It’s been a mighty long time since Marna and I got a podcast episode out – and actually we started planning this episode long ago. It’s finding good times to record that does it to us, as planning can be a bit more asynchronous.
Hopefully this delay has enabled some of you to catch up with the series. Generally the topics stand the test of time, not being awfully time critical.
And I was very pleased to be able to record a topic with Scott Ballentine. It’s about a presentation we wrote – which we synopsise. I think this synopsis could prove inspiring to some people – whether they be customers or product developers.
With luck this might well be the last episode we record where I have to worry about fan noise. Being able to dispense with noise reduction might help my voice along a little, too. 🙂
The episode can be found here. The whole series can, of course, be found here or from wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode 30 “Choices Choices” Show notes
This episode is about our Topics Topics on choosing the right programming language for the job. We have a special guest joining us for the performance topic, Scott Ballentine.
Since our last episode, we were virtually at GSE UK, and IBM TechU. Martin also visited some Swedish customers.
What’s New
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New news for CustomPac removal date, which has been extended past January 2022. The reason was to accommodate the desired Data Set Merge capability in z/OSMF which customers needed. z/OSMF Software Management will delivery the support in PH42048. Once that support is there, then ServerPac can exploit it. For the new withdrawl date, it is planned to be announced in 2Q2022.
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Check out the LinkedIn article on the IBM server changing for FTPS users for software electronic delivery on April 30, 2021, from using TLS 1.0 and 1.1 to using TLS 1.2, with a dependency on AT-TLS.
- If you are using HTTPS, you are not affected, and is recommended.
Mainframe – Only in V2.5
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Let’s note: z/OS 2.3 EOS September 2022, z/OS 2.4 not orderable since end of January 2022
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This topic was looking at some new functions that are only in z/OS V2.5. We wouldn’t necessarily expect anything beyond this point to be rolled back into V2.4.
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Data Set File System, planned to be available in 1Q 2022.
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Allows access to MVS sequentional or partitioned data sets from z/OS UNIX, that have certain formats.
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Must be cataloged. Data set names are case insensitive.
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Popular use cases would be looking at the system log after it has been saved in SDSF, editing with vi, and data set transfers with sftp.
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Also will be useful with Ansible and DevOps tooling.
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Serialization and security is just as if it was being accessed via ISPF.
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There are mapping rules that you’ll need to understand. The path will begin with /dsfs.
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Dynamic Change Master Catalog, yes, without an IPL
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Must have a valid new master catalog to switch to
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More so, you can put a comment on the command now
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Helpful if you wanted to remove imbed or replicate and you haven’t been able to because it would have meant an outage.
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RACF data base encryption has a statement of direction.
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For scalability:
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Increase z/OS Memory limit above 4TB to 16TB, with only 2GB frames above 4TB real. Good examples to exploit this is Java and zCX.
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More Concurrently ”Open” VSAM Linear Datasets. Db2 exploits with Apar PH09189, and APAR PH33238 is suggested.
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Each data set is represented by several internal z/OS data areas which reside in below the bar storage.
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This support moves both VSAM and allocation data areas above the bar to reduce the storage usage in the below the bar storage area.
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The support is optional, control is with ALLOCxx’s SYSTEM SWBSTORAGE with SWA will cause SWBs to be placed in 31-bit storage, as they have been in prior releases. ATB will cause SWBs to be eligible to be placed in 64-bit storage.
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Can be changed dynamically and which option you are using can be displayed.
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Noteable user requirements included:
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ISPF Updates to ISPF in support of PDSE V2 member generations, and SUBMIT command to add an optional parameter SUBSYS.
- Useful for directing jobs to the JES2 emergency subsystem
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Access Method Services – IDCAMS – DELETE MASK has two new options TEST and EXCLUDE
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TEST will return all the objects that would have been deleted if TEST wasn’t specified
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EXCLUDE will allow a subset of objects that match the MASK to be excluded from those being deleted
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Also, REPRO is enhanced to move its I/O buffers above the line to reduce the instances of out of space (878) ABENDs
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z/OS Encryption Readiness Technology zERT
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z/OS v2.5 adds support for detecting and responding to weak or questionable connections.
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Policy based enforcement during TCP/IP connection establishment
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Extending the Communications Server Policy Agent with new rules and actions
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Detect weak application encryption and take action
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Notification through messages and take action with your automation
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Auditing via SMF records
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Immediate Termination of connections is available through policy
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There’s a lot of other stuff rolled back to V2.4
Performance – What’s the Use? – with special guest Scott Ballentine
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This discussion is a summary from a joint presentation on Usage Data and IFAUSAGE
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Useful for developers and for customers
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The topic is motivational because customers can get a lot of value of out this usage data, and understand the provenance of IFAUSAGE data.
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A macro vendors or anybody use can use to:
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Show which products are used and how, including some numbers
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Show names: Product Vendor, Name, ID, Version, Qualifier
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Show numbers: Product TCB, Product SRB, FUNCTIONDATA
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And let’s see how they turn into things you can use
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The data is ostensibly for SCRT
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Scott talked about encoding via IFAUSAGE, appears in SMF 30 and 89-1
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SMF 89-1: Software Levels query, Db2 / MQ subsystems query
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SMF 30: Topology (e.g. CICS connecting to Db2 or MQ), Some numbers (Connections’ CPU)
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Both SMF 30 and 89
*FUNCTIONDATA: You could count transactions, but unsure of any IBM products using it. Db2 NO89 vs MQ Always On.
- Slice the data a little differently with 30 vs 89
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Some of these examples might inspire developers to think about how they code IFAUSAGE
- Are your software levels coded right?
- Do you use Product Qualifier creatively?
- Do you fill in any of the numbers?
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Have given the presentation four times
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Technical University, October 2021
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GSE UK Virtual Conference, November 2021
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Nordics mainframe technical day
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And our own internal teams which was meant to be a dry run, but actually was after the other three
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It’s a living presentation which could given it at other venues, including to development teams.
- Living also means it continues to evolve.
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Hope is developers will delight customers by using IFAUSAGE right, and customers will take advantage in the way shown with reporting examples.
Topics – Choices, Choices
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This topics is about how to choose a language to use for which purpose. Different languages were discussed for different needs.
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Use Case: Serving HTML?
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PHP / Apache on Mac localhost. Problem is to serve dynamically constructed HTML, which is used for Martin’s analysis.
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PHP processes XML and can do file transfer and handle URL query strings. PHP 8 caused some rework. Fixes to sd2html for this.
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Javascript / Node.js on Raspberry Pi. Good because plenty of ecosystem. Node also seems a moving target.
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Host consideration: Running on e.g. laptop?
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Python: Built-ins, for example CSV, Beautiful Soup, XML. However, Python 3 incompatible with Python 2, with Python 3.8 has nice “Walrus Operator”. Tabs and spaces can be irratating.
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Automation tools: Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts. On iPhone / iPad as well now as Mac OS.
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Javascript in Drafts and OmniFocus. Cross platform programming models
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AppleScript
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Host consideration: Running on z/OS?
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Assembler / DFSORT for high-volume data processing. Mapping macros shipped with many products.
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REXX for everything else.
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Martin uses it for orchestrating GDDM and SLR, to name two. As of z/OS 2.1 can process SMF nicely.
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Health checks. Marna finds REXX easy to use for Health Checks, with lots of good samples.
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z/OSMF Workflows. Easy to run REXX from a Workflow.
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Overall lesson: Choose the language that respects the problem at hand.
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Orchestrates what you need to orchestrate, runs in the environment you need it to run in, has lots of samples, has sufficient linguistic expression, is sufficiently stable, and performs well enough.
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In summary, just because you have a hammer not everything is a nail. Not every oyster contains a PERL.
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Out and about
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Both Martin and Marna will be at SHARE, 27 – 30 March, in Dallas.
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Marna has 6 sessions, and highlights the BYOD z/OSMF labs.
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Martin isn’t speaking, but will be busy.
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On the blog
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Marna’s blog has:
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Cheryl Watson’s Newsletter November 2021 Issue : “Hints for Coming Quickly to Speed on a z/OSMF Portable Software Instance Install”
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Martin has quite a few new blog articles:
So it goes.
Mainframe, Performance, Topics 