John: Thanks for the good information. I steered my client away from BDT when it was first announced as being to expensive and did not meet all our needs as not all the shops we talked to were IBM /or/ they were not likely to buy it as it was expensive to small shops.
We ended up with the cheap FDP called BDT (now unavailable) which was cheap at 80 (IIRC dollars) a month. It used NJE and could transfer any dataset that could be put in sequental order. VSAM, PDS it was easy with IBM utilities to unload and send them. We made 15,000 a transfers a day to clients and those that didn't run MVS/VM/JES3 we sent the data via RJE punch data (clumsy but it did work). Just for those who are wondering we had companies who didn't have IBM but they did support IBM SNA (BYSYNC RJE). Hey at 80 dollars a month and literaly used thousands of times a day it was the buy of the year. Ed ________________________________ From: John Eells <ee...@us.ibm.com> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 9:17:03 AM Subject: Re: BDT and PDSEs Fair points. However, there are two things I want to mention: First, let me note that BDT, in its new incarnation as z/OS elements, is still very much in service even though it has not not been under active development. (The last update was in OS/390 R2.) Only the former standalone product has been withdrawn from service. Second, if I were a betting man, I'd bet that requirements against FTP would stand a better chance of success of being satisfied than requirements to reopen BDT. Feel free, of course, to submit requirements against either, both or neither. Art Gutowski wrote: > On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:44:19 -0400, John Eells<ee...@us.ibm.com> wrote: > >> I'd suspect that most people use FTP these days for PDS and PDSE >> transfers, both of which it supports (including load modules and program >> objects, I'm told by the developers). There are other ways to skin the >> cat but (as someone who is NOT a non-networking expert!) this seems like >> the most likely one to me for simple transfers. >> >> (Note: The BDT product, 5665-264, was withdrawn from service in 2008, >> but it lives on as a set of priced optional features and a base element >> of z/OS.) > > John, > > I responded to Cheryl offline, but your response prompts me to speak up > publicly... > > While not 'most people', I know of at least one large shop that is still a >heavy > BDT FTF and NJE user (JES3). I'm sure usage of the former grew from the > necessity of the latter. Conversion of PDS' to PDSEs had been a repeated > frustration over the years, and probably still bites them on the ankles (or > slightly higher) periodically. > > FTP works for load modules, true, but (1) it doesn't handle certain load > modules at all (AFAIAA), and (2) users have to be vigilant of the transfer > parameters they use, and (3) it's a pain for big, multi-dataset transfers. BDT > was a no-brainer, and it is disappointing (frustrating) to me that IBM withdrew > this product from service and refused to write support for PDSE. Although, I > suspect it is as much DFSMS' fault for not providing the sort of transparency > to the access method that would allow BDT to support PDSE without > modification. BDT handles PS-E datasets, so QSAM but not BPAM, eh? > Unless, of course, BDT is doing something untoward with BPAM, which is not > out of the question. > > Before anyone suggests XMIT/RECEIVE - one word: unattended. Make that > three: checkpoint and retry. There are other products out there, I am sure, > but for those JES3 shops that have not yet moved to TCP/IP NJE and have to > run BDT NJE, why would you buy yet another transfer product? > > (1) While these types of load modules may not reside in PDSE, I gave up on > using FTP across the board because it continually chewed up modules > with "unusual" linkage attributes like page-aligned and scatter-load. So now > it's FTP for PDSE and BDT for PDS? Argh. > > Regards, > Art Gutowski > Compuware Corporation > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO > Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html -- John Eells z/OS Technical Marketing IBM Poughkeepsie ee...@us.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
