Episode 25 "Flit for Purpose"

Here are the show notes for Episode 25 “Flit for Purpose”. The show is called this because it relates to our Topic, and also can be related to our Mainframe topic (as a pun for “Fit for Purpose”).

Mainframe Topic: Highest highlights of z/OS V2.4 and z/OS on z15

  1. Highlight 1:  zCX
  2. Highlight 2: z/OSMF
  • Lots of z/OSMF enhancements that have arrived in z/OS V2.4, and the good news is that most of them are rolled back to V2.3 in PTFs that have been arriving quarterly.
  • Security Configuration Assistant: A way within z/OSMF to validate your security configuration with graphic views, on the user and user group level. Designed to work with all three External Security Managers!
  • Available back to V2.3 with APAR PH15504 and additional group id enhancements in APAR PH17871
  • Diagnostic Assistant for z/OSMF : A much simplier way to gather the necessary information to need for a Service person to perform debug for your z/OSMF problem.
  1. Hightlight 3: SRB on on z15: System Recovery Boost :Speeds up your shutdown for up to 30 minutes and speeds your re-IPL for 60 minutes, with no increase to your rolling four hour average.

Performance Topic: z15 from chip design on upwards

  • Disclaimer: personal view, not from Development or Marketing. Marna and Martin were talking about the z15 Chip design – and we thought those observations might be useful to include in the Performance topic.
  • Two traditional levers were raising clock speed or shrinking the feature size.
  • GHz and nm aren’t the be all and end all. Look at chip design.
  • Start with a similar sized CP chip and putting more on it. It helped to get rid of the Infiniband-related circuits, and some layout enhancements.
  • At the top end there are up to 190 characterisable cores, coming up from 170. This can give us a fifth drawer – which is quite important.

Topic: How To Do A Moonlight Flit

  • This topic is about moving one’s social output, in particular blogs and podcast series. Martin’s blog had to move, because the IBM developerWorks blog site is being shut down.  Martin's blog has had to move, as well as this podcast.
  • Immediately people might worry about Request For Enhancements being affected , and it is not.
  • Martin and Marna discuss important aspects to consider when moving your social media.
  • You must consider all the pieces when do you the most.
  • You must also try to redirect your audience.

Contacting us

You can reach Marna on Twitter as mwalle and by email.

You can reach Martin on Twitter as martinpacker and by email and blogs at blog.

Om Podcasten

Martin Packer (Principal z Systems Investigator) and Marna Walle (z/OS Development) are two IBMers talking about whatever z/OS topics come to mind.  Often guest experts weigh in on current technologies.  This podcast will give you timely, interesting, and entertaining z/OS topics.  Each episode comprises a “Mainframe” item, a “Performance” item, and “Topics” which is anything Martin or Marna care to talk about, which might or might not be related to their jobs.  So it goes…