Upcoming seminars on System z storage

If you are in the Columbus or Charlotte area, you may be interested in a free seminar on how to "Handle common storage management problems with IBM z/OS".

This seminar will look at the Tivoli zStorage Management Initiative. There will be discussion on how Tivoli solutions can reduce time, effort and cost of storage management of your current IBM z/OS storage environment, and reduce costs while fostering greater synergy to address both resource and personnel effectivenesss.

The event will happen September 13 in Columbus, 4499 Fisher Road
Columbus, Ohio, and September 15 in Charlotte, David Taylor Drive
Charlotte, NC.

Registration and Continental Breakfast: 8:30am
Event 9am - 1pm
Lunch will also be served.

The price is right, the event is free (and so is the lunch).

To register - send email to lawatson@us.ibm.com

Overview of z/OS V1.13 at Share

There are quite a few interesting items planned to be coming along in z/OS V1.13. There are quite a few enhancement to z/OSMF (how about web-enabled ISPF), Java/COBOL enhancements, scalability improvements (including performance improvements to of all things IEBCOPY), security enhancements, network improvements, improved availability, more feature/function for WLM and RMF. It's quite a list of items.

If you're interested in learning more about what's coming in z/OS V1.13, here's a link to a nice presentation at Share that goes into it in more detail:

http://share.confex.com/share/117/webprogram/Session9728.html

Information on the z114 at Share

A new z/OS machine is always going to be a hot topic of conversation at Share. The z114 was announced in July, and there multiple sessions that discussed the z114.

The following session is a detailed technical introduction to the z114. The material presented included considerable technical detail on z114 structure, processor design, configuration and features. Here's a link to the presentation:

http://share.confex.com/share/117/webprogram/Session9796.html

A good presentation at Share on managing network performance

Ernie Gilman of IBM did a very nice presentation on "Top 10 Tips for z/OS Network Performance Monitoring with OMEGAMON". This is a very detailed review of common network challenges and how to analyze them using OMEGAMON For Mainframe Networks.

The session looked at how correlation between key metrics can more quickly isolate performance problems, how to identify how poorly designed end to end applications could be the cause to high z/OS overhead, and how to create a simple view to help identify why TCP/IP connections are randomly being rejected.

Ernie made some very nice custom workspaces to show how to more effectively use the tool.

Here's a link to the presentation:

http://share.confex.com/share/117/webprogram/Session9917.html

Notes from the Share Conference in Orlando

I recently returned from the Share Conference last week in Orlando. In addition to presenting on several topics at the conference, I also attended quite a few of the technical sessions (as well as partaking in some hands on labs).

Given that Share has a z/OS focus, many of the sessions were centered around what's new and interesting in the area of System z. That meant there were quite a few sessions on such topics as the new z114 system, what's new with z/OS V1.13, Workload Manager, Unified Resource Manager and zManager, what is zBX and what it means to z/OS, cloud computing, security, storage, you name it.

In the area of zBX, a session I found interesting was done by Glenn Anderson of IBM on "A Mainframe Guy Discovers Blades - as in zEnterprise "Blade" Extension". This was a good introduction to blades and how this technology now folds into the new z/OS mainframes.

Here's a link to the presentation:

http://share.confex.com/share/117/webprogram/Session9674.html

New filter option for Tivoli Data Warehouse history

Thanks to Ernie Gilman for making me aware of this very interesting tidbit.

When you define history collection in Tivoli Data Warehouse (TDW) you go through a set of steps to specify which tables of data to collect, which managed objects to collect the data from, and finally how often to collect the data and send it on to the TDW.

Apparently there a new option has appeared in the TDW history collection options (we think this may have showed up with either FP2 or FP3). When you specify history there is now a new 'Filter' tab. From there you can specify what attribute to filter on at the time of collection. What that means is that you can specify what is essentially exception based history. For example, only collect the history if it meets a specified criteria.

Look at the example I include and you will see how I'm filtering history based on a CPU threshold.

Share Conference

This week I've been at the Share Conference in sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy always hot Orlando. For those of you who may not have heard of Share, Share is a user group with a z/OS focus. Share provides a wide array of sessions on many things related to System z, DB2, IMS, CICS, networking, storage, security, you name it.

I will be doing a series of posts on interesting tidbits of information I picked up a Share.

If you are interested in finding out more about the group go to www.share.org

Seminar on IT optimization

If you happen to be in the Seattle area on August 23rd you may be interested in this seminar on "Optimizing Your IT Infrastructure". The event is intended for Operations managers, infrastructure architects and system programmers.

Here's the agenda

Continental breakfast will be available at 8:30 a.m.
08:40 a.m. - z/OS Version 1 Release 12 and more
09:50 a.m. - Technology update - zEnterprise servers and storage
11:00 a.m. - Consolidation and virtualization update with Linux and z/VM on System z
12:00 p.m. - Lunch
01:00 p.m. - Integrated service management can improve overall visibility into your zEnterprise using OMEGAMON XE for z/OS
02:10 p.m. - Increase availability and productivity in your System z environment with integrated service management automation
03:20 p.m. - Moving to cloud? Integrated service management on System z will be a critical success factor
04:20 p.m. - Close and next steps

It's a full day with some good stuff. It's a free event (so the price is right). If you are interested, here's a link to sign up:

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/9051592f-7640-466e-8524-6ae7dcc20c79/entry/seattle_briefing_aug_23_optimizing_your_it_infrastructure?lang=en_us

Sorting out Fixpack confusion

I get different variations of this question all the time. "If I install a given fixpack on my ITM infrastructure (TEPS TEMS etc), how do I know what z/OS PTFs I need to apply"? The problem, of course, is that ITM fixpacks are not SMP/E maintenance, so how do I correlate the two maintenance items?

There are a couple web pages that may help you sort out some of this fixpack question. The following is a platform maintenance table web page that list the information by ITM version and fixpack level, and then shows the corresponding z/OS PTFs.

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27008514

The following page shows information on fixpacks for each of the various OMEGAMONs, and the corresponding z/OS PTFs for each of these fixpacks.

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21290883#kc5420

Getting a handle on your System z environment

Something has just crashed. Everything seemingly was working fine until just recently. Now things are not so fine. What's the first question people usually ask? How about "what's changed"?

What's changed is often the million dollar question because, let's face it, in most shops System z is well managed and quite stable. When all around me is suddenly crashing down, the first thing I will often wonder is what changed and who made that change (and better yet, how to put things back).

IBM Tivoli is never at a loss for acronyms. One you may not have heard of before is TADDM. What's TADDM? It stands for Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager. What TADDM does is it goes out and dynamically discovers resources and components in your environment, and map these resources. TADDM output can be used for a variety of functions, including as input to a CMDB (Configuration Management DB) and as input to build application views in TBSM. But, one of the more interesting features of TADDM is it's ability to track and highlight system changes. Did something change? TADDM can show you the differences.

TADDM has components for both distributed and z environments. On System z TADDM can go out and map at different levels of discovery, including looking at such things as z/OS Parmlib information.

While I would not suggest that TADDM is a tool for change control, TADDM can be a tool to help you get a handle on what's on your system, what's talking to what, and what if anything has changed.

If you want more information on TADDM, here is a link:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/taddm/

ITCAM For Transactions V7.3 provides agentless transaction tracking

IT Composite Application Monitoring (aka ITCAM) for Transactions V7.3 has been available for a few weeks. ITCAM for Transactions provides many interesting features for tracking and analyzing complex transactions, and offers insight into where those complex transactions may be having issues.

One of the more interesting new features of ITCAM for Transactions V7.3 is the so-called "agentless" transaction tracking. This feature captures network traffic and reports the interactions between servers and applications. It integrates into the existing user interface, combining the breadth of agentless tracking with the depth of agent based tracking.

Agentless tracking is built upon facilities developed for web response time analysis. Now, in addition to HTTP traffic, the tool is now capable of monitoring and analyzing all TCP traffic.

The example I show gives you an idea of how agentless tracking can gather information and dynamically map the activity.

New - IBM zEnterprise 114 announced

Last week IBM announced a new entry in the zEnterprise line, the z114.

IBM introduced the IBM zEnterprise 114 (z114) as the newest member of the zEnterprise family, bringing the unique value of hybrid computing to a much broader set of businesses. The z114 offers a smaller mainframe footprint and lower entry cost than the zEnterprise 196 (z196).

Here's a link to the announcement letter:

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS111-136&appname=USN

Upcoming webcast on OMEGAMON XE on z/OS

On July 28th there will be a free webcast covering the capabilities of OMEGAMON XE on z/OS.

In this session, you’ll come away with details on how OMEGAMON XE can help:
• Reduce the cost of administrating availability and performance on the mainframe by reducing complexity and using fewer staff resources
• Automate availability monitoring to implement best practices and compliance requirements
• Analyze data to detect and respond rapidly to availability and performance events
• Proactively handle events with automated closed-loop remediation that closes exposures
• Consolidate cloud availability management for zEnterprise

The speaker is Joe Winterton of IBM. Joe is the OMEGAMON XE on z/OS Release Manager. The webcast will happen on July 28th at 11 AM ET.

To sign up here is a URL:

www.ibm.com/software/systemz/telecon/jul28

NetView V6.1 and Canzlog

The new NetView release V6.1, went GA in May of this year. There were several interesting new features in NetView V6.1. I had mentioned an important one in an earlier blog, the enhanced TCP/IP trace function. Another feature that is generating a lot of interest is Canzlog. What is Canzlog? Canzlog is something of an acronym; Consolidated Audit, NetView, and z/OS Log (hence Canzlog).

Canzlog is based on a data-space that works with the NetView SSI to capture messages. Canzlog can hold millions of messages, after which it wraps. What Canzlog provides is the ability to capture messages from a variety of sources, and then provide a means to view and filter those messages quickly and efficiently.

I found a nice write up on Canzlog that goes through a description of how to set up and use the tool. Here's a link to the document:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/download/attachments/109642291/NetView+Canzlog.pdf?version=1

Overhead considerations when using the SOAP interface

I did a series of posts a few months ago on using the SOAP interface to issue commands, stop/start situations, and query monitoring data from the ITM infrastructure. The nice thing about the SOAP interface is that you can interface with ITM monitoring from a variety of sources, be it distributed sources or even IBM SA z/OS automation.

When doing things like querying information using SQL via the SOAP interface, be aware that the usual rules of thumb for effective/efficient SQL coding apply here, as well. For example, consider things like the number of SQL calls, the frequency of the calls, or the amount of data potentially retrieved by the calls. It's a typical monitoring rule of thumb, the more data you request, the more it will likely cost.

There is a nice write up that goes into these considerations. Here is a link to the document, it's interesting reading:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21498390

All those storage mesages in RKLVLOG

So you are sifting through the RKLVLOG for an OMEGAMON agent (TEMA) address space or the TEMS address space on z/OS and you see all these storage messages in the log, such as the following:

KLVSD001 PRIMARY MAIN STORAGE INFORMATION:
KLVSD003 ALLOCATION DETAIL:
KLVSD004 SIZE(1-16) USE(27) TOTAL(521) ACCESSED(18864)
KLVSD004 SIZE(17-32) USE(93) TOTAL(102) ACCESSED(386)

It's normal for these tasks to generate these messages on an ongoing basis. Most of the time you won't need to worry about these messages.

So what do these messages mean, and do you need to do anything? In general, I don't recommend going into the RKANPARU members and playing with the storage settings unless directed to by IBM support. But every once in a while, it may help to know what these numbers are about. I have seen scenarios where storage creeps can occur, and adjustments may need to be made.

Here's a link to a nice description on what these messages mean:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSSZ8F3&mync=R&uid=swg21501180&myns=swgtiv

Upcoming webcast on managing security in the Cloud

Cloud computing is one of the hot IT buzzwords/phrases floating around currently. Cloud computing offers interesting capabilities, but like anything nowadays, security is an essential component that needs to be considered carefully.

"Consolidated Security Management for Mainframe Clouds" will take a look at the challenges of security in a mainframe Cloud environment. The premise is that better management of mainframe security simplifies complex IT environments, and allows the cost-effective consolidation of security management and compliance reporting for the enterprise.

If you are interested in learning more about Cloud computing, the security challenges in this paradigm, and what Tivoli is doing to manage security in the Cloud, take a look at this webcast.

The event is July 14th at 11AM ET. Here's a link to sign up:

http://www.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/webcast/jul14/

Upcoming webcast on solving network problems

The Share user group is sponsoring a webcast on July 7th on "Solving Application and Network Issues with OMEGAMON and NetView". The presenter for the session is Kirk Bean, the product manager for NetView and OMEGAMON Mainframe Networks.

Kirk is very knowledgeable and I think you will find this to be an interesting session.

The event is July 7th and 11 AM ET. Here's a link to register:

http://www.share.org/SHAREeLearning/Webcasts/tabid/700/Default.aspx

A unique alert

When you generate alerts you always want the alert to be unique and meaningful, and also have a solid means of notification. You may want the alert to be visible or have some other means of notification.

Here's a unique example of an alert. This was taken from a road sign on I-75 just outside of Cincinnati. Clearly someone had a sense of humor, but once you see the alert, you'll remember it.

Security and alerting on z/OS

Reading the papers lately, one thing that seems interesting is a spate of very sophisticated hacking attacks on various entities and companies. A new group called LutzSec has recently claimed to have hacked the CIA, PBS, SONY and who knows what other sites. And there are other groups out there doing what they do. One thing that seems apparent is these are very sophisticated attacks, done by very tech savvy individuals.

System z is blessed with very robust security capabilities driven by tools, such as RACF. You have a lot of power and flexibility to control access to System z. But, if someone is trying to do something nefarious, how quickly will you be notified? If a hacker attack is underway, wouldn't you want to know as soon as possible?

One interesting tool is Tivoli zSecure Alert. zSecure Alert comes with a pre-defined group of alerts, plus the ability to add additional user defined alerts, as needed. So you can alert on things like logon failures with powerful IDs, people attempting to access sensitive files, or people using system authorities that you may not want them to be using. Using zSecure Alert you can generate an alert in the form of an email, an SNMP trap, or a WTO to the z/OS console.

Or you could take that alert even further. Once the alert is on the console, how about having SA V3.3 send the alert message to the Tivoli Portal, fire a situation alert in the Portal, and have that situation forward the alert to OMNIBus, if desired.

The bottom line is zSecure Alert is an intriguing tool in that it can let you know right away if a potential attack is underway. You can then drive your notification in a number of ways. Stop them in their tracks before your company or government agency is the next one in the news (for all the wrong reasons).