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z/OSMF Core Services and Optional Services

z/OSMF is a modernization platform for z/OS management. There are more than 20 services (also as known as plugins) in z/OSMF. There are 14 services started with z/OSMF which are called z/OSMF Core services. z/OSMF Core services were always enabled. There are 9 optional services which can be enabled/disabled by editing the IZUPRM member.

As z/OSMF services are getting more and more popular. Some system programmers may have configured multiple z/OSMFs instances. Each instance might be highly customized and might be dedicated for a specific kind of workload. Some instances might be dedicated for one or two REST APIs, like JOB or File/Dataset APIs. Some instances might be dedicated for System Management UI tasks. Therefore, the flexibility to tailor z/OSMF runtime is getting more important.

z/OSMF Lite Stage 1

z/OSMF Lite was first available in V2R4. It simplifies the configuration process for those who configure and maintain highly customized z/OSMF. To get a new customized z/OSMF, system programmers just need to configure a light weighted z/OSMF Nucleus and whatever services they need. System programmers can leave any services un-configured before start using needed services.

System programmers would like to see those unused services disabled for better startup performance and less resource consumption when running z/OSMF. It can be done through editing IZUPRMXX for the 9 optional services but was impossible for the 14 Core services.

z/OSMF Lite Stage 2

A recent enhancement (PH24527) provides a very user friendly UI to allow user disable z/OSMF services in only a few clicks. The enhancement is more than just providing a user interface.

If you have a need of tailor your z/OSMF for a specific service, check if PH24527 is applied. If applied, you can navigate to z/OSMF desktop interface and click on the icon “General Settings”.

General Settings was originally designed to customize z/OSMF home page settings. Now it has been expanded to customize z/OSMF services. You can click on “Services” Tab to navigate z/OSMF services.

You can review all z/OSMF services and determine if any service can be enabled/disabled. Just click on the toggle in 1 sec.

The tool does not only provide you toggles. It can validate service dependencies. For instance, when you disable z/OSMF Job APIs when you have “Workflows” running, the tool will warn you that your running function might be impacted if you continue. Isn’t it convenient?

The lab test results show z/OSMF help contributes more than 50% of startup time. Disabling z/OMSF help will significantly improve the startup time. This will be very helpful if you run z/OSMF on a small system – for instance a zPDT environment.

You can reference the following lab results for startup performance. The test was performed on a dedicated CP with 8G memory. z/OSMF was running on Java 8 SR5. Liberty version is 20.0.0.3.