On 11 Jul 2007 12:46:12 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main you wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List >> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Clark Morris >> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 2:20 PM >> To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU >> Subject: A mod 27 is small was Re: 3390 Model 27 >> > ><snip> > >> >> Just to put this in perspective, this month's Smart Computing featured >> a 1 terabyte drive for PCs from Hitachi for 399 US dollars. Most of >> the physical drives in your newer configurations are at least 54 >> gigabytes and more likely have hundreds of gigabytes. Maybe IBM needs >> to bite the bullet and start a migration to FBA. >> > >I'll lay you dollars to donuts that it does NOT happen in z/OS (it is >already supported on z/VSE, z/VM, and Linux on System z - along with FCP >DASD support in addition to ESCON and FICON support for Linux either in >LPAR or on z/VM. z/VM only supports FCP for use by Linux, not CMS or >itself, IIRC). In any case, too many things would need to be enhanced, >starting with IPL and NIP processing. Then all users of BPAM would need >to be PDSE compatable because an old style PDS cannot reside on FBA. Or >z/OS would need to implement an ECKD on FBA emulation within itself. Oh, >and keyed BDAM files, if any such monsters still exist, could not be >"natively" supported on FBA. Anything that required hardware keys cannot >be "natively" supported on FBA because FBA doesn't have that concept. >There may be some code out that using EXCP or XDAP which requires >hardware keys.
All that FBA would have to support is all libraries needed at IPL time (means that PDSE has to be supported at IPL), something for SYS1.NUCLEUS (my thought is just a very large IPL data set, Unix file systems (maybe on unique, native UNIX volumes) and an enhanced set of VSAM data sets. These enhancements would include ESDS that could have generation numbers and relative generations as well as larger than 44 character names and the names could be in Unicode. > >Why should IBM do this? It won't make them any money that I can see. It >might even end up costing them money if the FBA versions of the 2107 >cost less than the ECKD versions. z/OS is becoming increasingly unwieldy. Data areas are increasing in size. People want names that are not tied to the current standard (note that there should be little in current catalog management that actually constrains a level to being no more than 8 bytes unfortunately with should being the constraining word). The VTOC has long passed its best before date. If z/OS is going to truly evolve to new world instead of being a placeholder until AIX or the latest i series operating system gets up to speed, serious work needs to be done. This is like the COBOL people not understanding why it has to have XPLINK and 64 bit capability when the other components have it. Clark Morris ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
