Upcoming webcast on workload scheduling and cloud computing

Interested in workload scheduling in heterogeneous environments? Interested in learning a little more about cloud and how to manage workload in a cloud environment? Then this webcast presentation on November 3rd might be of interest to you.

"Increase business flexibility with improved Workload Automation from Tivoli Workload Scheduler" is the topic. the speaker is Flora Tramotano, product Manager for Tivoli Workload Scheduler.

The event happens November 3rd, at 11:00 am Eastern time.

Here is a URL link to sign up:

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/systemz/sztecsem.nsf/v16_enrollall?openform&seminar=2DD3C6ZT&locale=en_US

z/OS does Windows!

z/OS continues to grow and evolve. Run Windows on z? Sure, why not?

Analyst Steve Bartlett at The Clipper Group wrote an analysis of Windows and z/OS. "In particular, Windows is coming to the mainframe, not as a native operating environment, but
more closely attached and managed than most can imagine. For many and possibly most, this should prompt a reevaluation of your mainframe strategy".

It's an interesting read and well worth taking a look at. To read the article go to the following URL:

http://www.clipper.com/publications.htm#Catalog

and then look for an article titled "IBM’s zEnterprise Really Stretches Its Boundaries - New Windows Are Opened"

Important new enhancement to Tivoli Portal Take Action security

This is an enhancement that has been a while in coming. Thanks to Andrew Mcintyre for pulling it together.

What this enhancement provides is more granularity and control for using the Take Action option in the Tivoli Portal. Before this enhancement, users would either have access to Take Action, or not. Now, with this new function, you will be able to control in a more granular fashion by userid, who can issue commands and to where on the system. For example, this means that you can allow a user to issue Take Action to some systems, and disallow it to other systems. This provides much more flexibility and control when using the Take Action option.

For more information on this, here is a URL:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21566960

Upcoming presentation on the OMEGAMON Management Suite

A couple weeks ago I posted something on the new OMEGAMON for z/OS Management Suite. If you want to learn more about it, check out this webcast on October 20th. The presentation title is "Improving z/OS availability and productivity with Tivoli OMEGAMON monitoirng". The speaker is Kevin Hosozawa of IBM.

In the webcast Kevin will cover the IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON for z/OS Management Suite, including how it:

• Integrates management of z/OS operating system, network and storage management
• Increases the effectiveness of your staff by facilitating better communication and helping to leverage synergies between groups
• Offers advanced alerting capabilities that integrate information and reduce meantime to resolution and problem avoidance – saving costly outage time and money
• Integrates z/OS information with Tivoli enterprise-wide, end-to-end performance and availability monitoring capability

The event is October 20th at 11 AM ET. The price is right, it's free. Here's a link to sign up:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/telecon/oct20/

Using XLF to log Classic interface exceptions to DASD

I've done earlier blog posts on handy mechanisms in Classic 3270 interface, like ASF (Automated screen facility) and XLF (exception log facility). XLF provides you with a mechanism to gather and log classic interface exceptions.

A recent technote came out with a description of how to log classic exceptions to a DASD file. You might do this if you want to maintain an ongoing log of classic exceptions, or if you want to interface these classic exceptions to a another tool, such as 3rd party automation.

This is a good description of setting up XLF. Here's the URL:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21515914&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSXS8U&mync=R

Setting auto update in the Tivoli Portal

So you have a workspace in the TivoliPortal that you want to run in auto update mode. You can go to options and specify the "refresh every" interval when viewing the display. But, if you navigate away from that display, refresh may be turned off when you navigate back. What do you do?

You can associate auto update being set to specific interval for a given workspace. All you have to do is specify the "refresh every" option, and then save the specific workspace in question. When you navigate and then come back, the refresh option will take effect again, as long as you have saved the workspace with that option enabled.

So the the auto update option can be associated with specific workspaces, which makes more sense than in classic interface, where it's on or off all the way for the session. For some screens you may want the option on, for others you may not.

Problems with historical data not showing up in the TEP?

This is an interesting Technote that I read recently. Apparently some Tivoli Portal users who were collecting history were seeing gaps in history collection data, or history data missing altogether. The Technote describes the eyecatchers to look for if this issue is occurring, and then provides a workaround/resolution.

The net is if you are missing data, and you see a long time (in the range of multiple minutes or more) between these messages in RKPDLOG of the z/OS TEMS or TEMA (i.e. the agent task on z/OS), then you may want to check things out. Here are the messages (an init started followed by an init complete message):

yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss KPDINDS: Initialization started for DataStore file DSN:&rhilev.&rte.lowlev

yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss KPDINDS: Initialization complete for DataStore file DSN:&rhilev.&rte.lowlev

The workaround? Go into the KxxPCTL (xx meaning the product code for the agent type) for the task in question, and add the parm BATCHINIT like in the following example:

MAINTPRC PROC=KPDPROC1 GENPROC BATCHINIT

The BATCHINIT parm indicates that initialization of a datastore file should be done by the batch job instead of being done within the PDS processing of the TEMA or TEMS started task.

Interested in DB2 V10?

If you are interested in DB2 V10, here is a webcast on what's in DB2 V10 and customer experiences with DB2 V10. The event will have information on such things as, temporal tables, how hash access can speed up queries against large tables, new SQL features, how access path determination is now smarter, and how concurrency can be improved without sacrificing integrity.

This webcast is being put on by International DB2 User Group (IDUG). The event is on November 2nd at 11AM Eastern time. Here's a link to register for the webcast:

http://www.bulldogsolutions.net/IDUG/IDU1001/frmRegistration.aspx?bdls=29505

New release of the zSecure security suite

On October 4, IBM announced a new release of the zSecure solutions (V1.13) to assist with compliance monitoring and auditing, audit usage and configurations, enforce policy compliance, help administer mainframe server security, and monitor for threats. zSecure can help to centralize and consolidate security administration, and to leverage the mainframe as the enterprise security hub.

The new release features the following line items which also enhance the security intelligence of CICS, IMS, and DB2 applications:

Automates security analysis of CICS and IMS transactions and programs
Automated analysis of SAF classes being used by DB2, CICS, or IMS
Enhances Access Monitor and allows you to improve data consolidation
Allows annotating userid displays with data from external human resource files
Globalization enhancements to support international language support and auditing
Allows addition of your own sensitivity classification, audit concern, and priority
Supports currency with z/OS V1R13, ACF2 R14 and R15, CICS V4R2, and Top Secret R12, R14, and R15
Extends integration with Communications Server and provides various interface improvements

If you are interested in zSecure here is a URL to check out:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/zsecure

Here's a link to a white paper on "Consolidating security across platforms with IBM System z":
http://www.servicemanagementcenter.com/main/pages/IBMRBMS/SMRC/ShowCollateral.aspx?oid=80003

Here's a link to a Red Book on "z/OS Mainframe Security and Audit Management using IBM Tivoli zSecure" :
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/WebComment?OpenForm&ParentUNID=6A07891F5A43E3DC8525741000507EAA