Long before IBM talked about the end of tape delivery, we stopped accepting any physical media whatever--even doc. The reason was rooted in legal classification of software for tax purposes. In order to be extra careful, we eschewed not only tape/DVD for software itself, but also for any supporting function as well. The cost of getting levied with ordinary sales tax would have been significant.
. . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW robin...@sce.com -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary Eheman Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 8:45 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: (External):Re: Software Delivery on Tape to be Discontinued On Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:22:51 -0400, John Eells <ee...@us.ibm.com> wrote: >David Boyes wrote: >> On 3/27/18, 9:48 AM, "IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of John Eells" >> <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU on behalf of ee...@us.ibm.com> wrote: >> >>> Ah, so that's what you meant. I hadn't inferred that from your earlier >>> post. >> >> Sorry, replies crossed in the ether. >> >>> As the original builder of the ADCD systems (originally created to >>> support P390s) >> >> Didn't the P370 also support AWSTAPE? I don't remember -- that was a long >> time ago. Or were you just using P390 as a generic term? >> >>> However, we do not, and have no plans to, deliver the DVD files in AWSTAPE >>> format. >> > >I'd quite forgotten about P370, in part because I don't know that it >was ever available external to IBM. It might well have been what the >AWS* things were ogiginally written for, and if so, I stand (well, sit, >at the moment) corrected. > >But in any event, we have no plans to support AWSTAPE format for >software delivery in general. It's not at all clear to me that it >would solve anything that is not already solved by retrieving the files >from a workstation file system (hard drive or DVD), either, and until >someone shows me how it would be, I don't know why I'd support the >effort to do it. (And, as it happens, it's not actually trivial to >implement it in the software delivery process.) > >-- >John Eells >IBM Poughkeepsie >ee...@us.ibm.com > I have quite enjoyed reading this thread in the digest version over the last few days. For historical accuracy, I wanted to point out that service delivery on optical media from IBM is something that I personally was involved with in with IBM sofware delivery back in 1998-1999. Customers could first order service from IBM and request that the delivery media be CDROM instead of tape in early 1999. Preventive service (RSU) for VM could be ordered from IBM on CDROM in January 1999. Not sure why it could not be trivial for z/OS, but it, frankly, was trivial for VM. In March 1999, corrective service could be ordered on CDROM. So this really is not some new problem for IBM service delivery. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Though the web page about ptf service on CDROM media was up for year into the 2000 decade, it is no longer up on the VM website. You can still find it on the web archive wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20040822203309/http://www.vm.ibm.com:80/service/vmcd.html I found a hard copy on my book shelf of the IBM S/390 Bulletin Issue 24 April 1999 which had an article on page 14 about the availability of service on CDROM. These bulletin documents which were produced out of Boeblingen by the S/390 division in both glossy hardcopy and pdf format contained articles of interest for the entire S/390 product line were available in pdf format for download, but I cannot find them online any longer. I reckon that z/OS might finally exploit service delivery on optical media on demand one day, a mere 20 years later than VM first did it. I see little reason to reinvent the optical media wheel for service delivery, and I concur with John Eell's observation that optical media's days are numbered. This problem was solved at IBM long, long ago. Putting an emulated tape metadata file format on that media, whether OMA/2 or AWS, or a different metadata format should be trivial if it is really required. Emulated tape is not difficult. In our products at FSI, emulated tape was even extended across the Internet in encrypted format. Others have done it, too. The only way to avoid corrective service delivery is to write perfect code the first time to eliminate the need for corrective service. Good luck doing in that. -- Gary Eheman Funamental Software, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
