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Systemware JHS: Enduring the Test of Time and Thriving in the Digital Era

  

Community Members, I recently wrote a blog posting for my company website talking about our Z based product called JHS. This came about due to excitement related to z/OS 3.1 and the adoption of AI features within the core system. As I started writing, I realized that there are many fans of IBM that have used JHS during their careers and might find the article interesting. Below is my blog. I hope you enjoy.

Systemware JHS: Enduring the Test of Time and Thriving in the Digital Era

It shouldn't, but after 40 years it still amazes me at the amount of interest and excitement there is in the original mainframe job management product that launched Systemware - Job History System (JHS). JHS was launched in 1983 as a means for mainframe operators to capture, search, alert, and store their JCL log files. It was the first software of its kind and has continued to evolve with each new generation of IBM's z/OS software. When we recently submitted a questionnaire to our clients for the topics they'd like to hear about at our annual user conference, JHS and mainframe support were the top requests after cloud enablement and artificial intelligence. Everyone seems to be talking about AI these days, but how many are including mainframe software in the same conversation? Apparently, since we share many of the same customers, IBM is listening as well because their new z/OS 3.1 is "AI-Infused."

The latest version of IBM z/OS can trace its roots back much further than the 1983 launch of JHS, but that has not stopped IBM from continually improving the product and keeping current with advances in technology. The same can certainly be said for JHS and its companion product, Content Server. With what seems like daily improvements in cloud technologies, JHS is continually being improved to take advantage of the benefits of running in a hybrid environment. When visualization became all the rage, JHS was enhanced with hooks to distribute job metrics to the leading graphical applications. Now with AI being the latest "it" technology, both IBM and Systemware are keeping ahead of the curve by incorporating these latest tools into our product sets.

The question is, how can a simple mainframe job management product like JHS benefit from these new AI technologies? Most people today think of tools like Chat GPT when they discuss artificial intelligence. No, JHS is not going to write your term paper or blog (maybe I should have thought about that one sooner). Where we see the power of these technologies for use in JHS is having the ability to intelligently analyze job output data and, in real-time, react based not on defined rules but on learned observations of the data patterns. The same holds true for our content management software. AI can monitor document capture for anomalies, usage patterns for malicious activity, as well as capacity limits for dynamic system sizing within the cloud.

We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding what can be accomplished in this new world of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. To some this can be a scary thought, but, like it or not, these technologies are here to stay, and we need to embrace them. We continue to onboard new JHS customers, not because it works as if it were 1983, but because we have continually modernized JHS as technologies change. If you are seeking a modern and market-leading mainframe job management product to maintain your job information, JHS is something you should evaluate, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't look at the full suite of content services offered by Systemware and explore all of the ways that you can benefit from the latest technological advances.

https://www.systemware.com/systemware-jhs-thriving-in-the-digital-era