What the new enhanced 3270 looks like

OMEGAMON z/OS and CICS V5.1 will feature a new enhanced 3270 interface (e3270).  The new e3270 offers many advantages over classic or CUA 3270 interface.  The primary advantage, when compared to classic interface, will be ease of use, and ease of navigation.  Many of the screens were designed with common problem analysis scenarios and requirements in mind.  e3270 also offers superior integration to what has been offered, up until now, with classic or CUA.  In a way think of e3270 as combining the strength, speed, and depth of 3270 interfaces with the integration capabilities of the Tivoli Portal GUI. 

If you are interested in what it looks like, here is an example.  The e3270 is a VTAM logon-able application, just like classic and CUA.  From there, you can access whatever information you need from a common UI, versus having to drill down and navigate as you would with classic interface.  In the example below we are looking at one of the commonly requested display scenarios, where users want to see high CPU and high storage use tasks from a single display, without having to navigate around to get the information.

One persons perspective on OMEGAMON V5.1

I freely admit I'm excited when a new release of OMEGAMON is announced.  For me, it's like getting a new toy for my birthday.  What's even nicer is there are so many great features, including the new enhanced 3270 interface, coming in V5.1.

Here's one analyst's view of OMEGAMON V5.1,  "Good Reasons for Customer Interest and Excitement".


http://ptaknoel.com/ibm-omegamon-v5-1-good-reasons-for-customer-interest-and-excitement/

Exciting news - new versions of OMEGAMON announced!

For me it doesn't come much more exciting than a new version of OMEGAMON.  Today IBM is announcing new V5.1 versions of OMEGAMON z/OS and OMEGAMON CICS. 

Starting with OMEGAMON XE for CICS on z/OS, and OMEGAMON XE on z/OS V5 editions, IBM provides:

·  Improved productivity by allowing subject matter experts, such as system programmers, to combine information from z/OS and multiple z/OS subsystems (including CICS) into a single simplified display

·  Standardized monitoring and management with an new enhanced 3270 user interface that gives users the ability to effectively move between different z/OS components providing a common look and feel of command and control conditions.

·  Increased analytics capability by organizing key performance indicators (KPIs) to be viewed based on managed SLAs. 

·  Higher availability by providing users with advanced problem determination using focused problem-solving scenarios designed by customers; these scenarios put related data needed for associated problems into context to resolve today's performance and availability impacts.

What does this all mean?  Keep in mind quite a few enhancements like a new more powerful, enhanced 3270 interface.  I will be blogging quite a bit about the new UI in the next few weeks.




For more information, here is a link:
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS212-041&appname=USN

An OMEGAMON webcast you will want to check out

This week, on February 9th, there will be a webcast on "Reduce costs based on faster problem solving with redesigned OMEGAMON".  This webcast will show how enhanced diagnostic capabilities in IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON can lighten your burden. The presentation will discuss how you can more easily monitor and maintain your entire mainframe environment to find and fix problems quickly — before they become outages. With a redesigned user interface, OMEGAMON makes it easier to understand information customized to focus on key problems experienced within System z® environments.

Yes, you read that right.  A redesigned OMEGAMON.

The presenter is Mike Goodman, , Software Product Manager, Tivoli Systems Management.  The webcast is February 9th at 11 AM CT.  Here is a link to sign up:
http://bit.ly/x4mvAA

CMG in St Louis

If you happen to be in the St Louis area, I will be presenting along with some of my IBM colleagues at the St Louis CMG meeting on February 21st.  I will presenting on "Predictive Analytics In IT Service Management".  There will be other topics on cloud and zEnterprise at the meeting. 

If you are interested in more information for the meeting, here's a link:
http://regions.cmg.org/regions/stlcmg/index.html

A new series of Tivoli OMEGAMON webcast presentations

If you are interested in OMEGAMON, you will want to be aware of  a new series of webcast presentations starting February 2nd covering many aspects of what's new and what's coming in OMEGAMON. 

Here's the list of topics:

February 2: Get more from your mainframe with proactive end-to-end monitoring

February 9: Reduce costs based on faster problem solving with redesigned OMEGAMON

February 16: Tuning tips lower System z costs with OMEGAMON monitoring

February 23: Good news for maintenance windows: Install and configure OMEGAMON faster

March 8: See into the heart of CICS and resolve problems faster across LPAR boundaries 

March 15: The critical role of Service Management in moving to cloud on System z

March 22: Shave time off application and service delivery with enhanced event management  


It looks like a great list of topics.  For more information and a link to register:


http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/webcast/sysmgmt/series/index.html?&cmp=smm&ct=tips&cr=buzzsheet&csr=systemz&cm=h&ccy=us&cpb=swg&cd=20120124

 

TN3270 emulation in the TEP provides handy scripting function

I recently had a project where the customer wanted to be able to "zoom" from the Tivoli Portal into a 3270 interface application (something other than OMEGAMON in this example).  One nice feature of the Tivoli Portal you may not be aware of is that the TEP includes a TN3270 emulator, and that the emulator includes a nifty script function. 

With the script function, you can record scripts, playback scripts, edit and create custom scripts, and set up scripts to playback by default when the user goes to a specific workspace.  The scripting language includes support for things like IF/AND logic, string and substring functions, and you can even prompt the user for input to the script.  If you want help for all the script commands,  open a script and click "Help" in the script editor.  You will then be presented with help for all the script commands (I actually went and copied all the command help, and pasted it into a document to print it out).

Here's an example of how you can get into the script editor, and set up the options.  Note how you can set the startup script for the workspace. 

As a demonstration, I created a script that will logon to TSO and navigate to SDSF.  I took the product supplied $TSO script and modified it.  I added logic to prompt for UserID and Password, and then had the script navigate through the logon, and go to SDSF.  Here's the sample code:

// Customize the following variables to match
//  Set APPLID to logon to TSO

tsoName = "TSO";

if( tsoName == "ctsoa"  )

{
   msgbox( "Please customize this script for your environment before use." );
   return;
}
//  Enter the TSO APPLID
TYPE(tsoName);WAITFORSCREEN();

//   Prompt for Userid
TYPE(PROMPT("Enter USERID","USERID"));

//   Prompt for password
TYPE(PROMPT("Enter TSO password","PSWD"));

WAITFORSCREEN();

//   Enter keys to get to main ISPF screen
SendKey("ENTER");

WaitForScreen();

SendKey("ENTER");

WaitForScreen();

//   Position the cursor to enter command
Setcursor(22,14);

//    Command to navigate screen
gotoscr="=13.14";
TYPE(gotoscr);

SendKey("ENTER");

System z sessions at Pulse

The Pulse conference is coming up in March.  I had mentioned on an earlier post that AOTC is now part of the Pulse conference.  This is nice because it adds a lot of quality technical System z content to the Pulse event, and makes Pulse more than just a distributed focused show.
Thanks to my colleague, Ray Funderburk, for taking the time to compile this list of System z related sessions at Pulse. Check it out.

SPM-1909 Service Availability and Performance Management -- Track Kick-Off    
AOT-1138 Automated Operations Technical Council Opening  
MCA-1252 Simplifying Mainframe Compliance, Auditing, and Policy Enforcement for Enhanced Security Intelligence
SPM-1784 Importance of Service Management in integrating mainframe with distributed
Phil Murphy, Forrester Analyst and Mike Goodman on OMEGAMON 5.1
AOT-1828 Getting Started with IBM Tivoli System Automation for z/OS
AOT-1999 Better Business Practices through Automation Integration
AOT-1826 What's New in IBM Tivoli System Automation for z/OS
AOT-1204 Secrets revealed; how OMEGAMON for Mainframe Networks uncovers TCPIP subtleties and provides explanations.
CMD-1137 The Highly Scalable Cloud with System z BOF
AOT-2055 System Z BOF - Ask Development open forum
z Reception – Phil Weintraub and Ray Jones
AOT-1830 Getting Started Using System Automation Application Manager for Cross-Cluster, Cross-Platform Automation
AOT-1657 How Banco do Brasil is leveraging the high availability/automation of mainframe   
AOT-1831 Getting Started with IBM Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms     
AOT-1538 Experiences automating some challenging applications with SA 3.3        
CDO-1439 How WellPoint Achieved Higher Efficiencies by Bridging Development and Operations 
AOT-1905 End-to-end Automation and Operations with SA Application Manager      
AOT-1837 Integrating Monitors and Automation for Improved Application Availability   
CDO-1737 Strategies and Technology to Support DevOps on the Mainframe: An Aetna Case Study
AOT-1906 Tivoli System Automation Resiliency for SAP Landscapes        
AOT-1822 Best Practices - Sharing your successes                  
SPM-1849 Aetna's use of TBSM to understand the delivery of Business Service Management 
AOT-1913 Modern Mainframe management with Tivoli System Automation         
AOT-1364 (Re)starting DB2 and MQSeries Subsystems           
AOT-1136 AF/Operator Users BOF                    
CPM-1598 Early Adopter Experiences with the New OMEGAMON Enhanced Capabilities
AOT-1964 What's New in IBM Tivoli NetView 6.1                
 AOT-1904 How CCB using the system automation tools            
SPM-1922 Strategies for TADDM Deployment: Discovery, Dependency Mapping and Modeling 
AOT-1484 Overview of NetView Canzlog                
AOT-1908 zEnterprise Improving Application Availability through Virtualization Support       
SPM-1717 Customer Panel: Best Practices in Managing SAP environment      
AOT-1832 Getting Started with System Automation on Open Systems: Demo Scenarios for SA for Multiplatforms and SA Application Manager 
SPM-1089 Dynamic Infrastructure and Dynamic Management: Integrated Service Management with IBM Tivoli and third party systems

So that's sessions on OMEGAMON, NetView, SA System Automation, TADDM, TBSM, just to cover a few topics.  Plus if you have an interest in other things Tivoli, you have all the other sessions at Pulse to attend. 

The event happens March 4th to 7th in Las Vegas.  If you are interested in attending, here's a link:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/pulse/

System z Technology Summits

Coming up the end of January and through the month of February is a series of System z Technology Summits.  These technology summits look really nice, with a choice of session tracks, and lots of technical detail.  In terms of the technical tracks available, here's what you have to choose from;

Track 1: zEnterprise – The ideal basis for Smarter Computing
Developed for: IT managers, IT enterprise architects

Track 2: DB2® for z/OS® Technical Update
Developed for: Database administrators, database managers

Track 3: Smarter Development and Deployment
Developed for: IT application architects and developers

Track 4: Application Infrastructure Modernization for Business Agility
Developed for: System analysts, application architects, CICS application developers and IT architects

Track 5: Data Center Operations and Systems Management Update
Developed for: IT operations and system programmers

These are each full day agendas with lots of technical information.

The calendar is as follows:

Toronto, Ontario	Jan 26, 2012
Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX	Feb 02, 2012
Washington, DC	Feb 07, 2012
Atlanta, GA	Feb 21, 2012
Los Angeles, CA	Feb 23, 2012
New York, NY	Feb 28, 2012

The price to attend is right.  It's free. To register, here's a link:

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

Some notes on OSA monitoring information in OMEGAMON Mainframe Networks

The OSA (Open Systems Adapter) is a network controller that you can install in a mainframe I/O cage. The adapter integrates several hardware features and supports many networking transport protocols.

OMEGAMON XE For Mainframe Networks provides quite a bit of information on OSA adapters, adapter status, and throughput statistics.  OMEGAMON will show such things as the adapter type, status, processor utilization (including rates calculated across various time intervals), LPARs connected, many various packet sent/received counts, and many various errors (such as collisions, CRC errors, sequence errors, fragmentation errors, alignment errors). 

While there are tools other than OMEGAMON that can be used to display much of this information in real time, OMEGAMON provides the added value of being able to display and analyze this information in a historical context.  Rates, utilization, and error activity can be analyzed and trended over time to determine
the potential for issues down the road.  And keep in mind that this history can be leveraged within the Tivoli Data Warehouse for even longer term analysis.

The example screen shots show some of the product provided screens, including a real time view of OSA activity, and historical 24 hour plot charts of performance.

Some interesting upcoming events

In an earlier post I'd mentioned Kirk Bean's presentation on "Improving System Availability with Tivoli Network Management and System Automation".  This event will happen on January 12th at 11ET.  

Register now: http://ibm.co/soAOyK

There are some other webcasts happening in the next few weeks related to performance and availability. 

If you are interested in IMS you may want to check out "IMS 12 Performance Update".  In this webcast you’ll see how this release has added a significant amount of critical functionality without any additional overhead. IMS 12 demonstrates equal or better CPU efficiency by comparison with other releases. It also demonstrates double-digit gains in performance and throughput in multiple scenarios. 

The event is January 10th at 11 AM Eastern Time.  Here's a link to sign up:
http://ibm.co/sEGdv0


If you are interested in DB2, you may want to check out "Migrating to DB2 10?  Get maximum CPU benefit with minimum impact".  Some of the topics to be covered include:  identifying SQL statements that need attention before they impact performance in your DB2 10 environment, estimating the cost of your SQL between different versions of DB2, running “what if?” scenarios to determine optimum performance settings, including updat­ing catalog statistics and creating new indexes, migrating and comparing access path statistics in DB2 V8 or DB2 9 to DB2 10 environment. 

The event is January 31st at 11 AM Eastern Time.  Here's  a link to sign up:
http://ibm.co/uC1NmX

OMEGAMON XE for CICS resource usage

Last week I mentioned some performance/resource related APARs for OMEGAMON.  While I'm on the topic I thought I'd mention a technote that came out a few weeks back for OMEGAMON XE For CICS. 

In this technote if you see higher than expected CPU usage in the OMEGAMON CICS XE agent task,  if you have OMEGAMON z/OS,  try using the OMEGAMON z/OS Inspect feature  and see if the module in question using the CPU is KCPWSR0A.  If it is then check out the workaround documented in this technote:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21503116&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSLSDR&mync=R

Upcoming webcast on Tivoli network management and System Automation

In January Kirk Bean, IBM Tivoli Product Manager, will be delivering a webcast on "Improving System Availability with Tivoli Network Management and System Automation".  


In the webcast, Kirk will be discussing such topics as how to speed up problem determination and enhance usability with new network/system/job log integration (i.e. CANZLOG - something I've posted on before), how to reduce diagnostic time and mean time to repair for network problems with enhanced IP packet trace analysis, and how to improve disaster recovery and resource utilization with new high-availability support for GDPS® Active/Active.  GDPS Active/Active, in particular, sounds like a very interesting topic for many customers.

The event will be January 12th at  11 AM Eastern Time.  It sounds like an informative event covering both network management and automation.  The price is right, it's free to attend the webcast. 

Here's a link to sign up:
http://ibm.co/soAOyK

AOTC is now part of Pulse

For those with a z/OS focus who also want to get more up to speed with Tivoli, it's good news that AOTC is now part of the Tivoli Pulse conference.  AOTC, Automated Operations Technical Conference, has been an annual event that covers Tivoli with a focus on operational solutions, such as Systems Automation and Tivoli Workload Scheduling.  For those of you not familiar with Pulse, Pulse is the IBM's annual event with a focus on Tivoli solutions.

To be honest, in prior years Pulse has not had a lot of z/OS specific content.  Pulse has been more focused on overall Tivoli concepts, and not so much on z/OS.  With the addition of AOTC content to Pulse as a parallel track, the overall Pulse event has much more robust z/OS coverage.  If you you are interested in both z/OS and Tivoli overall, I suggest that Pulse becomes more of an option.

Pulse is in Las Vegas March 4-7, 2012.  If you are interested in Pulse, here is a link:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/pulse/

For more information on AOTC, here's a link:
https://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/pulse/AOTC/

OMEGAMON performance related fixes

There are some performance related fixes for OMEGAMON XE for z/OS that you may want to be aware of.

A couple of these relate to OMEGAMON monitoring storage and CSA utilization, and have potential impact in both the 3270 and Tivoli Portal interfaces.  APAR OA37619 addresses cost of data collection and alerting for CUA, Classic and situations in the TEP interface.
 http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1OA37619

APAR OA37647 has impact in the Classic and CUA interface.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1OA37647

APAR  OA36726 addresses high CPU usage in the TEMS address space related to CSA analysis and monitoring.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1OA36726

Another interesting APAR is OA38126.  This APAR relates to high CPU usage in the TEMS address space related to the cost of DASD collection specific to running situation alerts for DASD.  As is often the case, the more data you need to collect, the more the potential overhead.  DASD collection is always a potential issue because many shops will have multiple thousands of UCBs that need to be monitored.  This particular APAR addresses that the DASD Devices workspace will collect information from both RMF and cache data sources.  If a situation alert against this table of data does not require cache information and is able to do what is needed using just RMF data, then the cache data will not be collected.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?crawler=1&uid=swg1OA38126

Upcoming webcast on application high availability

Many applications may have components that execute on different hardware and software platforms. This makes it difficult to control and automate each component to improve availability, reduce overall solution risk and decrease operations workload. Would you like to manage both distributed and mainframe environments as one? 

If you are interested in managing application availability in a heterogeneous environment, you may be interested in this upcoming webcast, "Application High Availability in a Heterogeneous Environment".

The event is this Thursday, December 15th at 11 AM Eastern time.  The price is right, the webcast is free.  In you are interested, here is the URL to sign up:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/telecon/dec15/index.html?S_TACT=101HY29M&S_CMP=5x5

FYI. I fixed the link on the iPad article

Oops.  I had a bad link for the iPad article.  I went ahead and fixed it.

Here it is again:
http://bit.ly/rutEb7

Mainframe on an iPad

I'd posted a while back about a way to run the Tivoli Enterprise Portal on an iPad.  Here's an article about various alternatives for getting mainframe data on an iPad.  It's an interesting read, and goes through various alternatives from running TN3270 emulation to other options.

Here's a link to the article:
http://bit.ly/rutEb7

IT's most wanted: Mainframe programmers

Thanks to David Gaertner for pointing me towards this very interesting Infoworld article.

The article points out what many of us already knew:  the mainframe is very much alive and well.   Or as Mark Twain said many years ago, it's death has been "greatly exaggerated".  The core statistic cited in the article:  80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies still use the mainframe.  And let's not forget government at just about all levels, federal, state, and local, still are heavily invested in mainframe technology. 

Why?  The article says it clearly enough.  "The mainframe's staying power in the age of tiny computers is all about its performance for high-volume transactions and its strengths in security and virtualization".   What's the ramification of this?  In the next few years there is the potential for a mainframe skills shortage.  "A Compuware survey of 520 CIOs in large enterprises found that 71 percent are concerned that this looming skills shortage will hurt their businesses...". 

I've had the opportunity to mentor many younger colleagues over the years.  One of the things I often mention to them is the importance of mainframe skills in the coming years.  As the mainframe grey beards (frankly like me), retire in the next 10 to 15 years, the need for mainframe skills will become even more prevalent.

Let's look at it another way.  If every mainframe shop in the Fortune 500 decided tomorrow to switch from the mainframe to other platforms, it would still take many years for that work to get done (and that's really assuming it's even technically feasible in all cases).  Arguably from a business perspective, it's probably more cost effective to identify and train younger talent to close the skills gap. 

If you are interested in the article, here's the link:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-center/its-most-wanted-mainframe-programmers-180453?page=0,0&source=IFWNLE_nlt_stradev_2011-12-01

Learn about PARMGEN

Yes, the PARMLIB install process I've mentioned on earlier blog posts has been renamed to PARMGEN.  That makes sense since the term Parmlib implies quite a bit of other things to your typical z/OS sysprog. 

If you are new to the PARMGEN process, or just getting started, there was a very good webcast event today that covered PARMGEN in great technical detail (complete with examples).  It's not too late to check out the webcast.  You can still download the material and check out the replay.

Here's the URL:

www.ibm.com/software/systemz/telecon/dec1

I recommend you take the time to start getting familiar with PARMGEN.  In future releases of OMEGAMON you can anticipate that the ICAT tool will fade away and that PARMGEN will become the preferred install method.  Don't be shocked when one day,  in a future release, ICAT is gone.

Also, here is a link for the latest technote/documentation on PARMGEN:

www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21417935