2014 is a bit of a special year here at iTech-Ed Ltd. It was our 10th anniversary on 1 February. I thought you might be interested in some of the changes that have taken place in that time.
Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days and it was difficult to easily get your hands on working bits of code and alternative solutions to common problems. VM Update followed in 1987, and then a whole range of mainframe-based publications. I was there at the very beginning and over the next 18 years edited most of them.
In 2004, Xephon sold the name and the publications to TCI publications. We set up iTech-Ed and we got the contract to edit around five or six of these Updates each month. My first activity, at one minute after midnight on 1 February 2004, was to upload the new issues to the Web site.
Over the next three and half years, iTech-Ed was responsible for encouraging technical people to write articles, editing and checking them to produce each edition every month, paying contributors, and sending the publications to the printers and putting them on the Web site. A small team of experts checked the text for punctuation and grammar as well as technical accuracy.
At the same time, iTech-Ed was carrying out consultancy work and producing technical documentation that was used in-house by a number of well-known companies. And we also started blogging at Mainframe Update using Blogger and Mainframe World on IT Toolbox
Towards the end of 2007, the Updates ceased publication, and the very first Virtual IMS user group meeting was held using Webex. The user group was immediately very popular and was sponsored by NEON Enterprise Software. That year also saw a growth in number of companies using our Web design and development services.
In 2008 the company took its first steps in offering advice on social media and how organizations could use it both to get their message out there and also to interact with customers in a positive way. It was a hard job back then. I also qualified as a Microsoft Office trainer – MOS MI – and ran a number of on-site training courses.
We picked up the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook – the de facto reference work for mainframers – and have worked with Arcati for many years producing this. The 2014 edition is now available from arcati.com/newyearbook14.
I was made an IBM Champion in 2009 and have been a champion every year since. As well as producing internal documentation for companies, I have had numerous articles published in a variety of Web-based and printed publications, such as Enterprise Tech Journal. In 2010 I attended Microsoft SharePoint Administrator and Developer training. And I started my regular blog on Destination z in July 2011, where I’ve written about Big Data , the Internet of Things, Deep Learning, and, of course, mainframes.
Also in 2011, Fundi Software took over as sponsor of the Virtual IMS user group and we then launched the Virtual CICS user group. Both of them enjoy regular meetings and newsletters and have around 400 members. I chair both of these user groups, and we use Citrix GoToMeeting to facilitate the webinars.
Over recent years, we’ve published guest blogs and I’ve ghost written blogs for many other blog sites. I’ve also contributed to IBM’s IOD blogs for the past couple of years. And I’ve created podcasts for a number of different companies.
So, here we are – 2014. 10 years in business and still very much in demand and looking forward to the future. If you want to get in contact with us, our Web site is itech-ed.com or you can e-mail trevor@itech-ed.com. You can Like us on Facebook at fb.com/itech-ed, follow me on Twitter at @t_eddolls, connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/teddolls, or follow us on Google+ at google.com/+TrevorEddolls.
Showing posts with label Virtual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virtual. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Sunday, 12 January 2014
2013 at iTech-Ed Ltd
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
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
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Optimum performance from CICS
The July meeting of the Virtual CICS user group included a presentation entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”, and was presented by Satish Tanna, IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM.
Satish told the user group that he would be talking about using CICS Tools to help with CICS Threadsafe and consolidation projects.
Being threadsafe modernizes CICS applications and reduces TCB switching and CPU usage. It also increases the number of simultaneous CICS tasks that can run in a single CICS region, which reduces the need for vast numbers of CICS systems, and saves on the cost of administering those systems and other overheads. It also better exploits modern z-Series hardware.
Each TCB switch is approximately 2000 instructions. CICS TS V5.1, non-threadsafe DB2, MQ, and IMS transactions switch TCBs for each SQL statement or MQ command. So reducing instruction path length reduces costs and saves money for an organization.
CICS Tools can help to create threadsafe applications. Satish Tanna suggested that there are four stages in creating a threadsafe application. Step 1 is to identify applications that have a high number of TCB switches and identify programs in those transactions that are good threadsafe candidates.
Step 2 is to analyse programs to ensure the logic is threadsafe. Step 3 is to implement threadsafe programs. And the final step is to measure the results. CICS PA can be used for steps 1 and 4. CICS IA can be used for step 2. And CICS CM can be used for step 3.
CICS Performance Analyzer (PA) can analyse your CICS applications to determine which ones are good candidates for threadsafe. It looks at how many switches occurred, how much CPU time was used, delays, and how much they cost.
CICS Interdependency Analyzer (IA) can be used to determine the cause of a high number of Change TCB modes. It looks at what commands are issued by the transaction, how many commands are threadsafe, whether there are any DB2, MQ, or IMS commands, whether there are any Dynamic COBOL commands, whether there are any inhibiting commands, and which commands cause a TCB swap and where they are in the sequence of events.
Sites can also use CICS IA to verify that program logic is threadsafe. It looks for serialization techniques when accessing shared resources, enqueue and dequeue, compare and swap, reviews usage of ADDRESS CWA, EXTRACT EXIT, and GETMAIN SHARED. CICS will provide threadsafe access to its resources, eg files and queues.
CICS Configuration Manager (CM) Packaging, Transformation, and Migration facilities can be used to manage programs.
CICS PA can then be used to compare the results using the CICS PA Transaction Profile Report. This can quickly show a comparison between before and after the threadsafe project.
When it comes to consolidation, Satish Tanna told the user group that using CICS TS V5.1 scalability can consolidate CICS systems to simplify management. New and improved capabilities in CICS TS V5.1 provide greater single region scalability by doubling the MAXTASK limit to 2000. There’s greater usage of 64-bit storage and reduced usage of 24-bit storage. There’s greater application parallelism through threadsafe API and SPI extensions. There’s greater system parallelism through optimized TCB usage. There are Java performance improvements from 64-bit Java 7 support. And there’s greater access to 64-bit application storage when using Assembler programs.
CICS Deployment Assistant (DA) can discover CICS and CICSPlex system topology. CICS IA can analyse application resources and interdependencies. CICS CM can implement region consolidation, including CSD and CPSM BAS resources. CICS PA can measure performance.
CICS DA will discover Sysplex, CICS assets, and other address spaces. It can visualize assets and interconnections graphically. And it can export discovery data for reporting.
More information about the Virtual CICS user group can be found at http://fundi.com/virtualcics/.
Satish told the user group that he would be talking about using CICS Tools to help with CICS Threadsafe and consolidation projects.
Being threadsafe modernizes CICS applications and reduces TCB switching and CPU usage. It also increases the number of simultaneous CICS tasks that can run in a single CICS region, which reduces the need for vast numbers of CICS systems, and saves on the cost of administering those systems and other overheads. It also better exploits modern z-Series hardware.
Each TCB switch is approximately 2000 instructions. CICS TS V5.1, non-threadsafe DB2, MQ, and IMS transactions switch TCBs for each SQL statement or MQ command. So reducing instruction path length reduces costs and saves money for an organization.
CICS Tools can help to create threadsafe applications. Satish Tanna suggested that there are four stages in creating a threadsafe application. Step 1 is to identify applications that have a high number of TCB switches and identify programs in those transactions that are good threadsafe candidates.
Step 2 is to analyse programs to ensure the logic is threadsafe. Step 3 is to implement threadsafe programs. And the final step is to measure the results. CICS PA can be used for steps 1 and 4. CICS IA can be used for step 2. And CICS CM can be used for step 3.
CICS Performance Analyzer (PA) can analyse your CICS applications to determine which ones are good candidates for threadsafe. It looks at how many switches occurred, how much CPU time was used, delays, and how much they cost.
CICS Interdependency Analyzer (IA) can be used to determine the cause of a high number of Change TCB modes. It looks at what commands are issued by the transaction, how many commands are threadsafe, whether there are any DB2, MQ, or IMS commands, whether there are any Dynamic COBOL commands, whether there are any inhibiting commands, and which commands cause a TCB swap and where they are in the sequence of events.
Sites can also use CICS IA to verify that program logic is threadsafe. It looks for serialization techniques when accessing shared resources, enqueue and dequeue, compare and swap, reviews usage of ADDRESS CWA, EXTRACT EXIT, and GETMAIN SHARED. CICS will provide threadsafe access to its resources, eg files and queues.
CICS Configuration Manager (CM) Packaging, Transformation, and Migration facilities can be used to manage programs.
CICS PA can then be used to compare the results using the CICS PA Transaction Profile Report. This can quickly show a comparison between before and after the threadsafe project.
When it comes to consolidation, Satish Tanna told the user group that using CICS TS V5.1 scalability can consolidate CICS systems to simplify management. New and improved capabilities in CICS TS V5.1 provide greater single region scalability by doubling the MAXTASK limit to 2000. There’s greater usage of 64-bit storage and reduced usage of 24-bit storage. There’s greater application parallelism through threadsafe API and SPI extensions. There’s greater system parallelism through optimized TCB usage. There are Java performance improvements from 64-bit Java 7 support. And there’s greater access to 64-bit application storage when using Assembler programs.
CICS Deployment Assistant (DA) can discover CICS and CICSPlex system topology. CICS IA can analyse application resources and interdependencies. CICS CM can implement region consolidation, including CSD and CPSM BAS resources. CICS PA can measure performance.
CICS DA will discover Sysplex, CICS assets, and other address spaces. It can visualize assets and interconnections graphically. And it can export discovery data for reporting.
More information about the Virtual CICS user group can be found at http://fundi.com/virtualcics/.
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
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Shopping
It seems that as you get closer to Christmas and the New Year, everything starts to run down like an old clockwork toy. Meetings scheduled for 2013 seem ages away, even though some are at the beginning of January. And phone calls so often find the person you’re ringing out of the office – whether that’s doing a bit of family shopping or attending the numerous party and lunch invitations. And as for e-mail, people seem to leave their out-of-office message on permanently!
To be honest, I’ve been closeted away trying to get the bulk of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 sorted out. I’ve been calculating the numbers for the user survey – and very interesting they are too. But I’ll talk more about them next year. I’ve been busy placing articles and organizing entries for vendors and consultants in the appropriate sections. So, no partying for me this week. BTW if you wanted to be included in the Yearbook, e-mail me immediately here.
I’ve also been working away at a speaker programme for the Virtual IMS user group and the Virtual CICS user group. The first meeting is on 15 January when IBM speakers will talk about the CICS V5.1 - Portfolio Update. But, as I say, it’s in January and seems an age away! If you or your company are interested presenting to either group during the year, then let me know here.
It seems that no matter whether you’re Christian, atheist, agnostic, or a person of any other faith, everyone likes a present from Father Christmas (Santa). So what do you buy the IT guy who seems to have pretty much everything? Somehow socks just don’t seem to show any real thought. Alcohol is usually well received, as are things from the more expensive end of the catalogue. But I’ve got a couple of other suggestions.
I’ve been playing with a magic magnetic balls cube. It’s 216 small magnetic balls that you can shape into all sorts of 3D things. And then you can scrunch them all up and start again. But the really hard part, is getting them back into the cube shape. Remember magnets repel as well as attract. So you can play with them for ages.
I’ve also been working with a variety of organizations on social media – getting Facebook fan pages set up, starting using Twitter, and putting videos on Youtube. And I found the like and dislike Facebook-like stamps can be quite fun. Whatever happened to the paperless office? As documents pass across my desk, I can (mainly for my own amusement) stamp them with a Like or Dislike (thumbs up or thumbs down). You’ll probably enjoy doing much the same!
There are lots more ideas at www.paramountzone.com, such as touch-screen gloves, iHat music hat, USB mug warmer, flying monkeys, a one million pound bank note, alcohol breath tester keyring, tap shower radio, and light changing glow ball.
And, for the mainframer in your life, you could try to get hold of a “Proud to be part of z” poster. You can see a copy here.
So, whatever you’re doing over the next couple of weeks, have a great time. See you next year.
To be honest, I’ve been closeted away trying to get the bulk of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 sorted out. I’ve been calculating the numbers for the user survey – and very interesting they are too. But I’ll talk more about them next year. I’ve been busy placing articles and organizing entries for vendors and consultants in the appropriate sections. So, no partying for me this week. BTW if you wanted to be included in the Yearbook, e-mail me immediately here.
I’ve also been working away at a speaker programme for the Virtual IMS user group and the Virtual CICS user group. The first meeting is on 15 January when IBM speakers will talk about the CICS V5.1 - Portfolio Update. But, as I say, it’s in January and seems an age away! If you or your company are interested presenting to either group during the year, then let me know here.
It seems that no matter whether you’re Christian, atheist, agnostic, or a person of any other faith, everyone likes a present from Father Christmas (Santa). So what do you buy the IT guy who seems to have pretty much everything? Somehow socks just don’t seem to show any real thought. Alcohol is usually well received, as are things from the more expensive end of the catalogue. But I’ve got a couple of other suggestions.
I’ve been playing with a magic magnetic balls cube. It’s 216 small magnetic balls that you can shape into all sorts of 3D things. And then you can scrunch them all up and start again. But the really hard part, is getting them back into the cube shape. Remember magnets repel as well as attract. So you can play with them for ages.
I’ve also been working with a variety of organizations on social media – getting Facebook fan pages set up, starting using Twitter, and putting videos on Youtube. And I found the like and dislike Facebook-like stamps can be quite fun. Whatever happened to the paperless office? As documents pass across my desk, I can (mainly for my own amusement) stamp them with a Like or Dislike (thumbs up or thumbs down). You’ll probably enjoy doing much the same!
There are lots more ideas at www.paramountzone.com, such as touch-screen gloves, iHat music hat, USB mug warmer, flying monkeys, a one million pound bank note, alcohol breath tester keyring, tap shower radio, and light changing glow ball.
And, for the mainframer in your life, you could try to get hold of a “Proud to be part of z” poster. You can see a copy here.
So, whatever you’re doing over the next couple of weeks, have a great time. See you next year.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
IMS's HALDBA again
Last time we looked at the first part of Neil Price’s presentation to the Virtual IMS user group back in February. Neil is a Senior DBA and Systems Programmer with TNT Express ICS. Here’s some more highlights from his presentation.
Neil suggested that at his site key-range partitions can be so different from each other that they need to be treated like independent databases. For example if the volume of data in one partition is growing much faster than in the others, it might need a lot more free space so that you don’t have to resize or split it too soon, and you might want to set the free space warning threshold lower, so that you have time to react. Another example is where the average database record length in one partition is much lower than in the others. If you want to be alerted when the record lengths increase, the threshold for this partition would need to be correspondingly lower.
When it comes to tuning – what Neil called “Performance Tweaks” – they have various processes where values are obtained in physical sequential order from the root keys of one database and used to access one or more related databases with the same root key. If the databases involved are all HDAM and use the DFSHDC40 randomizing routine, this works well because the randomizer tends to keep keys in more or less the same sequence regardless of the total number of Root Anchor Points, as long as this is much greater than the number of roots. This means that all the databases are accessed in physical sequential order, which more or less guarantees that each database block is read only once and so minimizes I/O, as well as generating a sequential access pattern that maximizes read hits in disk cache and more recently has enabled them to take advantage of OSAM Sequential Buffering. But once you go to PHDAM, the keys are only kept in this sequence within each partition. Optimal performance is only restored when all the databases involved are HALDBs with identical partitioning arrangements.
Neil Price identified something that he said confuses a lot of people, including some in IBM support, not least because the manuals are unclear. Normally when a KSDS data CI fills up, it split roughly in half. That’s not good for ascending keys such as the timestamps used by most of their HIDAM databases, because the old or “lower” CI will stay half-empty forever. In the same way, a CA split will leave the old CA with half its CIs empty and the rest usually half-empty, in other words only about a quarter full. If the insert rates are high, the KSDS can end up with a very high proportion of unusable free space and might approach the 4GB limit. However if Sequential Mode is used for the inserts, CI and CA splits are done at the point of the insert – which for ascending keys means that it starts a new, empty CI or CA and leaves the old one as it is. This is good for performance – CA splits have been known to take seconds to complete – as well as greatly slowing down the dataset growth.
It’s possible to specify sequential-mode inserts in the IMS buffer pool specification member by coding INSERT=SEQ on the OPTIONS statement, but that would apply to every KSDS. Instead they include a DBD statement for each index they want treated this way and specify FREESPACE=YES, which is the dataset-level equivalent. Sequential-mode inserts also honour the free space specifications for the KSDS. This means that if free space is specified and all inserts are done this way, the free space will never get used and is a complete waste of space. All their inserts are done through the online system, so FREESPACE=YES implies that there should be no free space specified for the cluster!
FREESPACE=YES would work almost as well with constantly descending keys. It might also be beneficial for some indexes whose keys are generally, rather than strictly, ascending or descending, but until they’ve got IMS 12 and can change buffer pool parameters dynamically it’s going to be difficult to determine. Currently they specify FREESPACE=YES for 6 of their PSINDEXes, of which only one has a strictly ascending key and the rest start with a date. There used to be more, but after analysing the VSAM statistics, Neil reverted some to normal inserts and non-zero free space. This reduced the rate of CA splits, ie growth, and also the overall I/O. Neil reminded us that PSINDEX records can be relatively large, which makes the total index much larger than its non-HALDB version. It also means that fewer records are retrieved in one I/O, which is bad for sequential processing.
For Neil’s site, most of their indexes are accessed with a partial key, which in some cases will match hundreds of entries. Neil attempted to minimize the effects by making the VSAM buffer pools bigger, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to get the I/O rates back down to pre-HALDB levels. He reasoned that the buffers ought to hold the same number of VSAM data records as before, so he aimed to increase the number of buffers in line with the increase in the record length. When he calculated the new subpool sizes he discovered that some came out greater than the limit of 32,767 buffers, and in any case there wasn’t enough virtual storage available for such large increases, so he had to scale them all back anyway. But the I/O rates for most of the OSAM subpools are higher than for any of the VSAM ones, so this is maybe not the area with the most potential for I/O reduction.
To sum up, Neil informed the user group that HALDBs can change your life if you’re a DBA! Once you’ve converted your databases, that’s when the fun really begins
You might like to know that the Virtual IMS user group can be found at www.fundi.com/virtualims. The next meeting is on 9 October at 11:30am EDT, when the guest speaker will be Aurora Emanuela Dell’Anno, a Senior Engineering Services Architect with CA Technology, who’ll be talking about “IMS performance – taming the beast”. It will be well worth attending – and being a virtual meeting, there’s no need to leave your desk. See the Web site for more details.
Neil suggested that at his site key-range partitions can be so different from each other that they need to be treated like independent databases. For example if the volume of data in one partition is growing much faster than in the others, it might need a lot more free space so that you don’t have to resize or split it too soon, and you might want to set the free space warning threshold lower, so that you have time to react. Another example is where the average database record length in one partition is much lower than in the others. If you want to be alerted when the record lengths increase, the threshold for this partition would need to be correspondingly lower.
When it comes to tuning – what Neil called “Performance Tweaks” – they have various processes where values are obtained in physical sequential order from the root keys of one database and used to access one or more related databases with the same root key. If the databases involved are all HDAM and use the DFSHDC40 randomizing routine, this works well because the randomizer tends to keep keys in more or less the same sequence regardless of the total number of Root Anchor Points, as long as this is much greater than the number of roots. This means that all the databases are accessed in physical sequential order, which more or less guarantees that each database block is read only once and so minimizes I/O, as well as generating a sequential access pattern that maximizes read hits in disk cache and more recently has enabled them to take advantage of OSAM Sequential Buffering. But once you go to PHDAM, the keys are only kept in this sequence within each partition. Optimal performance is only restored when all the databases involved are HALDBs with identical partitioning arrangements.
Neil Price identified something that he said confuses a lot of people, including some in IBM support, not least because the manuals are unclear. Normally when a KSDS data CI fills up, it split roughly in half. That’s not good for ascending keys such as the timestamps used by most of their HIDAM databases, because the old or “lower” CI will stay half-empty forever. In the same way, a CA split will leave the old CA with half its CIs empty and the rest usually half-empty, in other words only about a quarter full. If the insert rates are high, the KSDS can end up with a very high proportion of unusable free space and might approach the 4GB limit. However if Sequential Mode is used for the inserts, CI and CA splits are done at the point of the insert – which for ascending keys means that it starts a new, empty CI or CA and leaves the old one as it is. This is good for performance – CA splits have been known to take seconds to complete – as well as greatly slowing down the dataset growth.
It’s possible to specify sequential-mode inserts in the IMS buffer pool specification member by coding INSERT=SEQ on the OPTIONS statement, but that would apply to every KSDS. Instead they include a DBD statement for each index they want treated this way and specify FREESPACE=YES, which is the dataset-level equivalent. Sequential-mode inserts also honour the free space specifications for the KSDS. This means that if free space is specified and all inserts are done this way, the free space will never get used and is a complete waste of space. All their inserts are done through the online system, so FREESPACE=YES implies that there should be no free space specified for the cluster!
FREESPACE=YES would work almost as well with constantly descending keys. It might also be beneficial for some indexes whose keys are generally, rather than strictly, ascending or descending, but until they’ve got IMS 12 and can change buffer pool parameters dynamically it’s going to be difficult to determine. Currently they specify FREESPACE=YES for 6 of their PSINDEXes, of which only one has a strictly ascending key and the rest start with a date. There used to be more, but after analysing the VSAM statistics, Neil reverted some to normal inserts and non-zero free space. This reduced the rate of CA splits, ie growth, and also the overall I/O. Neil reminded us that PSINDEX records can be relatively large, which makes the total index much larger than its non-HALDB version. It also means that fewer records are retrieved in one I/O, which is bad for sequential processing.
For Neil’s site, most of their indexes are accessed with a partial key, which in some cases will match hundreds of entries. Neil attempted to minimize the effects by making the VSAM buffer pools bigger, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to get the I/O rates back down to pre-HALDB levels. He reasoned that the buffers ought to hold the same number of VSAM data records as before, so he aimed to increase the number of buffers in line with the increase in the record length. When he calculated the new subpool sizes he discovered that some came out greater than the limit of 32,767 buffers, and in any case there wasn’t enough virtual storage available for such large increases, so he had to scale them all back anyway. But the I/O rates for most of the OSAM subpools are higher than for any of the VSAM ones, so this is maybe not the area with the most potential for I/O reduction.
To sum up, Neil informed the user group that HALDBs can change your life if you’re a DBA! Once you’ve converted your databases, that’s when the fun really begins
You might like to know that the Virtual IMS user group can be found at www.fundi.com/virtualims. The next meeting is on 9 October at 11:30am EDT, when the guest speaker will be Aurora Emanuela Dell’Anno, a Senior Engineering Services Architect with CA Technology, who’ll be talking about “IMS performance – taming the beast”. It will be well worth attending – and being a virtual meeting, there’s no need to leave your desk. See the Web site for more details.
Sunday, 23 September 2012
IMS’s HALDBA
The Virtual IMS user group at www.fundi.com/virtualims has a regular virtual meetings every other month. In fact, the next one is on 9 October at 10:30 Central Daylight Time. Our guest speaker is Aurora Emanuela Dell'Anno, a Senior Engineering Services Architect with CA Technology, and she will be talking about “IMS performance – taming the beast”. It will be well worth attending – and being a virtual meeting, there’s no need to leave your desk. See the Web site for more details.
Back in February, Neil Price, a Senior DBA and Systems Programmer with TNT Express ICS gave an excellent presentation entitled, “Memoirs of a HALDBA”. Neil first encountered IBM mainframes as a student in 1971 and more recently he has been Chairman of the GSE UK IMS Working Group.
Neil started his presentation by giving the user group a clear idea of what hardware and software TNT Express use. This is relevant because it affects the decisions that Neil and his organization had to make. They have two machines – one hosting the main production LPAR; and the other running the network, testing, and one or two other things. This has a total disk capacity of about 18TB, of which just over 4TB are mirrored to their Disaster Recovery site, about 100 miles away in London.
Neil informed us that they always used OSAM because they believe it’s more efficient. More recently, of course, it gave them the ability to have datasets up to 8GB in size. Very few of their databases ever get disorganized enough to need a reorg unless they’re running out of space. The use of HDAM for all of the most volatile databases is a major factor in this. A few are reorganised weekly, 3 of them in order to remove logically-deleted data with a user exit, and a few quarterly.
In terms of HALDB, Neil told us that since they started investigating and testing HALDB in 2004, they’ve converted 18 HDAM databases, which were getting close to the 8GB OSAM dataset size limit, including the whole of the CCDB (Central Consignment Data Base, consisting of 15 HALDBs of 6 partitions each) and one with an index that was threatening to hit 4GB between weekly reorgs. Just 2 of their HALDBs are partitioned by key range. Most of the HALDBs got up to 16 partitions on model-3 logical volumes over time, but went down to 6 partitions when they moved them to model-9s. Apart from Consignment, each HALDB has at least one index. 5 have 28 indexes between them, and 13 of the indexes are also partitioned.
Neil was pleased to have avoided certain challenges at his site. For example, the DBRC question – they decided to have DBRC forced registration in every system from the very beginning, and, because there’s virtually no DL/I batch, there’s just one copy of each database and it’s permanently online. It didn’t take much thinking to decide that their 14 cloned databases would stay separate when they became HALDBs. Anything else would have involved major application code changes. The databases using a partitioning exit all use the Consignment key, so they’ve effectively had to write only one simple exit routine. They still maintain separate modules, though, just in case they need to vary the logic at any time.
To simplify everything they treat the HALDBs just the same as before except in very exceptional circumstances and haven’t changed their names. In particular, not taking individual partitions offline means that the applications don’t need to handle partitions being unavailable.
In terms of challenges they faced, Neil said that the first database they converted was one using the Consignment key, and it was fairly obvious that they wouldn’t get a predictable spread of data using key ranges. In the end they adapted the example in the IBM Redbook “The Complete IMS HALDB Guide” (SG24-6945) to select a partition based on a portion of the key, in their case the trailing characters of the 9-digit character numeric Consignment number. With equally-spaced “limits”, this has resulted in a very even spread of data across the partitions. They started with 2 digits, but once they went from 10 to 12 and then 16 partitions it seemed sensible to start using 3 digits for a slightly more even spread. Of course the overall physical sequence of records isn’t the same as in HDAM. For databases with key-range partitioning, they used the HALDB Migration Aid utility DFSMAID0 to choose the limits.
When it comes to monitoring challenges, Neil told the group that for non-HALDBs they get a list by e-mail of any thresholds that have been exceeded, for example the number of database records or the number of HDAM roots not stored in their “home” block. This is sent by a simple SAS program that processes a daily report of all metrics and threshold exceptions from their Pointer Checker statistics repository. The statistics are gathered as part of the daily online Image Copy backups. They find the e-mail preferable to having to navigate ISPF panels or a GUI to find out what exceptions have occurred, if any.
HALDB statistics, on the other hand, are written to a completely different repository, which can be viewed through a GUI but didn’t come with facilities to generate reports or e-mails. So they segregated the HALDBs into their own backup jobs, which direct the Pointer Checker report to a file. An additional SAS step then processes the file, writes the results to a SAS database and a summary report, and generates an e-mail if the percentage of usable free space in any partition falls below a hard-coded threshold.
Find out more about Neil Price’s experience next week.
Back in February, Neil Price, a Senior DBA and Systems Programmer with TNT Express ICS gave an excellent presentation entitled, “Memoirs of a HALDBA”. Neil first encountered IBM mainframes as a student in 1971 and more recently he has been Chairman of the GSE UK IMS Working Group.
Neil started his presentation by giving the user group a clear idea of what hardware and software TNT Express use. This is relevant because it affects the decisions that Neil and his organization had to make. They have two machines – one hosting the main production LPAR; and the other running the network, testing, and one or two other things. This has a total disk capacity of about 18TB, of which just over 4TB are mirrored to their Disaster Recovery site, about 100 miles away in London.
Neil informed us that they always used OSAM because they believe it’s more efficient. More recently, of course, it gave them the ability to have datasets up to 8GB in size. Very few of their databases ever get disorganized enough to need a reorg unless they’re running out of space. The use of HDAM for all of the most volatile databases is a major factor in this. A few are reorganised weekly, 3 of them in order to remove logically-deleted data with a user exit, and a few quarterly.
In terms of HALDB, Neil told us that since they started investigating and testing HALDB in 2004, they’ve converted 18 HDAM databases, which were getting close to the 8GB OSAM dataset size limit, including the whole of the CCDB (Central Consignment Data Base, consisting of 15 HALDBs of 6 partitions each) and one with an index that was threatening to hit 4GB between weekly reorgs. Just 2 of their HALDBs are partitioned by key range. Most of the HALDBs got up to 16 partitions on model-3 logical volumes over time, but went down to 6 partitions when they moved them to model-9s. Apart from Consignment, each HALDB has at least one index. 5 have 28 indexes between them, and 13 of the indexes are also partitioned.
Neil was pleased to have avoided certain challenges at his site. For example, the DBRC question – they decided to have DBRC forced registration in every system from the very beginning, and, because there’s virtually no DL/I batch, there’s just one copy of each database and it’s permanently online. It didn’t take much thinking to decide that their 14 cloned databases would stay separate when they became HALDBs. Anything else would have involved major application code changes. The databases using a partitioning exit all use the Consignment key, so they’ve effectively had to write only one simple exit routine. They still maintain separate modules, though, just in case they need to vary the logic at any time.
To simplify everything they treat the HALDBs just the same as before except in very exceptional circumstances and haven’t changed their names. In particular, not taking individual partitions offline means that the applications don’t need to handle partitions being unavailable.
In terms of challenges they faced, Neil said that the first database they converted was one using the Consignment key, and it was fairly obvious that they wouldn’t get a predictable spread of data using key ranges. In the end they adapted the example in the IBM Redbook “The Complete IMS HALDB Guide” (SG24-6945) to select a partition based on a portion of the key, in their case the trailing characters of the 9-digit character numeric Consignment number. With equally-spaced “limits”, this has resulted in a very even spread of data across the partitions. They started with 2 digits, but once they went from 10 to 12 and then 16 partitions it seemed sensible to start using 3 digits for a slightly more even spread. Of course the overall physical sequence of records isn’t the same as in HDAM. For databases with key-range partitioning, they used the HALDB Migration Aid utility DFSMAID0 to choose the limits.
When it comes to monitoring challenges, Neil told the group that for non-HALDBs they get a list by e-mail of any thresholds that have been exceeded, for example the number of database records or the number of HDAM roots not stored in their “home” block. This is sent by a simple SAS program that processes a daily report of all metrics and threshold exceptions from their Pointer Checker statistics repository. The statistics are gathered as part of the daily online Image Copy backups. They find the e-mail preferable to having to navigate ISPF panels or a GUI to find out what exceptions have occurred, if any.
HALDB statistics, on the other hand, are written to a completely different repository, which can be viewed through a GUI but didn’t come with facilities to generate reports or e-mails. So they segregated the HALDBs into their own backup jobs, which direct the Pointer Checker report to a file. An additional SAS step then processes the file, writes the results to a SAS database and a summary report, and generates an e-mail if the percentage of usable free space in any partition falls below a hard-coded threshold.
Find out more about Neil Price’s experience next week.
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, 3 April 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
New virtual CICS user group
How many times have you come away from a conference or a presentation and thought wow, that was really useful? Perhaps one small nugget of information from the speaker has opened a door for further development of work at your site. And most technical presentations are full of gems of information – both for the novice user and those more technically experienced.
But how often have you had to fight to justify attending meetings with other professionals? How often have you struggled to build a business case showing that a particular event or conference really will pay back more than it costs in your time off work, the cost of staff to cover your absence, travel costs, subsistence allowance, and hotel fees?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to attend a highly professional technically-oriented seminar or presentation without having to leave your company’s offices – without, perhaps, even having to leave your desk?
And wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a single place where you could go and find out a little bit about the latest CICS product announcements, including a link to get more information if you wanted it? How cool would it be if there was a list of tools that ran on CICS with a brief summary of what each product did? And what about some way of finding out whenever someone published a new article about using CICS in IBM Systems Magazine or zJournal, or wherever – wouldn’t that be useful?
Well, the great news is that the all-new Virtual CICS user group at www.fundi.com/virtualcics provides all that and more. On the Web site you’ll find a list of useful applications that enhance CICS, and a list of CICS service providers. You’ll also find the latest product announcements and articles.
In addition, every other month (that’s six times a year) there will be a webinar. Using Citrix GoToMeeting, you’ll be able to stay at your desk and interact with other members of the user group and listen to the latest presentation by an acknowledged CICS expert. In the months when there isn’t a webinar, there will be a newsletter sent to all members keeping them up-to-date with the latest news.
And if you’re wondering how much this kind of high-quality service is likely to cost you, the answer is nothing – not a penny! Membership of the user group is free – you just need to sign up at www.fundi.com/virtualcics/register.htm. And the webinars are completely free to members. We’ll e-mail you a link about a fortnight before the webinar with all the information you need.
So, if you’re a CICS professional, this is the user group specifically tailored for you.
Why not join right now?
You may also be interested to know that the Virtual IMS user group has been running since November 2007. You can find out more about that at www.fundi.com/virtualIMS.
But how often have you had to fight to justify attending meetings with other professionals? How often have you struggled to build a business case showing that a particular event or conference really will pay back more than it costs in your time off work, the cost of staff to cover your absence, travel costs, subsistence allowance, and hotel fees?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to attend a highly professional technically-oriented seminar or presentation without having to leave your company’s offices – without, perhaps, even having to leave your desk?
And wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a single place where you could go and find out a little bit about the latest CICS product announcements, including a link to get more information if you wanted it? How cool would it be if there was a list of tools that ran on CICS with a brief summary of what each product did? And what about some way of finding out whenever someone published a new article about using CICS in IBM Systems Magazine or zJournal, or wherever – wouldn’t that be useful?
Well, the great news is that the all-new Virtual CICS user group at www.fundi.com/virtualcics provides all that and more. On the Web site you’ll find a list of useful applications that enhance CICS, and a list of CICS service providers. You’ll also find the latest product announcements and articles.
In addition, every other month (that’s six times a year) there will be a webinar. Using Citrix GoToMeeting, you’ll be able to stay at your desk and interact with other members of the user group and listen to the latest presentation by an acknowledged CICS expert. In the months when there isn’t a webinar, there will be a newsletter sent to all members keeping them up-to-date with the latest news.
And if you’re wondering how much this kind of high-quality service is likely to cost you, the answer is nothing – not a penny! Membership of the user group is free – you just need to sign up at www.fundi.com/virtualcics/register.htm. And the webinars are completely free to members. We’ll e-mail you a link about a fortnight before the webinar with all the information you need.
So, if you’re a CICS professional, this is the user group specifically tailored for you.
Why not join right now?
You may also be interested to know that the Virtual IMS user group has been running since November 2007. You can find out more about that at www.fundi.com/virtualIMS.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
The importance of mainframe performance
It’s so easy to forget, or just take it as read, that mainframes have been able to successfully run with five nines availability for well over a decade. What that means is achieving 99.999% of scheduled uptime. In other words, it means that unscheduled downtime is less than five and half minutes in a year! Now that kind of amazing performance is something that boxes running other operating systems can only dream of. Some are working towards that level of availability, but others (you know who I’m thinking of here) aren’t even close.
But I wasn’t thinking about performance in that sense. We just take it for granted the operating system is going to be always working. What I was thinking about was the performance of the major subsystems running under z/OS. It’s very important to take steps to ensure that CICS or IMS are performing optimally. Monitoring software can be installed that will identify when preset thresholds are reached. They help identify bottlenecks and then the appropriate action can be taken to resolve them. This is the kind of stuff systems programmers have been working away at for years. They’ve been using faster processors, faster I/O, more efficiently-coded transactions, until every component is working as well as it can.
In previous blogs, we’ve talked about monitoring software that can arrange for alerts to be sent to designated staff as text messages or e-mails – allowing them to access the nearest iPad or laptop and take steps to resolve the new problem.
As well as CICS and IMS, there are monitors for DB2, WebSphere, and z/OS itself. These can all be integrated and produce wonderful moving graphs or other displays that allow users to tell at a glance whether everything is OK or whether a slight tweak to the subsystem is required. In addition, we’ve had software that learns how to maintain high performance and make appropriate changes on-the-fly, without any human intervention.
But the problem that many sites now face is what they can do if, for example, IMS users are reporting slow response times, but the problem appears to be coming from outside the IMS subsystem rather than from inside it. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. The challenge facing systems programmers in this situation is to correlate performance data in IMS with activities in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time.
One new solution is Transaction Analysis Workbench, which is an IMS tool. If you’re interested in how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem, you’ll be interested in the webinar from the Virtual IMS user group this week.
The Virtual IMS user group runs free webinars every other month. During the webinar, a technical expert shares their hard-won knowledge with the rest of the group. The webinars use Citrix GoToMeeting, which means you don’t have to face the hard task of convincing your company to fund your user group experience – you just sit down at your laptop and log in.
Anyone wishing to join the webinar needs to join the user group – which is also free. The next meeting is at 10:30 Central Standard Time on Tuesday 8 February. The user group’s Web site (where you can join) is at www.fundi.com/virtualims.
But I wasn’t thinking about performance in that sense. We just take it for granted the operating system is going to be always working. What I was thinking about was the performance of the major subsystems running under z/OS. It’s very important to take steps to ensure that CICS or IMS are performing optimally. Monitoring software can be installed that will identify when preset thresholds are reached. They help identify bottlenecks and then the appropriate action can be taken to resolve them. This is the kind of stuff systems programmers have been working away at for years. They’ve been using faster processors, faster I/O, more efficiently-coded transactions, until every component is working as well as it can.
In previous blogs, we’ve talked about monitoring software that can arrange for alerts to be sent to designated staff as text messages or e-mails – allowing them to access the nearest iPad or laptop and take steps to resolve the new problem.
As well as CICS and IMS, there are monitors for DB2, WebSphere, and z/OS itself. These can all be integrated and produce wonderful moving graphs or other displays that allow users to tell at a glance whether everything is OK or whether a slight tweak to the subsystem is required. In addition, we’ve had software that learns how to maintain high performance and make appropriate changes on-the-fly, without any human intervention.
But the problem that many sites now face is what they can do if, for example, IMS users are reporting slow response times, but the problem appears to be coming from outside the IMS subsystem rather than from inside it. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. The challenge facing systems programmers in this situation is to correlate performance data in IMS with activities in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time.
One new solution is Transaction Analysis Workbench, which is an IMS tool. If you’re interested in how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem, you’ll be interested in the webinar from the Virtual IMS user group this week.
The Virtual IMS user group runs free webinars every other month. During the webinar, a technical expert shares their hard-won knowledge with the rest of the group. The webinars use Citrix GoToMeeting, which means you don’t have to face the hard task of convincing your company to fund your user group experience – you just sit down at your laptop and log in.
Anyone wishing to join the webinar needs to join the user group – which is also free. The next meeting is at 10:30 Central Standard Time on Tuesday 8 February. The user group’s Web site (where you can join) is at www.fundi.com/virtualims.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Virtual IMS user group
With so much of IBM’s software now in its 40s, it’s no wonder that using it requires quite a lot of knowledge. And many people have developed a whole range of nifty tips and tricks that they can use when things go wrong or to help make things work better. That’s where user groups come in. A user group provides an opportunity for people to share their hints and tips with others, and, in return, learn some tried-and-tested new ones.
One problem that managers sometimes have with staff going to user group meetings is that they are unavailable at work should there be a problem. In addition, there is often a cost associated with going to meetings – travel costs, meals, parking, subsistence, etc. That’s where the Virtual IMS user group scores. Not only do members get all the benefits of user group membership, but there’s no need for them to leave the office – they just join the meeting through their computer (hence the ‘virtual’ part of the name).
And the Virtual IMS user group is going to be busy in 2011. If you’re not already a member and you’d like to be, then go to www.fundi.com/virtualims and sign up. User group membership is FREE. This year there is an exciting programme of presentations at the virtual meetings – using GoToMeeting – starting on 8 February at 10:30 CDT with a presentation by Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Solving the problem when IMS isn’t the cause”.
Jim describes the presentation like this: “Users might report slow response times from IMS, but you suspect that other systems are responsible. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. Your challenge is to correlate performance data in IMS with activity in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time. In this session, we discuss how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem.
On 12 April the user group meeting includes a presentation from Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software. His presentation is entitled: “Simplify and improving database administration by leveraging your storage system”. Ron is a database professional with over 30 years of related experience. He has developed relational database software, implemented large database systems, conducted database design reviews, and consulted with companies around the world on various aspects of relational database technology, database management tools, and integrated data management solutions.
On 14 June Ronnie Parker from Logic Online talks about: “The ripple effect of making changes”. The session describes storage-aware data management tools. These tools integrate storage-based fast-replication facilities with database management systems to provide fast and non-disruptive IMS and DB2 backup and cloning solutions. Storage-aware data management tools improve database backup, recovery, and cloning solutions by using storage-based fast-replication facilities to copy data; saving time and host CPU and I/O resources. The session explores how storage-based fast-replication facilities offered by IBM, EMC, and Hitachi storage systems can be used to backup, recover, clone, and refresh IMS and DB2 systems.
And there will be more great sessions in the second half of the year.
The user group is very grateful to Fundi Software for stepping in to sponsor the group (in much the same way that BMC sponsors the IMS Listserv at http://imslistserv.bmc.com/scripts/wa-BMC.exe?LOGON). Fundi Software is an Australian software product development company. Established in 1982, Fundi is today one of the leading providers of tools for IMS and CICS systems. Taken from the Zulu language, Fundi means “expert”.
The Virtual IMS user group is an independently-operated vendor-neutral group run by and for the IMS user community. The Web site contains an up-to-date list of IMS-related software that can be used with IMS; IMS news (information about new IMS products and new versions of existing products); a list of IMS consultant (let me know if your company needs to be added to the list); links to recent IMS articles that are available on the Internet; and links to IMS resources – in fact, it’s a one-stop shop for IMS professionals and other people interested in IBM’s Information Management System.
Find out more at www.fundi.com/virtualims.
One problem that managers sometimes have with staff going to user group meetings is that they are unavailable at work should there be a problem. In addition, there is often a cost associated with going to meetings – travel costs, meals, parking, subsistence, etc. That’s where the Virtual IMS user group scores. Not only do members get all the benefits of user group membership, but there’s no need for them to leave the office – they just join the meeting through their computer (hence the ‘virtual’ part of the name).
And the Virtual IMS user group is going to be busy in 2011. If you’re not already a member and you’d like to be, then go to www.fundi.com/virtualims and sign up. User group membership is FREE. This year there is an exciting programme of presentations at the virtual meetings – using GoToMeeting – starting on 8 February at 10:30 CDT with a presentation by Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Solving the problem when IMS isn’t the cause”.
Jim describes the presentation like this: “Users might report slow response times from IMS, but you suspect that other systems are responsible. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. Your challenge is to correlate performance data in IMS with activity in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time. In this session, we discuss how to approach this type of situation, how to gather the necessary information from multiple subsystems, and then analyse, diagnose, and resolve the problem.
On 12 April the user group meeting includes a presentation from Ron Haupert, a Senior Technologist with Rocket Software. His presentation is entitled: “Simplify and improving database administration by leveraging your storage system”. Ron is a database professional with over 30 years of related experience. He has developed relational database software, implemented large database systems, conducted database design reviews, and consulted with companies around the world on various aspects of relational database technology, database management tools, and integrated data management solutions.
On 14 June Ronnie Parker from Logic Online talks about: “The ripple effect of making changes”. The session describes storage-aware data management tools. These tools integrate storage-based fast-replication facilities with database management systems to provide fast and non-disruptive IMS and DB2 backup and cloning solutions. Storage-aware data management tools improve database backup, recovery, and cloning solutions by using storage-based fast-replication facilities to copy data; saving time and host CPU and I/O resources. The session explores how storage-based fast-replication facilities offered by IBM, EMC, and Hitachi storage systems can be used to backup, recover, clone, and refresh IMS and DB2 systems.
And there will be more great sessions in the second half of the year.
The user group is very grateful to Fundi Software for stepping in to sponsor the group (in much the same way that BMC sponsors the IMS Listserv at http://imslistserv.bmc.com/scripts/wa-BMC.exe?LOGON). Fundi Software is an Australian software product development company. Established in 1982, Fundi is today one of the leading providers of tools for IMS and CICS systems. Taken from the Zulu language, Fundi means “expert”.
The Virtual IMS user group is an independently-operated vendor-neutral group run by and for the IMS user community. The Web site contains an up-to-date list of IMS-related software that can be used with IMS; IMS news (information about new IMS products and new versions of existing products); a list of IMS consultant (let me know if your company needs to be added to the list); links to recent IMS articles that are available on the Internet; and links to IMS resources – in fact, it’s a one-stop shop for IMS professionals and other people interested in IBM’s Information Management System.
Find out more at www.fundi.com/virtualims.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Mainframe computing 2011
This is the time of year when people make predictions for what we can expect to see in the coming year, so here are my predictions...
I predict that the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook will appear in early January and be downloaded by around 15 000 mainframe professionals. The Yearbook includes an annual mainframe 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.
I also predict the Virtual IMS user group will restart its virtual meetings and newsletters early in the New Year. Virtual IMS is a user group established as a way for individuals using IBM's IMS hierarchical database and transaction processing systems to exchange information, learn new techniques, and advance their skills with the product. The first virtual meeting takes place on Tuesday 8 February at 10:30 CDT. The presentation is by Fundi Software’s Jim Martin and is entitled, “Solving the problem when IMS isn't the cause”. Users might report slow response time from IMS, but you suspect that other systems are responsible. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. Your challenge is to correlate performance data in IMS with activity in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time. This talk will explain how to do it.
With all the hype about cloud computing, 2011 is the year cloud computing will become commonplace. In many ways, this is a major technology change that is being driven by users. They like the simple life (or should I say, we like the simple life). It’s very easy to turn on your browser and have all the applications you want just there waiting for you – like the apps on your phone. You then use the applications as you want them. Users are looking for the same simplicity in their working environment and organizations are going to have to provide this paradigm-shift way of working.
And talking of smart phones, I predict that the device of choice is not going to be a small laptop or netbook, but a large smart phone (or small tablet). Something that you can fit in your pocket, but has everything you need to do a day’s work on it. And, of course, cloud computing makes this easier too.
I predict there will be more GUI-looking software on mainframes so that youngsters will feel right at home using the technology. And I predict there will be much more mainframe automation going on – which will allow the few experts available within an organization to do more work with fewer resources.
Social media will have embraced all sizes of businesses, so if you want to find out what IBM or any other major (or less major!) vendor is up to, you’ll be able to do it in the Twitter, Facebook, whatever, environment you are currently familiar with.
In the consumer market, I predict more people watching TV programmes through laptops and smart phones. It’s so easy and convenient to catch the latest news on a smart phone.
I predict that mainframes will NOT disappear in 2011.
I predict the arrival of more mainframe monitoring apps on smart phones – so you know straightaway if there is an issue with the network etc. You’ll then pull out your tablet or laptop and solve the problem using the nice GUI on the software.
I’d also like to predict world peace and harmony – maybe next year!
I also predict the Virtual IMS user group will restart its virtual meetings and newsletters early in the New Year. Virtual IMS is a user group established as a way for individuals using IBM's IMS hierarchical database and transaction processing systems to exchange information, learn new techniques, and advance their skills with the product. The first virtual meeting takes place on Tuesday 8 February at 10:30 CDT. The presentation is by Fundi Software’s Jim Martin and is entitled, “Solving the problem when IMS isn't the cause”. Users might report slow response time from IMS, but you suspect that other systems are responsible. For example, what appears to be an IMS performance problem could be a CICS, DB2, WebSphere, or z/OS performance problem. Your challenge is to correlate performance data in IMS with activity in these other systems in order to discover the cause of the slow response time. This talk will explain how to do it.
With all the hype about cloud computing, 2011 is the year cloud computing will become commonplace. In many ways, this is a major technology change that is being driven by users. They like the simple life (or should I say, we like the simple life). It’s very easy to turn on your browser and have all the applications you want just there waiting for you – like the apps on your phone. You then use the applications as you want them. Users are looking for the same simplicity in their working environment and organizations are going to have to provide this paradigm-shift way of working.
And talking of smart phones, I predict that the device of choice is not going to be a small laptop or netbook, but a large smart phone (or small tablet). Something that you can fit in your pocket, but has everything you need to do a day’s work on it. And, of course, cloud computing makes this easier too.
I predict there will be more GUI-looking software on mainframes so that youngsters will feel right at home using the technology. And I predict there will be much more mainframe automation going on – which will allow the few experts available within an organization to do more work with fewer resources.
Social media will have embraced all sizes of businesses, so if you want to find out what IBM or any other major (or less major!) vendor is up to, you’ll be able to do it in the Twitter, Facebook, whatever, environment you are currently familiar with.
In the consumer market, I predict more people watching TV programmes through laptops and smart phones. It’s so easy and convenient to catch the latest news on a smart phone.
I predict that mainframes will NOT disappear in 2011.
I predict the arrival of more mainframe monitoring apps on smart phones – so you know straightaway if there is an issue with the network etc. You’ll then pull out your tablet or laptop and solve the problem using the nice GUI on the software.
I’d also like to predict world peace and harmony – maybe next year!
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Virtual IMS Connection user group - under threat
Virtual IMS Connection is a vendor-neutral, independently-operated, virtual user group for IMS (IBM's Information Management System) professionals. It can currently be found at www.virtualims.com. It was launched at the beginning of November 2007.
Virtual user group meetings take place every other month and a guest speaker gives a presentation relevant to the IMS user community. The user group meetings last a little over an hour in total. Participation in meetings is free to members. The Virtual IMS Connection user group is also free to join.
User group members also get a bi-monthly newsletter. You can see the flip-book version here and the PDF version here.
The Web site contains details of future meetings, information about IMS-related articles (published elsewhere on the Web) and events, a list of IMS tools (software - the listing is free to vendors) and services, a list of IMS consultants, and a job bank (with resumes - CVs - and job opportunities).
New IMS products and new versions of existing products are always included in the News page. There's a link to the IMS-L listserv, where IMS professionals can ask questions and share information.
Members can access PDF versions of presentations and PDF versions of newsletters.
The idea was to create a one-stop shop for IMS professionals, where individuals using IBM’s IMS hierarchical database and transaction processing systems could exchange information, learn new techniques, and advance their skills with the product.
Obviously, there are sponsorship opportunities available to vendors of IMS-related products to help fund this work. Vendors can place banner adverts, etc. However, since its inception, NEON Enterprise Software has provided Web hosting for the site, and funded the WebEx technology that we have used to make the regular webinars possible, as well as meeting other costs. This is now coming to an end, and the Virtual IMS Connection user group is looking for a new home.
If your organization might be able to help keep this important user group running, please contact me on trevor@itech-ed.com.
You can also find the user group on Twitter at twitter.com/VirtualIMS.
You can become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#/pages/Virtual-IMS-Connection-user-group/282385116069.
Let's hope that the Virtual IMS Connection user group can continue to share ideas, information, and skills into the future.
Virtual user group meetings take place every other month and a guest speaker gives a presentation relevant to the IMS user community. The user group meetings last a little over an hour in total. Participation in meetings is free to members. The Virtual IMS Connection user group is also free to join.
User group members also get a bi-monthly newsletter. You can see the flip-book version here and the PDF version here.
The Web site contains details of future meetings, information about IMS-related articles (published elsewhere on the Web) and events, a list of IMS tools (software - the listing is free to vendors) and services, a list of IMS consultants, and a job bank (with resumes - CVs - and job opportunities).
New IMS products and new versions of existing products are always included in the News page. There's a link to the IMS-L listserv, where IMS professionals can ask questions and share information.
Members can access PDF versions of presentations and PDF versions of newsletters.
The idea was to create a one-stop shop for IMS professionals, where individuals using IBM’s IMS hierarchical database and transaction processing systems could exchange information, learn new techniques, and advance their skills with the product.
Obviously, there are sponsorship opportunities available to vendors of IMS-related products to help fund this work. Vendors can place banner adverts, etc. However, since its inception, NEON Enterprise Software has provided Web hosting for the site, and funded the WebEx technology that we have used to make the regular webinars possible, as well as meeting other costs. This is now coming to an end, and the Virtual IMS Connection user group is looking for a new home.
If your organization might be able to help keep this important user group running, please contact me on trevor@itech-ed.com.
You can also find the user group on Twitter at twitter.com/VirtualIMS.
You can become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#/pages/Virtual-IMS-Connection-user-group/282385116069.
Let's hope that the Virtual IMS Connection user group can continue to share ideas, information, and skills into the future.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Staying up-to-date with IMS
IMS – Information Management System – has been around for quite some time. In fact it’ll be 42 in August. Isn’t 42 the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything? Anyway, IMS runs on IBM mainframes and provides an incredibly fast hierarchical database system and an excellent transaction processing system. And in the intervening 41 years and 10 months there have been enormous improvements not only to the way it works, but also to the thinking behind what can be done with it.
Anyone working with IMS will be able to explain to you the different types of database that exist. They’ll talk at length about Full-function databases, Fast-path databases, and High-availability fast path databases. In addition to this database side of IMS, they will also be able to explain how the transaction management system works – how end users can access information and how messages are queued to make this possible. This is great, but what IMS professionals also need is some way of ensuring they keep up-to-date with what else IMS can do. What IMS will be able to do next year when it’s 43 and work towards that.
One easy way is for IMS professionals to join the Virtual IMS Connection user group at www.virtualims.com. This user group has virtual meetings every other month, so that members can watch presentations without needing to leave their office – all they need is an Internet-enabled PC and a telephone. Most of these Webinars take place at 10:30 Central Time and last around an hour.
As well as seeing a presentation by another IMS professional and the ability to ask as many technical questions as they want, they are also kept up-to-date with the latest product announcements (new products or new versions or releases of existing products) and latest IMS-related articles appearing in the press. On the Web site they can find jobs or people looking for jobs and (added quite recently) they can find consultants available for work.
The next meeting of the Virtual IMS Connection user group will be on the 8th June, and the meeting includes a presentation by Patrick Fournier of SysperTec Communications, who will be discussing “Improving the performance, efficiency, and TCO of SOA integration for IMS applications”.
The presentation will look at:
Anyone working with IMS will be able to explain to you the different types of database that exist. They’ll talk at length about Full-function databases, Fast-path databases, and High-availability fast path databases. In addition to this database side of IMS, they will also be able to explain how the transaction management system works – how end users can access information and how messages are queued to make this possible. This is great, but what IMS professionals also need is some way of ensuring they keep up-to-date with what else IMS can do. What IMS will be able to do next year when it’s 43 and work towards that.
One easy way is for IMS professionals to join the Virtual IMS Connection user group at www.virtualims.com. This user group has virtual meetings every other month, so that members can watch presentations without needing to leave their office – all they need is an Internet-enabled PC and a telephone. Most of these Webinars take place at 10:30 Central Time and last around an hour.
As well as seeing a presentation by another IMS professional and the ability to ask as many technical questions as they want, they are also kept up-to-date with the latest product announcements (new products or new versions or releases of existing products) and latest IMS-related articles appearing in the press. On the Web site they can find jobs or people looking for jobs and (added quite recently) they can find consultants available for work.
The next meeting of the Virtual IMS Connection user group will be on the 8th June, and the meeting includes a presentation by Patrick Fournier of SysperTec Communications, who will be discussing “Improving the performance, efficiency, and TCO of SOA integration for IMS applications”.
The presentation will look at:
- Web-enabling IMS and other 3270 applications.
- Providing a way to serve IMS application screens on thin-client Web browsers
- Developing Web 2.0 user interfaces that combine IMS 3270 data flows with AJAX functionality and JavaScript widgets.
- Creating interactive bi-directional connections between IMS and Web applications, eg Web applications that consume IMS transaction.
In a constantly changing industry, the only way to stay up-to-date and to keep your skills honed is join these regular Webinars. And being a virtual meeting, you don’t have to convince your company to fund your user group experience.
If you’re an IMS professional, it makes sense to join the user group and take part in a free Webinar.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Facebook and Twitter
The exciting news is that you can now stay up-to-date with all that’s happening in the IMS world, and with what’s happening with the Virtual IMS CONNECTION user group by following them on Twitter or becoming a Fan on Facebook – as well as by checking the Web site regularly at www.virtualims.com.
Find us on Twitter at twitter.com/VirtualIMS.
Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#/pages/Virtual-IMS-Connection-user-group/282385116069.
Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#/pages/Virtual-IMS-Connection-user-group/282385116069.
You could also add the Twitter and Facebook widgets to your Web sites, so not only do you stay in touch, but IMS professionals visiting your site will also be able to see the latest information. Examples of the widgets are shown below:So, follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
iTech-Ed Ltd is also on Twitter and Facebook. You can see all the latest blogs and other mainframe news on Twitter at twitter.com/t_eddolls. Or you can become a fan on Facebook by going to www.facebook.com/pages/iTech-Ed-Ltd/201736748040.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
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:
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:
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:
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 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:
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.
Membership of the Virtual IMS Connection is free and open to anyone interested in IMS. Webinars are presented free to members. You can join by going to http://www.virtualims.com/register.aspx and completing the form.
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.
Membership of the Virtual IMS Connection is free and open to anyone interested in IMS. Webinars are presented free to members. You can join by going to http://www.virtualims.com/register.aspx and completing the form.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
zPrime for IMS
The latest webinar from Virtual IMS CONNECTION (www.virtualims.com) was entitled, “Reducing mainframe costs – in a BIG way”, and was presented by Tony Lubrano, a product author at NEON Enterprise Software. Tony has been in data processing since 1975 and has been a software developer since 1993. As a software developer for Candle Corporation, Tony led the team that developed the Candle Command Center for IMS and DB2 products, as well as developing components of Omegamon II for IMS. Tony has been a product author with NEON Enterprise Software for the past 14 years developing many IMS products. NEON’s IMS Prefix Update Utility, Database Director, Application Director, and HALO are some of the commercial products Tony has developed. Most recently, Tony is one of the product authors of the NEON zPrime product.
Tony started his presentation by explaining what NEON zPrime actually is. He said that:
- NEON zPrime “facilitates” the movement of processing from a general purpose processor (CP) to a specialty processor (zIIP or zAAP)… It does not guarantee its movement
- NEON zPrime is a proprietary software solution governed by trade secrets. Details will not be publicly disclosed
- There is no publicly documented interface that facilitates this capability.
- There is no privately documented interface, that has been disclosed to NEON, that facilitates this capability.
Tony then clarified exactly what zPrime does not do. He said zPrime does not:
- Hook/alter z/OS dispatcher
- Hook/alter Workload Manager (WLM)
- Hook/alter System Management Facility (SMF)
- Hook/Alter Resource Measurement Facility (RMF)
- Enable/Disable any type of processors on any LPAR.
The workloads that are supported by zPrime are: IMS MPPs (transactions), IMS BMPs (transactions, online batch), IMS IFPs (transactions, online batch), IMS DLI or DBB (batch database), CICS transactions, TSO/ISPF, DB2 application programs, DB2 stored procedures, batch application programs, and all NEON’s IMS utilities.
Tony discussed how the various workloads could be enabled to use zPrime and then focused on zPrime for IMS enablement. These include:
- IMS pre-initialization exit
- – JCL change
- – IMS Proclib change.
- Batch Wrapper
- – JCL Change
- Language Environment (LE) Exit
- – SMP/E Usermod
- NEON IMS utilities.
The zPrime IMS pre-initialization exit:
- Enables IMS MPP, BMP and IFP processing
- Copy ?neonhlq.LOAD(NSLZPIMS) to the IMS Reslib
- Create/modify the pre-initialization proclib member (DFSINTxx)
- Modify the MPP, BMP, and/or IFP job JCL to point to the pre-initialization proclib member.
Picking up the point about creating or modifying the DFSINTxx member, Tony said:
- It must be in the //PROCLIB DD in the BMP, MPP, or IFP JCL
- Member name is DFSINTxx – where xx is the pre-initialization suffix
- Add NSLZPIMS to the list of modules in the DFSINTxx member.
When modifying the BMP, MPP, and IFP JCL, Tony told us that the Execution Parameter must specify the preinitialization member name suffix, and the Jobstep must contain a //PROCLIB DD containing the data set with the DFSINTxx member.
Tony explained how the zPrime Batch Wrapper worked, and went on to look at the Language Environment exit enablement. He suggested:
- Affects all LE-enabled programs
- – Not limited to IMS applications
- SMP/E usermod for global/production use
- – Updates LE runtime library – usually in Linklist
- – No JCL changes required
- Linkedit job for local/testing use
- – Link to non-global library
- – Add to STEPLIB/JOBLIB.
Tony talked about using NEON’s IMS utilities and then described in depth customizing the NEON server (NESS). He then continued by talking about enabling zPrime workloads, suggesting:
- It uses documented exits for all system enablement
- – Implementation of exits are well understood by appropriate systems personnel
- – Implementation of exits are documented in appropriate product documentation
- zPrime exits and batch wrapper do not force enablement… only make call to the NESS
- Everything to be enabled must be specified via the zPrime Enablement Console
- ex ‘?neonhlq.EXEC(zprime)’.
So, how good is zPrime? Tony said that he used the worst values reported by customers and found savings of 44% for CICS, 75% for TSO/ISPF, 84% for Batch Wrapper, 89% for DB2, 91% for IMS MPP, and 93% for IMS BMP!
Tony also identified some known problems. With z/OS V1.9 and below:
- TPUT SRB specifies CPU affinity resulting in intermittent S072-8 abends. Affinity points to a zIIP or zAAP however, the generated SRB is not eligible for zIIP or zAAP processing.
- Does not produce a dump – only logrec data
- No adverse affect to processing.
In terms of the Batch Wrapper:
- SMF 30 record shows the program name as NSLZPAPP when NESS is not running
- Not an issue when using the LE, TSO/ISPF, IMS, CICS or DB2 exits.
Membership of the Virtual IMS Connection is free and open to anyone interested in IMS. Webinars are presented free to members. You can join by going to http://www.virtualims.com/register.aspx and completing the form.
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