IBM® z/OS® promotes continuous digital transformation with the ability to leverage technologies to extract insights and perform data analysis on your z/OS systems:
IBM SMF Explorer with Python leveraging z/OS Data Gatherer REST API services
z/OS has a rich collection of SMF records that can be generated automatically from the operating system regarding many details about your installation and the activities of your z/OS systems. Novice system programmers, data scientists and data engineers might struggle to understand and interpret SMF data as they are often not yet acquainted with z/OS. The new IBM SMF Explorer with Python can help you easily access and understand SMF data and unlock its value using state-of-the-art technologies, without the need to have deep z/OS skills to access and process data through z/OS Data Gatherer REST API services.
IBM SMF Explorer with Python is designed to help novice system administrators, novice system administrators, IT operators, and new users like data scientists and data engineers:
- Get easy access to SMF data
- Better understand and interpret this data
- Leverage Python to apply data exploration and visualize data
- Use AI methods and be able to extract insights that go beyond traditional analytics tools
To optimize the user experience, Jupyter Notebook tutorials are available to guide users on how to fetch, process, and visualize SMF raw data to enable graphical analysis.
IBM SMF Explorer with Python leverages z/OS Data Gatherer REST API services:
- As a starting point of z/OS monitoring integration in accordance with the IBM Hybrid Multi-cloud strategy
- That enable users to develop, implement, and use machine learning and AI solutions for continuous systems monitoring and anomaly detection
With the PTFs for APARs OA62081 and PH41855, both IBM SMF Explorer with Python and z/OS Data Gatherer REST API services are available on z/OS V2.5.
For more information, visit the IBM SMF Explorer Github repo, read the IBM Hot Topics Article, or watch the Announcement Webinar replay.
With new deliveries centered around ease of system and storage management, z/OS continues to streamline the processes to help manage z/OS for users of various experience levels:
Remove temporary catalog aliases
When installing z/OS V2.5, a software installer can choose to create a new master catalog for the new z/OS. In this process a temporary catalog alias, previously known as a System Specific Alias (SSA), and data set aliases are created to allow the driving system to refer to target system data sets through the driving system catalog. However, most software installers prefer not to keep the temporary catalog alias used to construct the new z/OS system and catalog. It is a labor-intensive and error-prone process to remove the temporary catalog alias and data set aliases.
Therefore, z/OSMF Software Management enables software installers to disconnect a new master catalog created when installing z/OS V2.5 from the driving system catalog. This follow-on support completes the process of creating a new master catalog when installing z/OS by implementing the following wizard to help create new master catalogs. The addition of this wizard is designed to allow new system programmers who are not familiar with z/OS to have a more complete simplified experience when creating new master catalogs. This wizard:
- Is only three steps long
- Expects little input from the user
- Enables the user to review the changes that will be made when the jobs are submitted
- Only requires a maximum of four jobs to be submitted to complete the removal of the temporary catalog alias and data set aliases
This support is available with the PTF for APAR PH45201 on z/OS V2.3 or later.
z/OSMF enhancements
IBM z/OSMF provides a framework for managing various aspects of a z/OS system through a task- oriented, web browser interface. z/OSMF continues to deliver new and enhanced functions to enable higher efficiency and easier management and configuration of z/OS. This quarter, the following z/OSMF enhancements have been delivered:
- The REST jobs API is enhanced to support sending notification with HTTP when the job is submitted or starting to begin execution in order to make it easier for an external tool to monitor a jobs lifecycle such as a development pipeline. With the PTFs for APAR PH44152, this function is available on z/OS V2.5. See the related JES2 job notifications item for more details.
- The z/OSMF desktop is enhanced to allow users to download or upload a sequential data set, or PDS/E member, or zFS file between z/OS and their workstation with a few clicks or drag/drop. This is designed to vastly simplify the process and remove concerns about ASCII and EBCDIC or carriage return and linefeed differences between platforms. With the PTFs for APAR PH44157, this function is available on z/OS V2.5.
- z/OSMF provides a function called Security Configuration Assistant (SCA) that assists the system programmer and the security administrator in displaying and identifying security product configuration settings that are needed for both z/OSMF and other products. With PTF for APAR PH45350 on z/OS V2.4 and later, SCA is enhanced so that the basic security settings for z/OSMF's nucleus and the SCA itself can be verified without having to start up z/OSMF in order to make it much easier to bootstrap the configuration and to get the basic browser-based UI configured.
- z/OSMF Storage Management REST APIs have also been enhanced. With newly delivered capabilities, z/OSMF provides REST APIs to add volumes to an SMS storage group. With the PTFs for APAR PH44884, this function is available on z/OS V2.5.
Learn more about z/OSMF by visiting the z/OSMF One Stop Hub.
JES2 job notifications
The asynchronous job completion notification function of the z/OS jobs REST interface has been enhanced to provide additional HTTP job notifications, helping to simplify the tracking of progress through the life cycle of a job. The new job notifications being provided identify:
- When a job is eligible for execution
- When a job is selected for execution by a JES or WLM initiator
The enhanced asynchronous job completion notification function of the z/OS jobs REST interface is available in z/OS V2.5 by installing JES2 APARs OA62804 and OA62796. Installation of the z/OSMF APAR PH44152, as described in the z/OSMF section above, provides the specification of the new custom header X-IBM-Notification-Options.
z/OSMF Software Management REST API to run existing reports
z/OSMF Software Management is designed to be better utilized and exploited by improving existing maintenance reporting on the inventory of software instances by providing REST APIs for three of the maintenance reports. REST APIs allow for the automation of these processes using tools such as Ansible® as opposed to having to manually use the z/OSMF UI. With this enhancement, systems programmers and administrators can now automate:
- Missing critical updates reporting
- Missing FIXCAT updates reporting
- Software update search reporting
With the PTF for APAR PH47050, this function is available on z/OS V2.5.
DFSMS zHyperLink write support for multivolume data sets
zHyperLink is a low-latency, short-distance connection between an IBM z14, or higher, IBM zSystems server, and IBM storage controllers that enable I/O to be performed synchronously. With the DFSMS Media Manager support for zHyperLink writes, Db2® 12 or Db2 13 for z/OS can improve log throughput by exploiting zHyperLink for active log writes. zHyperLink write processing can speed up commit by making the log write faster, which is designed to improve transaction response time, reduce the latency for log writes, and possibly help speed up commits of the transactions.
Media Manager was enhanced to provide support for multivolume data sets, which expands the zHyperLink use cases for Db2 log data sets and IMS write ahead data sets. With the PTFs for APAR OA59611, this function is available on z/OS V2.3 and later.
IBM Customized Offerings Driver
The IBM Customized Offerings Driver (5751-COD) is a prebuilt, stand-alone driving system that can be used to install a z/OS ServerPac z/OSMF Portable Software Instance or a z/OS Custom-Built Product Delivery Offering (CBPDO) package when clients do not have a driving system or one that does not meet the minimum requirements for z/OS installation.
The Customized Offerings Driver has been updated to include a subset of a z/OS V2.4 operating system, including selected functions in z/OSMF and IBM 64-bit SDK for z/OS, Java™ Technology Edition, 8.0 that can run on any IBM zSystems processor that is supported by z/OS V2.4 or later. The Customized Offerings Driver now contains a minimum SMS configuration Source Control Data Set (SCDS) so that any data set greater than 4 GB shipped in the ServerPac z/OSMF Portable Software Instance order can be allocated using a default storage class.
See the z/OS Planning for Installation (GA32-0890) at the z/OS Internet Library website for the most current information about the Customized Offerings Driver.
Communications Server exploitation of the IBM Function Registry for z/OS
Communications Server is enhanced to regularly store information about the maximum number of SNA applications and sessions in the IBM Function Registry for z/OS. This information provides z/OS clients with insight into the amount of SNA application workloads executing on z/OS. With the PTF for APAR OA63555, this enhancement is available on z/OS V2.4 and later.
To learn more about IBM z/OS Communication Server, visit the Communication Server product page.
z/OS also continues to strengthen the security and integrity of systems and data through additional authentication, configuration, and system-hardening capabilities:
RACF® password phrase interval
The RACF security policy can be configured with a password validity interval, which requires that users must change their password or password phrase after a configurable number of days. This new function introduces a new password phrase change interval configuration setting that is separate from the existing password interval and can be set to much longer values to be capable of matching the security policy on other platforms. The new password phrase interval can be set at both the system level and at the individual user level and when set, overrides the existing password interval control for password phrases. With the PTFs for RACF APAR OA61951 and SAF APAR OA61952, these enhancements are available on z/OS V2.5.
Additional support has been added to the IBM zCX Foundation for Red Hat® OpenShift® (zCX for OpenShift) Ecosystem:
IBM WebSphere® Hybrid Edition 5.1 support
IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition can help you develop new cloud-native applications, modernize your existing IT estate, or support an established WebSphere app estate. It is now supported in IBM zCX Foundation for Red Hat OpenShift. Clients that are licensed on WebSphere Hybrid Edition today can now enjoy the benefits of WebSphere Hybrid Edition co-located with z/OS.