Edward, Here's the basic process:
1. Order and receive physical DVD media containing the software products, via postal mail or courier. 2. Insert the DVD into the drive of any machine that your designated z/OS LPAR can reach. (Not necessarily *every* z/OS LPAR.) That machine might be the HMC (as far as I can tell), a PC, a Mac, etc. -- *any* machine the z/OS LPAR can reach, in network terms, that has a DVD drive. It could even be a "smart" DVD drive that has a NAS (Network Attached Storage) capability built-in, such as this 2U size rack mountable gadget (no endorsement implied): http://www.primearray.com/products/ArrayStor.php It could be a machine on a closed network or a machine on the moon. In principle, it doesn't matter. *Anything* that can read a DVD and transmit its contents across a network. It could also be a machine with a BD (Blu-Ray) or BDXL data drive since those are backward compatible with DVD data formats. 3. The machine should be running either a FTP server (e.g. ftpd) or a NFS server. If not, configure the machine's FTP server or NFS server and start it up. Make the DVD available to the FTP server or NFS server, directly. There's no requirement for an initial copy operation from the DVD to that machine's own hard drive or flash drive. 4. Using z/OS's FTP client or NFS client, load or copy the files from the DVD. That could be directly (SMP/E RECEIVE FROMNETWORK) or via an initial copy operation, onto z/OS attached storage. That's it, really. Conceptually, this is *exactly* what you do today. Except you get to choose which DVD drive/machine you wish to use (instead of choosing IBM's specific tape drive and controller), and the path from your chosen DVD drive/machine to your z/OS LPAR is via FTP or NFS over your (presumably) closed network. Also, DVDs are easier to ship and store. They're flatter, in particular. Conceptually, this is also exactly what your Microsoft Windows Server administrators are doing today. Assuredly they aren't physically loading DVDs on each/every Windows server in your data center. That would require a strong pair of roller skates for a large data center, if nothing else. There's nothing radical, complicated, or controversial about it -- at least, there shouldn't be. It's just a change in physical media and associated drive, and we've had those many times before. IBM isn't shipping 9-track tape, 7-track tape, floppy disks, punched paper tape, or card decks any more. And, if anybody is upset for some strange reason, "ask your friendly IBM representative" for a phone call with IBM. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM Z & LinuxONE, Multi-Geography -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
