi Software’s Reuben Andrews to the Virtual CICS user group entitled “No more Cold Start surprises – how Deployment Analysis in IBM CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS saves your bacon”. My blog entitled, “What is the ‘Third Platform?’” was published on the Destination z Web site.
My blog “Linux All the Way Down” was published on the Destination z Web site in April. And on 9 April, the Virtual IMS user group heard a presentation from James Martin of Fundi Software entitled “IMS Configuration Manager: streamlining the transition to dynamic resource definition”.
In May, my blog “The Internet of Things” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 14 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, HostBridge Technology’s Director of Technical Services, James Alexander, gave a presentation entitled, “Integrating Life-Comm, Life/70, or other CICS resident insurance and annuity applications with distributed applications utilizing the ACORD standard”.
There was a great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group on 11 June entitled, “Taking IMS to New Heights – What the Future Holds for IMS” by Betty Patterson, IMS Chief Architect with IBM. Also in June, my blog entitled, “Biological computers” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual CICS user group meeting on 11 July was packed with people enjoying a terrific presentation from IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist, Satish Tanna, entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM. In addition, July saw my blog entitled, “IMS 13 Aims to Reach New Heights”, published on the Destination z Web site.
In August, my article entitled, “Strategies for Migrating Your Mainframe to IPv6” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. And my blog entitled, “The Ongoing Evolution of Cognitive Computing”, was published on the Destination z Web site. The meeting of the Virtual IMS user group on 6 August enjoyed a presentation from Rocket Software’s Wayne Morton entitled, “Putting IMS/DB in Business Analytics / Intelligence”.
In September, my blog “Security Threats Require Constant Vigilance Even on the Mainframe” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, my blog, Lync and Yammer, appeared here on the IT Central Station Web site. And on 10 September, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was enthralled by a presentation entitled, “Creating Modern CICS Web Applications by Exploiting Open Source Javascript Libraries” from Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited.
BMC Software’s Glenn Witt gave a good presentation to the 8 October meeting of the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Tuning Your Mainframe IMS Batch Processing”. In the same month, my blog, “Looking forward to IOD 2013”, appeared on the IOD 2013 Web site. And my blog, “An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Big Data”, was published on the Destination z Web site.
In November, my blog, “What is Bring Your Own Identity?”, was published on the Destination z Web site. My blogs, “What’s been happening at IOD?” and “IOD 2013: What you missed!”, were published on the IOD 2013 Web site. Also, on 12 November, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was packed to hear a presentation entitled, “Programming with CICS TS Channels and Containers” from CreativeDataMovers’ Mary Abdill.
The 3 December meeting of the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “IMS in the Connected World – Why You Should Pay Attention!” from Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect with GT Software. And my final blog of the year, “Fat Clients Ride Again”, appeared on the Destination z Web site.
I continued to blog at Mainframe Update (mainframeupdate.blogspot.com) and Mainframe World (it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/). And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862). And I’m on Google plus (gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
Showing posts with label Destination z. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Destination z. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Sunday, 6 January 2013
2012 at iTech-Ed Ltd
As it’s the start of the New Year, I thought I’d review events of 2012 through the lens of events at iTech-Ed Ltd.
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2012 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My blog, “Gazing into the IT Crystal Ball...”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 17 January had a presentation from IBM Hursley’s Andrew Smithson entitled, “CICS Transaction Gateway V8.1”.
In February, my blog “Staying in Touch With the Mainframe Community” was published on the Destination z Web site, and an earlier blog was quoted from on the Dancing Dinosaur site. The Virtual IMS user group had a presentations from Neil Price, a senior DBA and systems programmer with TNT Express ICS on 7 February. His talk was entitled, “Memoirs of a HALDBA”.
My article entitled: “The z114: Delivering Game-Changing Opportunities” was published in the March/April issue of z/Journal. My blog “Saving Money With Mainframes” can be found on the Destination z Web site. And of the 6 March, the Virtual CICS user group meeting had a presentation from Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Analyzing CICS function shipping applications using Transaction Analysis Workbench”.
3 April saw a presentation to the Virtual IMS user group by Fundi Software’s James Martin, entitled, “Using IMS Performance Solution Pack for z/OS to analyze IMS performance problems”. And my blog “The Sincerest Form of Flattery” was published on the Destination z Web site.
In May, my blog “The Mainframe’s Potential to Get Social” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 8 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited, gave a presentation entitled, “Utilizing the Dojo Toolkit for Web browser-driven applications from CICS”.
The 12 June saw a presentation by GT Software’s Dusty Rivers to the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Modernizing IMS”. And the Destination z Web site published my blog “Atomic Weapons and the Dawn of the Computer Age”.
On 10 July, Ezriel Gross, CEO of Circle Software Inc, gave a presentation to the Virtual CICS user group entitled, “CICS introduction to Web services for the system programmer”. Also in July, my blog “IBM and Augmented Reality” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation by SQData’s CEO, Scott Quillicy, on 7 August entitled, “Best practices: IMS to relational data movement”. My blog “BYOD and Network Security” was published on the Destination z Web site in August.
In September, my blog “IMS: There’s Still Life in the Old Dog!” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, the Virtual CICS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “Success paths for integrating CICS with new technologies” from Don Spoerke, Principle Solutions Engineer with GT Software.
October saw my blog “What’s New With CICS?” published here on the Destination z Web site. In the same month, IBM’s “Think BIG” Information On Demand conference site published “IOD from Afar” and “IOD News” on their official IOD blog site.
In November, Colin Pearce gave a very enjoyable and detailed presentation to the Virtual CICS user group about “CICS security”. The IBM ‘Proud to be part of z’ poster came out that month. Look out for the person in the bottom row, third from the left! And the Destination z Web site published my blog “New Poster Captures the Mainframer Mosiac”.
On 4 December, the Virtual IMS user group had a presentation by BMC’s Bill Chapin about “Nearing 24x7 availability with structure changes too!” Also in December, Trevor’s blog “Whatever Happened to the Network Guy?” was published on the Destination z Web site.
Also last year, I was made a 2012 IBM Champion – that’s four years in a row I’ve been an IBM Champion. I continued to blog at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com and it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/. And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862) – come on LinkedIn, do short names! And I’m on Google plus (if you like, you can find me at gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2012 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My blog, “Gazing into the IT Crystal Ball...”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 17 January had a presentation from IBM Hursley’s Andrew Smithson entitled, “CICS Transaction Gateway V8.1”.
In February, my blog “Staying in Touch With the Mainframe Community” was published on the Destination z Web site, and an earlier blog was quoted from on the Dancing Dinosaur site. The Virtual IMS user group had a presentations from Neil Price, a senior DBA and systems programmer with TNT Express ICS on 7 February. His talk was entitled, “Memoirs of a HALDBA”.
My article entitled: “The z114: Delivering Game-Changing Opportunities” was published in the March/April issue of z/Journal. My blog “Saving Money With Mainframes” can be found on the Destination z Web site. And of the 6 March, the Virtual CICS user group meeting had a presentation from Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Analyzing CICS function shipping applications using Transaction Analysis Workbench”.
3 April saw a presentation to the Virtual IMS user group by Fundi Software’s James Martin, entitled, “Using IMS Performance Solution Pack for z/OS to analyze IMS performance problems”. And my blog “The Sincerest Form of Flattery” was published on the Destination z Web site.
In May, my blog “The Mainframe’s Potential to Get Social” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 8 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited, gave a presentation entitled, “Utilizing the Dojo Toolkit for Web browser-driven applications from CICS”.
The 12 June saw a presentation by GT Software’s Dusty Rivers to the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Modernizing IMS”. And the Destination z Web site published my blog “Atomic Weapons and the Dawn of the Computer Age”.
On 10 July, Ezriel Gross, CEO of Circle Software Inc, gave a presentation to the Virtual CICS user group entitled, “CICS introduction to Web services for the system programmer”. Also in July, my blog “IBM and Augmented Reality” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation by SQData’s CEO, Scott Quillicy, on 7 August entitled, “Best practices: IMS to relational data movement”. My blog “BYOD and Network Security” was published on the Destination z Web site in August.
In September, my blog “IMS: There’s Still Life in the Old Dog!” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, the Virtual CICS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “Success paths for integrating CICS with new technologies” from Don Spoerke, Principle Solutions Engineer with GT Software.
October saw my blog “What’s New With CICS?” published here on the Destination z Web site. In the same month, IBM’s “Think BIG” Information On Demand conference site published “IOD from Afar” and “IOD News” on their official IOD blog site.
In November, Colin Pearce gave a very enjoyable and detailed presentation to the Virtual CICS user group about “CICS security”. The IBM ‘Proud to be part of z’ poster came out that month. Look out for the person in the bottom row, third from the left! And the Destination z Web site published my blog “New Poster Captures the Mainframer Mosiac”.
On 4 December, the Virtual IMS user group had a presentation by BMC’s Bill Chapin about “Nearing 24x7 availability with structure changes too!” Also in December, Trevor’s blog “Whatever Happened to the Network Guy?” was published on the Destination z Web site.
Also last year, I was made a 2012 IBM Champion – that’s four years in a row I’ve been an IBM Champion. I continued to blog at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com and it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/. And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862) – come on LinkedIn, do short names! And I’m on Google plus (if you like, you can find me at gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
Saturday, 9 June 2012
300 blogs
This is my 300th blog. I thought it was a high enough number to deserve some sort of recognition. And I thought it would be an opportunity to look back on all the things that have happened since that very first blog back in June 2006.
In those days, I was doing a lot of work for Xephon – I was producing and editing the Update journals. You probably remember MVS (later z/OS) Update, CICS Update (the very first one), DB2 Update, SNA (later TCP/SNA) Update, RACF Update, and WebSphereMQ Update. My very first blog on the Mainframe Weekly blog site and was called “What’s going on with CICS?”. The first paragraph read:
What do I mean, what’s going on with CICS? Well, CICS used to be the dynamic heart of so many companies – it was the subsystem that allowed the company to make money – and as such there were lots of third parties selling add-ons to CICS to make it work better for individual organizations.
And over the months that followed, I talked about AJAX, Web 2.0, Project ECLipz, Aglets (DB2 agent applets), social networking, back-ups and archives, new versions of CICS, DB2, and IMS, and significant birthdays for software. I blogged about mash-ups using IMS, I gave a number of CSS tips, I wrote about BPEL, I even discussed PST files and the arrival of the Chrome browser. And back in November 2008 I first looked at cloud computing.
In 2009 I talked about CICS Explorer, Twitter, cloud computing, specialty processors, zPrime, mainframe apprentices, that year’s GSE conference, IBM’s London Analytics Solution Centre, more anniversaries and software updates, and much more.
2010 saw more blogs about the recession, IBM versus Oracle, social media, Linux, clouds, performance, the zEnterprise, some thoughts about SharePoint, Android, and connecting to your mainframe from a phone, SyslogD, GSE Conference, and lots of other thoughts on the events of the year.
2011 had a lot of blogs about cloud computing and virtual user groups, as well as more about SharePoint. The SharePoint blogs were also published on the Medium Sized Business Blog part of TechNet Blogs (http://blogs.technet.com/b/mediumbusiness/). I also had a serious look at tablets. And wrote the “What’s a mainframe, Daddy?” blog. I had a look at IMS costs, mainframe maintenance, and Web 3.0 and Facebook (with the use of OpenGraph). I also examined gamification and augmented reality and what they meant for the future of software.
So far in 2012 I’ve mentioned IBM Docs, how to create an e-book, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), operating systems on a memory stick, cloud wars, and using the Dojo Toolkit to make the end user experience of CICS nicer, and more friendly (of course).
Over the years there have been frequent blogs about the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, and in particular its user survey results.
I’ve also written guest blogs for other people, and I’ve published guest blogs by others. You can find a number of blogs I’ve written on the Destination z Web site at http://destinationz.org/. I’ve even written a fair few blogs (for a fee) that have been published and attributed to other people!
Are the blogs any good? Should you be reading them? Well, I have an IT Toolbox gold award for blogging – for over 100 blogs. Perhaps more importantly, I was a finalist in the Individual IT Professional Male category of the Computer Weekly IT blog awards in 2009. I was a finalist in the IT Professional (male) category in 2010. And last year I was ‘shortlisted’ in the Computer Weekly IT Professional blogger category. As well as being shortlisted for awards, these blogs are regularly referred to by other bloggers and journalists.
You can read my blogs at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com, it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/, and www.mainframecobol.info/. You can follow on Twitter at twitter.com/t_eddolls, or on Facebook at fb.com/iTechEd.
What about the future? The blogs continue – I’ll mainly be following what’s happening with the mainframe industry, but I’ll also take a wider view and keep abreast of new technologies and ideas as they happen and try to put them in context and give my evaluation of them.
If you have read all 300 – thank you. If this is the first one you’ve read, then hopefully you’ll be back again next week for more!
Trevor Eddolls
IBM Champion
In those days, I was doing a lot of work for Xephon – I was producing and editing the Update journals. You probably remember MVS (later z/OS) Update, CICS Update (the very first one), DB2 Update, SNA (later TCP/SNA) Update, RACF Update, and WebSphereMQ Update. My very first blog on the Mainframe Weekly blog site and was called “What’s going on with CICS?”. The first paragraph read:
What do I mean, what’s going on with CICS? Well, CICS used to be the dynamic heart of so many companies – it was the subsystem that allowed the company to make money – and as such there were lots of third parties selling add-ons to CICS to make it work better for individual organizations.
And over the months that followed, I talked about AJAX, Web 2.0, Project ECLipz, Aglets (DB2 agent applets), social networking, back-ups and archives, new versions of CICS, DB2, and IMS, and significant birthdays for software. I blogged about mash-ups using IMS, I gave a number of CSS tips, I wrote about BPEL, I even discussed PST files and the arrival of the Chrome browser. And back in November 2008 I first looked at cloud computing.
In 2009 I talked about CICS Explorer, Twitter, cloud computing, specialty processors, zPrime, mainframe apprentices, that year’s GSE conference, IBM’s London Analytics Solution Centre, more anniversaries and software updates, and much more.
2010 saw more blogs about the recession, IBM versus Oracle, social media, Linux, clouds, performance, the zEnterprise, some thoughts about SharePoint, Android, and connecting to your mainframe from a phone, SyslogD, GSE Conference, and lots of other thoughts on the events of the year.
2011 had a lot of blogs about cloud computing and virtual user groups, as well as more about SharePoint. The SharePoint blogs were also published on the Medium Sized Business Blog part of TechNet Blogs (http://blogs.technet.com/b/mediumbusiness/). I also had a serious look at tablets. And wrote the “What’s a mainframe, Daddy?” blog. I had a look at IMS costs, mainframe maintenance, and Web 3.0 and Facebook (with the use of OpenGraph). I also examined gamification and augmented reality and what they meant for the future of software.
So far in 2012 I’ve mentioned IBM Docs, how to create an e-book, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), operating systems on a memory stick, cloud wars, and using the Dojo Toolkit to make the end user experience of CICS nicer, and more friendly (of course).
Over the years there have been frequent blogs about the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, and in particular its user survey results.
I’ve also written guest blogs for other people, and I’ve published guest blogs by others. You can find a number of blogs I’ve written on the Destination z Web site at http://destinationz.org/. I’ve even written a fair few blogs (for a fee) that have been published and attributed to other people!
Are the blogs any good? Should you be reading them? Well, I have an IT Toolbox gold award for blogging – for over 100 blogs. Perhaps more importantly, I was a finalist in the Individual IT Professional Male category of the Computer Weekly IT blog awards in 2009. I was a finalist in the IT Professional (male) category in 2010. And last year I was ‘shortlisted’ in the Computer Weekly IT Professional blogger category. As well as being shortlisted for awards, these blogs are regularly referred to by other bloggers and journalists.
You can read my blogs at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com, it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/, and www.mainframecobol.info/. You can follow on Twitter at twitter.com/t_eddolls, or on Facebook at fb.com/iTechEd.
What about the future? The blogs continue – I’ll mainly be following what’s happening with the mainframe industry, but I’ll also take a wider view and keep abreast of new technologies and ideas as they happen and try to put them in context and give my evaluation of them.
If you have read all 300 – thank you. If this is the first one you’ve read, then hopefully you’ll be back again next week for more!
Trevor Eddolls
IBM Champion
Sunday, 18 December 2011
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
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
Sunday, 22 May 2011
For the journey
There’s an accurate, but much-overused, metaphor for life as a journey. Well, coming soon, this metaphor has been taken a stage further by giving us a destination – Destination z. According to the Web site at www.destinationz.org, Destination z is a community where all things mainframe converge to keep you informed. The new destinationz.org site becomes live in summer 2011, and when it launches, members will be connected to a new global community of peers – mainframe users, business partners, academia, consultants, and others.
An inaugural enewsletter (tentatively called zNEWS) will be sent out in June, formally announcing the destinationz.org community.
In fact, Destination z has been around since 2007 and had 26 founding members. Since then, more business partners, supporting members, and academic members have joined, bring the number of members to 100 by the end of 2010. This next phase broadens the membership to include IBM System z clients and it’s planned to provide numerous resources and benefits.
Here’s their logo:
An inaugural enewsletter (tentatively called zNEWS) will be sent out in June, formally announcing the destinationz.org community.
In fact, Destination z has been around since 2007 and had 26 founding members. Since then, more business partners, supporting members, and academic members have joined, bring the number of members to 100 by the end of 2010. This next phase broadens the membership to include IBM System z clients and it’s planned to provide numerous resources and benefits.
Here’s their logo:
According to an article on the MainframeZone Web site: “The latest phase will bring value to mainframe clients and their employees by providing rich Web content, connecting the community through social media, and creating a ‘one-stop shop”’for everything z through an index of key resources, including IBM and partner product content, customer stories, and links to blogs, forums, an online mentorship program to introduce students to the mainframe community, and more. These members can access all the resources available through the Website and can opt to be included in special communications from both the IBM Destination z Team and IBM Business Partner members.”
To my mind, anything that helps the community of mainframe users has got to be good, and I’ve pre-registered to become a member. You might like to do the same.
And while we’re on the subject of moving things around, you might be interested to know that the IBM Information Champion programme has changed its home location.
For the past few years, it has been sitting at www-01.ibm.com/software/data/champion/, but it is now on IBM’s developerWorks site at www.ibm.com/developerworks/champion, and they’re promising that the shorter URL of www.ibm.com/champion will work. There’s also a new logo:
I’ve been a ‘Champion’ each year since 2009. You can see me my profile at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/profiles/html/profileView.do?key=d5b16dc4-2a16-4a1b-86d5-dc4d1cd7d318&lang=en.
The change of location is, I believe, part of IBM’s strategy to raise the profile of this programme and help increase awareness of mainframes to the general public.
Hopefully, after the summer, with these two initiatives, information and other resources for mainframers will be more readily available and easier to locate.
To my mind, anything that helps the community of mainframe users has got to be good, and I’ve pre-registered to become a member. You might like to do the same.
And while we’re on the subject of moving things around, you might be interested to know that the IBM Information Champion programme has changed its home location.
For the past few years, it has been sitting at www-01.ibm.com/software/data/champion/, but it is now on IBM’s developerWorks site at www.ibm.com/developerworks/champion, and they’re promising that the shorter URL of www.ibm.com/champion will work. There’s also a new logo:
I’ve been a ‘Champion’ each year since 2009. You can see me my profile at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/profiles/html/profileView.do?key=d5b16dc4-2a16-4a1b-86d5-dc4d1cd7d318&lang=en.
The change of location is, I believe, part of IBM’s strategy to raise the profile of this programme and help increase awareness of mainframes to the general public.
Hopefully, after the summer, with these two initiatives, information and other resources for mainframers will be more readily available and easier to locate.
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