On 3/29/18, 2:15 PM, "IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of Paul Gilmartin" <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU on behalf of 0000000433f07816-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote: > Are you suggesting that there may be extant contracts requiring IBM to provide > continuing updates/corrective service on 3480 cartridges?
I doubt that IBM would ever tell us that, but I read Phil's comment as "more like one or more zBLC member organization or some 200K+ MIPS customer goes to IBM and says "sorry, not an acceptable risk. Try again."". > A PTF, of course, can be just FB 80 EBCDIC "simple sequential binary file". Agreed, although I'd argue that any fix should have accompanying metadata that gets incorporated into the system service inventory tool without having to extract the fix, so any fix would be at minimum 2 files. > Several years ago, my employer began delivering FUNCTIONs as pax archives > of SMPNTS trees either on CD or via network. (My idea; I was delighted when > John Eells at SHARE Denver said IBM was moving to something very similar.) > A pax archive is "one simple sequential binary file". "pax -vr" is in base > z/OS, > as is SM/E RECEIVE FROMNTS; no need even to go to CBT tape and assemble > a utility. I think we're solving different facets of the problem now. Your idea addresses the 'once the ptf file is on my system, what do I do with it?' - the contents of the individual fix files. I don't think it addresses the issue of how do we support people who need various kinds of physical media delivery without a flag day moment of one delivery method or another. What I'm bargaining for is that we agree on a way to format the fix package that can be delivered either over the network OR via some kind of physical media WITHOUT having to incur the overhead of repackaging anything. The "tape image" metaphor lets us leverage a common delivery format whether the input is a disk file or a tape or a card deck or a mind link with Zog Prime (that last one is a challenge) AND we can move between them freely with minimal or no effort. I agree wholeheartedly that packing fixes into pax or RECEIVE FROMNTS files would be a viable thing to do for individual APARs. If it could also handle VM SES format fixes, ++good on us. The CBT comment was more a 'here's some free things that can do this if you've never played with the idea"; for this I'd want to learn from the experience that the VMers had with distribution of useful Linux things like appliances and stuff that had to be surfaced at the VM level, like entire virtual machine disk images. The only tool we had was VMARC format over channels that didn't support maintaining file attributes or record boundaries; we went with the community-provided tool route to avoid inventing a wheel, and it's probably been the biggest PITA in getting things moved around between sites. IBM eventually created Yet Another Tool that was installed with a standard system, but inertia still is a hindrance (30+ years of using VMARC is a big habit to break), as is lack of documentation of the IBM tool outside IBM. Think about AMATERSE and how it got out, and the resulting hassles with that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
