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IBM Z Digital Integration Hub (zDIH) MongoDB Connector Testing

By Timothy Odom posted 22 days ago
This blog is a continuation of our original blog post about IBM Z Digital Integration Hub (zDIH), We encourage you to take the time to read it and familiarize yourself with the concepts of zDIH as well as how we have implemented it in our environment. IBM zDIH provides real-time information sharing between z/OS core systems and hybrid cloud applications and has built-in support for industry-standard interfaces and connectors. You can find additional information about this support for the different interfaces and connectors at the following zDIH documentation sites: Establishing zDIH interfaces – to provide support for downstream applications on ...

New z/OS 3.1 CTN Configuration Display Command

By Alex Diss posted Wed January 24, 2024
With the availability of z/OS 3.1 on 9/29/2023, the ‘D ETR’ command has been enhanced to display the coordinated timing network (CTN) configuration. Previously, this information was only viewable via the HMC ‘Manage System Time’ panel. A new IEA399I message is issued in response to the ‘D ETR,CTN’ command to the issuing console (EMCS, S(MCS), or SYSCONS). Additionally, the IEA399I message is issued to hardcopy during z/OS system IPL and whenever there is a CTN configuration change. In our test environment, we issued the ‘D ETR,CTN’ command and ensured it matched the information on the HMC ‘Manage System Time’ panel for various configurations. We also ...

Using IBM Data Set Commander for z/OS to get ISPF stats in Python

By Michael Cohoon posted Tue October 17, 2023
z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test (zPET) runs customer-like workloads in a Parallel Sysplex environment to perform the final verification of new IBM Z hardware and software. For more information about zPET, please check out our community . Overview As usage of Python continues to grow in the mainframe environment, the language has become the go-to for new projects, automation, and scripts. While IBM Z Open Automation Utilities (ZOAU) provides many interfaces into z/OS and its resources, a recent zPET team project required – in part – gathering ISPF statistics for members in various datasets. This wasn’t functionality that (at the time of writing) ...

zPET Experiences with Z Digital Integration Hub (zDIH)

By TRENT BALTA posted Tue June 27, 2023
z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test (zPET) runs customer-like workloads in a Parallel Sysplex environment to perform the final verification of new IBM Z hardware and software. For more information about zPET, please check out our community . Introduction What is zDIH? What is zDIH? To quote the official documentation: “ The IBM Digital Integration Hub (IBM zDIH) provides real-time consumable information flow at scale, protects production environments from unpredictable inquiry traffic with adaptability, and offers flexible interactions with API and event-based architectures. IBM zDIH is applicable to use cases that have systems of record on IBM z/OS”. ...

Using DSFS with Multiple Data Set Qualifiers for the HLQ Directory Level

By Yu Mei Dai posted Thu March 23, 2023
Using DSFS with Multiple Data Set Qualifiers for the HLQ Directory Level Data Set File System (DSFS) is a new type of physical file system that renders traditional z/OS data sets accessible by programs, shell scripts, and end users of z/OS UNIX System Services. For more basic introduction about DSFS, please refer to blog DSFS introduction . Currently, DSFS assumes that the first qualifier of a data set name is the High Level Qualifier (HLQ). For HLQs that have a very large number of data sets, this can lead to a lot of wasted CPU cycles during catalog processing when an HLQ is first populated, and whenever it is resynced due to the ...

CFRM Policy Updates Made Easy With the z/OSMF CFRM Policy Editor

By ZHAO YU WANG posted Mon January 16, 2023
The Coupling Facility Resource Management (CFRM) policy describes the definition and properties of Coupling facilities (CF) and CF structures that can be used in a Parallel Sysplex. The CFRM policy is stored in a Couple Data Set (CDS). Traditionally, when the definitions of CFs or structures needed to be modified, a z/OS system programmer had to modify the CFRM policy’s text and then submit the administrative data utility, IXCMIAPU, via JCL to write the policy to the CFRM CDS. This method, which has been used for decades, requires the system programmer write the corresponding CF or CF structure attribute definition very carefully. It is easy to introduce human ...

Watson Machine Learning for z/OS scoring interfaces and use case examples

By HUI WANG posted Mon December 19, 2022
In two of our previous blogs, we gave an overview of Watson Machine Learning for z/OS (WMLz) and a use case of SMF real time scoring through WMLz . In this article, we call the scoring service for inference through a REST API described in WMLz service REST APIs . REST APIs are the most used type of interface to call WMLz scoring service for inference. Other than REST APIs, there are 2 other types of interfaces to call the scoring service specially for COBOL applications and Java applications. In this blog, we will give an overall introduction about those 3 WMLz scoring interfaces and give some use case examples. WMLz scoring service REST ...

Automated Provisioning of z/OS in the IBM Cloud

By Michael Cohoon posted Fri December 09, 2022
z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test (zPET) runs customer-like workloads in a Parallel Sysplex environment to perform the final verification of new IBM Z hardware and software. For more information about zPET, please check out our community . Introduction IBM has announced IBM Wazi as-a-Service which brings z/OS to the IBM Cloud. This offers a lot of new, exciting capabilities around development and test for z/OS. In addition to exploring the capabilities of z/OS in the IBM Cloud to augment our existing environment and processes , our team also contributed to the larger test effort of testing z/OS in the IBM Cloud. In this article, we will share ...

Z16’s Direct-Connect for STP Feature

By Brittany Ross posted Fri December 02, 2022
Introduction: With the release of IBM’s latest mainframe, IBM z16, a new feature is introduced – an enhanced method for connecting to a CTN’s external time reference. This new feature enables users to connect the CEC directly to PTP or NTP external time references through a data center network. Now, PTP or NTP traffic comes into the CEC through Ethernet connectivity to a new adapter that features hardware timestamping capabilities, allowing IBM z16 to take full advantage of the accuracy of PTP. With these new enhancements, STP is capable of significantly enhanced accuracy to UTC compared to previous IBM Z machines, with the potential to eliminate the need ...

Provisioning z/OS in the IBM Cloud

By Michael Cohoon posted Tue November 01, 2022
z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test (zPET) runs customer-like workloads in a Parallel Sysplex environment to perform the final verification of new IBM Z hardware and software. For more information about zPET, please check out our community . Introduction IBM has announced IBM Wazi as-a-Service which brings z/OS to the IBM Cloud. This offers a lot of new exciting capabilities around development and test for z/OS. The zPET team has begun exploring IBM Wazi as-a-Service to see how a provisioned z/OS system in the IBM Cloud integrates into our existing topology. Overview If you already use the IBM Cloud today, you may be familiar with both ...

Automating HMC/SE LPAR control to toggle "Workload Manager Enabled" settings for multiple LPARs by using APIs

By Lowen Ho posted Mon October 03, 2022
Are you tired of doing repetitive LPAR control updates from the HMC/SEs? If your sysplex is like ours, having 15 or more LPARs on 3 different CPCs on a PLEX, you would be as excited as me hearing about how we use APIs in zPET to dynamically update LPAR control values without logging on to the HMC/SEs. Today I would like to share with you my experiences using the simple programming language, REXX to invoke a few APIs to update the Workload Manager Enabled Capping values for 15 LPARs on a PLEX all at once. In zPET, we perform test runs very frequently for different types of tests. In order to perform our test runs in a more consistent environment and have ...

Sysdig Secure Installation and Setup Guide

By Zechariah Castillo posted Fri September 30, 2022
Sysdig Secure Installation and Alert Management Guide By Zechariah Castillo Overview: Sysdig Secure is part of Sysdig’s container intelligence platform. Sysdig uses a unified platform to deliver security, monitoring, and forensics in a cloud, container and microservices-friendly architecture integrated with Docker and Kubernetes. Sysdig Secure takes a services-aware approach to protect workloads while bringing deep cloud and container visibility, posture management (compliance, benchmarks, CIEM), vulnerability scanning, forensics and threat detection and blocking. To begin the installation process, you will need an openstack or Kubernetes cluster that ...

Defining Data Sources for Hyper Protect Data Controller in zPET

By TORIN REILLY posted Tue August 09, 2022
In an enterprise environment with large amounts of business data, you often find that data spread across multiple data sources. While this can be a problem in itself, you must also ensure you are protecting that data while simultaneously maximizing the value you can extract. Hyper Protect Data Controller has allowed us to access our data from a single interface that can protect that data inflight. In z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test ( zPET ) , we expose three data sources via Hyper Protect Data Controller: Db2, DVM, and IMS. Connecting to each of these data sources from Hyper Protect Data Controller can be as simple as uploading the ...

DSFS introduction

By Yu Mei Dai posted Thu August 04, 2022
Data Set File System (DSFS) is a new type of physical file system that was introduced as a z/OS V2.5 2Q 2022 enhancement. With DSFS, z/OS UNIX applications and users can access data sets by presenting the data sets as a tree-structured file system that is mounted at mount point /dsfs in the z/OS UNIX file system tree. To use the DSFS support, you must install and activate APAR OA62150 (the related PTFs are UJ08232 UJ08233) to install the modules and files that are needed to run DSFS. In this article, the following 4 parts will be introduced for DSFS. 1. Supported data sets 2. Utility file system 3. Components ...

zPET Parallel Sysplex Environment – 2022

By Brittany Ross posted Wed July 27, 2022
Here we describe our Parallel Sysplex computing environment, including information about our hardware and software configurations. Note: In our publications, when you see the term sysplex , understand it to mean a sysplex with a coupling facility, which is a Parallel Sysplex. Overview of Our Parallel Sysplex Environment We run two Parallel Sysplexes, one with 15 members and the other with 4 members. Even though the configuration changes are constant due to various projects we are involved in, our standing business as usual configuration is as follows: CPC Type Plex1 z/OS LPARs Plex2 z/OS LPARs Plex1 ...

Using the Management Interface for Hyper Protect Data Controller

By Michael Cohoon posted Thu October 07, 2021
z/OS Platform Evaluation and Test (zPET) runs customer-like workloads in a Parallel Sysplex environment to perform the final verification of new IBM Z hardware and software. For more information about zPET, please check out our community . Introduction IBM Hyper Protect Data Controller brings security to the eligible data itself in the form of encrypted data objects (EDO). These EDOs offer field-level encryption, helping to protect the data whether on Z, in the cloud, or somewhere in between. The recent release of Hyper Protect Data Controller version 1.2.0 focuses on performance and usability, and the zPET team has found that while the new Management ...

Goodbye Manual z/OS Scenarios…Hello Galasa!

By Gene Nitka posted Tue September 21, 2021
Introduction With Halloween creeping closer and closer, let’s talk about something truly scary…MANUAL TESTING! Much of the enterprise world still has their manual processes whether they like it or not. (And if you’re one of the lucky, fully automated few; then good for you!) As exciting and tempting as it would be to slap it into some automation or simply drop that process, it isn’t always that easy. On our z/OS Service Test team, our goal is to apply our regression (and often disruptive) test scenarios before fixes go into the field. These scenarios vary in shape, complexity, and component. Some are automated in various tools such as Tivoli Workload Scheduler ...

Exploring z/OS Through Zowe, ZOAU, and IDE Tools

By TRENT BALTA posted Thu January 28, 2021
Introduction Today, it seems that there is no shortage of modern methods of interacting with z/OS. I see this as both a blessing and a curse, and it’s something that has been in the back of my mind for quite some time now. It seems like every day (OK maybe that’s a stretch, let’s just say “relatively frequently”) there is a new tool from a new area that offers a modern interface or method to interact with z/OS. What’s worse, is that when folks explain or demonstrate these tools to their peers, it seems that they often get feedback that “this is nothing new” or “such and such a tool does (or used to do) the same thing.” Again, I find this both troubling and ...

Reading z/OS data with R

By Michael Cohoon posted Wed October 21, 2020
Introduction Towards the end of last year, IBM introduced support for R to run natively on z/OS via IzODA’s Anaconda packages. If you are unfamiliar with the R environment (it’s more than just a language), R is popular with statisticians and data scientists for data analysis, data mining, data visualization, and statistical computing work. Similar to Python, there is no shortage of additional libraries and packages provided by an active open source community. Since moving data off-platform can be costly, IBM is continuing to take steps towards supporting an on-platform environment for analytics by bringing R to z/OS. Goal: Since Python notebooks ...

ARM Reactions When z/OS Applications Terminate – with System Automation for z/OS settings

By Jing Wen Chen posted Wed September 30, 2020
Automatic Restart Manager (ARM) is a z/OS recovery function intended to help improve availability by providing fast, efficient restarts of critical applications after a failure. In our previous blog “ ARM Reactions When z/OS Applications Terminate ” we shared some of our experiences with ARM, using one of our address spaces called zCXINST6(an IBM z/OS Container Extensions address space). We also shared that ZCXINST6 was not defined in our IBM System Automation for z/OS (SA z/OS) and only an ARM policy was in effect to control its recovery. Many z/OS environments use SA z/OS to control automated recovery of their applications and SA z/OS can be configured to be ...

Real time SMF records scoring through WML for z/OS

By HUI WANG posted Mon September 14, 2020
In a previous blog, we gave an overview of Watson Machine Learning for z/OS (WML for z/OS or WLMz) and mentioned we had implemented some SMF real time scoring use cases. In this blog, we’ll introduce our experiences with SMF real time scoring through WMLz. SMF records are an important data source on z/OS. They provide system and job-related information that can be used for analyzing resource usage, billing users and maintaining system security. Besides the risk introduced from moving sensitive data like SMF outside the scope of your z/OS security administrator’s control, offloading SMF data from your z/OS systems to doing machine learning ...

IBM Watson Machine Learning for z/OS overview

By HUI WANG posted Mon September 14, 2020
What is IBM Watson Machine Learning for z/OS? IBM Watson Machine Learning for z/OS (WMLz) is an end-to-end enterprise machine learning platform that runs on z/OS. You can deploy it purely on z/OS as a standalone solution for quickly extracting actionable insights from your mission critical data or integrated with s390x or x86 Linux servers as a scalable infrastructure for building up your enterprise AI capability. WMLz leverages proven IBM machine learning capabilities, including IBM Open Data Analytics for z/OS (IzODA). IzODA serves as the data processing cluster for WMLz and delivers advanced data analytics through z/OS Spark, z/OS Anaconda, and Mainframe ...

Configuring PTP in the zPET Environment

By Matthew Bosko posted Tue September 08, 2020
The April 14, 2020 announcement for z15 T01 and z15 T02 introduced a new external time source option for Sysplex Time Protocol (STP) for an IBM Z Coordinated Timing Network (CTN), called Precision Timer Protocol (PTP), which is the subject of the IEEE 1588 standard. PTP provides much better time accuracy for systems than was possible when using Network Time Protocol (NTP) alone as a time source. Connectivity for PTP is managed via the IBM Z HMC/SE which will allow the use of a PTP-based external time source. The goal is to enhance the role of IBM Z machines in a PTP environment that addresses the many governmental regulations and security concerns our ...

ARM Reactions When z/OS Applications Terminate

By Jing Wen Chen posted Mon August 31, 2020
Automatic Restart Manager (ARM) is a z/OS recovery function intended to help improve availability by providing fast, efficient restarts of critical applications after a failure. The failure could be the result of an abend, task termination, address space termination, or system termination. ARM can automatically restart a batch job or started task (STC) or issue MVS commands as needed. Through the use of ARM, you can reduce the mean time to recovery after a failure. While ARM can provide immediate recovery for applications when a failure occurs, it doesn’t take action every time an application terminates. For example, if the application is intentionally cancelled ...

ICSF Prefixed Profile Enablement Application

By Dominic Rossillo posted Fri August 28, 2020
IBM’s Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility, known as ICSF for short, works with the hardware cryptographic feature and z/OS Security Server (RACF element) to provide secure, high-speed cryptographic services in the z/OS environment. ICSF provides an application programming interface via cryptographic services which accesses the cryptographic hardware. There is an ICSF function, available in ICSF FMID HCR77D0 and above, that allows for greater control over resource profiles shared across multiple systems utilizing the same RACF database. When enabled, the system name is prepended to the resource profile and checked against the RACF database. ...

ICSF Prefixed Profile Support

By Sue Marcotte posted Fri August 28, 2020
IBM’s Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility, known as ICSF for short, works with the hardware cryptographic feature and z/OS Security Server (RACF element) to provide secure, high-speed cryptographic services in the z/OS environment. ICSF provides an application programming interface via cryptographic services which accesses the cryptographic hardware. In this article we talk about our experiences configuring and using the ICSF function known as Prefixed Profile support. This new function, available on ICSF FMID HCR77D0 and above, allows for greater control over resource profiles shared across multiple systems utilizing the same RACF database. When enabled, ...

ICSF Dynamic Service Update Automated Setup Application

By Dominic Rossillo posted Fri August 28, 2020
ICSF Dynamic Service Update IBM’s Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility, known as ICSF for short, works with the hardware cryptographic feature and z/OS Security Server (RACF element) to provide secure, high-speed cryptographic services in the z/OS environment. ICSF provides an application programming interface via cryptographic services to access the cryptographic hardware. In this article we talk about our experiences configuring and using the ICSF function known as Dynamic Service Update. This new function, available on ICSF FMID HCR77D0 and above, allows for dynamically loading new ICSF service without the need to IPL a system. Dynamic Service ...

ICSF Dynamic Service Update Setup

By Dominic Rossillo posted Fri August 28, 2020
ICSF Dynamic Service Update IBM’s Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility, known as ICSF for short, works with the hardware cryptographic feature and z/OS Security Server (RACF element) to provide secure, high-speed cryptographic services in the z/OS environment. ICSF provides an application programming interface via cryptographic services to access the cryptographic hardware. In this article we talk about our experiences configuring and using the ICSF function know n as Dynamic Service Update. This new function, available on ICSF FMID HCR77D0 and above, allows for dynamically loading new ICSF service without the need to IPL a ...