I received the following reply from Gerhard Zierl from IBM in April: "...The news is that after assessing the situation the product stays withdrawn from market. Toady VM/VSAM is used in very stable environments by customers who have the product already licensed and installed for a long time, IBM hasn't seen new customers to this product for a long time. Therefore we do not see any problem associated with the withdrawal from market.. z/VM 5.2 customers can use their old VSAM distribution tape which they have received with their current version of z/VM.
Same is true for end of service. The last APAR was 2001 (more than 5 years). Before that there was one (new function) APAR in 1999 and 2 defect APARs in 1996. VM/VSAM is a very stable product. In addion VM/VSAM is used by customers in mature and stable environments, no new applications, no major changes, etc... I would assume the same applies to your product. So the risk of encountering a severe problem is extremely low. In case customers decide they have a critical need to have service beyond the EOS-date, then there is in general an option to ask IBM for a charged service extension agreement." Mark. -----Original Message----- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Shimon Lebowitz Sent: Tuesday, 20 June 2006 6:48 AM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: RES: VSE/VSAM for VM > IBM MUST give an option. There are some products from IBM that uses VSAM/VM > and how we should handle this? Netview Access is one of them. Change it > means to re-think all our mainframe access. My list of current uses of VSAM also included Netview. The response of the product owner was "Netview for VM has already been discontinued, so that doesn't count". I just looked at the VM LP Matrix for 5.2 (Dec. 16, 2005), http://www.vm.ibm.com/techinfo/lpmigr/vml12165.html and it says both apparently contradictory statements: - Removed End of Service from Netview V2 for VM/ESA V2.3.0. This product is still supported. - Added Discontinuance of Service date for VSE/VSAM (5686-081), effective February 28, 2007. In any case we have LOTS more using VSAM than Netview. Shimon
