SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Chase, John]

Hi, All,

Can anybody say with certainty whether a subscription to SoftwareXcel
Extended (or SoftwareXcel Enterprise Edition) is *required* in order to
use SMP/E's RECEIVE ORDER functionality, or the roughly equivalent
ShopzSeries "RSU Service Order" capability?

TIA,

-jc-


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Scott Rowe]

I do RECEIVE ORDER on a regular basis, and AFAIK we have only BASIC and 
RESOLVE(?).

>>> "Chase, John"  3/19/2009 10:41 AM >>>
Hi, All,

Can anybody say with certainty whether a subscription to SoftwareXcel
Extended (or SoftwareXcel Enterprise Edition) is *required* in order to
use SMP/E's RECEIVE ORDER functionality, or the roughly equivalent
ShopzSeries "RSU Service Order" capability?

TIA,

-jc-


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Brian Peterson]

To the best of my knowledge, the sole requirement for RECEIVE ORDER is a
certificate issued by the ShopzSeries web site.

What happens when you go to ShopzSeries, select Create New Order, and then
under "z/OS - Service" you select "Service certificate"?

That certificate, when installed on your z/OS system, is what makes RECEIVE
ORDER act like your userid in ShopzSeries, and allows your RECEIVE ORDER
batch job to interact with ShopzSeries (and IBM's back end systems) just
like your userid can interact with the ShopzSeries web site directly.

This entire process has absolutely no connection or relationship with
IBMLink.  Or at least that's how I understand it.

Brian

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:41:02 -0500, Chase, John wrote:

>Hi, All,
>
>Can anybody say with certainty whether a subscription to SoftwareXcel
>Extended (or SoftwareXcel Enterprise Edition) is *required* in order to
>use SMP/E's RECEIVE ORDER functionality, or the roughly equivalent
>ShopzSeries "RSU Service Order" capability?
>
>TIA,
>
>-jc-

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Chase, John]

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Brian Peterson
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, the sole requirement for RECEIVE ORDER is
a
> certificate issued by the ShopzSeries web site.
> 
> What happens when you go to ShopzSeries, select Create New Order, and
then
> under "z/OS - Service" you select "Service certificate"?
> 
> That certificate, when installed on your z/OS system, is what makes
RECEIVE
> ORDER act like your userid in ShopzSeries, and allows your RECEIVE
ORDER
> batch job to interact with ShopzSeries (and IBM's back end systems)
just
> like your userid can interact with the ShopzSeries web site directly.

We do / have done all that already.

> This entire process has absolutely no connection or relationship with
> IBMLink.  Or at least that's how I understand it.

I hope that's the case, and is what I'm trying to verify.

Our shop is in "serious cost-cutting" mode, and toward that end we're
evaluating "downgrading" from SoftwareXcel Extended to either Basic, or
Resolve.  Aside from ordering "packaged" service (RSU, etc.) via
ShopzSeries (and now RECEIVE ORDER), we've found we don't use any of the
other "Extended" features.

This document  is what's
causing us confusion and consternation, for it seems to imply that if we
"downgrade" from Extended (aka Enterprise Edition), we would lose our
entitlement to order "packaged" service via ShopzSeries (and by
extension, via RECEIVE ORDER), even though ShopzSeries is not mentioned
by name in that document.

Sometimes it appears that even IBM doesn't know what IBM is talking
about.  :-(

-jc-

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Brian Peterson]

The document you reference accurately describes features of IBMLink. 
IBMLink has a feature called SRD - Service Request and Delivery.  15-20+
years ago, back in the day when IBMLink was new, SRD was a major innovation
- it allowed customers to support their environments and was the first (or
second?) method available to customers to download PTFs from IBM
electronically.  During the subsequent decades, IBM has continued to add
enhancements to SRD to add additional functions.

Unrelated to IBMLink, IBM's Software Manufacturing and software order
placement areas provided a new web based ordering mechanism called
ShopzSeries.  SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER interacts with IBM Software Manufacturing.
 RECEIVE ORDER has nothing to do with IBMLink.

It became apparent to me that as soon as IBM provided ShopzSeries for
ordering service (earlier this decade), and even more obviously because of
the more recent addition of the RECEIVE ORDER function, both of which give
all customers the ability to get every PTF available for their products,
there was absolutely no reason for IBMLink SRD to even exist anymore.  It's
probably been more than five years since I last ordered a PTF using IBMLink.

Ordering PTFs is NOT the justification for IBMLink's various pricing levels.
 The other features - premium response for ETR, search capabilities for
problems, etc., ARE the justifications for IBMLink's various pricing levels.
 It's absolutely your company's decision how much each of those features are
worth to your enterprise.

My opinion, obviously.

Brian

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:04:47 -0500, Chase, John wrote:

>Our shop is in "serious cost-cutting" mode, and toward that end we're
>evaluating "downgrading" from SoftwareXcel Extended to either Basic, or
>Resolve.  Aside from ordering "packaged" service (RSU, etc.) via
>ShopzSeries (and now RECEIVE ORDER), we've found we don't use any of the
>other "Extended" features.
>
>This document  is what's
>causing us confusion and consternation, for it seems to imply that if we
>"downgrade" from Extended (aka Enterprise Edition), we would lose our
>entitlement to order "packaged" service via ShopzSeries (and by
>extension, via RECEIVE ORDER), even though ShopzSeries is not mentioned
>by name in that document.
>
>Sometimes it appears that even IBM doesn't know what IBM is talking
>about.  :-(
>
>-jc-

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Eric Bielefeld]

We had basic support when I was at Washington University.  I know how that 
goes - they tried to cut as many costs as possible.  I still think ordering 
tapes for maintenance is the best option.  You have a free archive for the 
PTFs, and if you need it, IBM gets you the tape the next day, usually in the 
morning.


I remember all the horror stories about the huge HFS file systems needed to 
receive the PTFs.  Often, over double the size of the all of the PTFs.  Is 
that still a problem?


Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414-475-7434


- Original Message - 
From: "Chase, John" 

Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?




I hope that's the case, and is what I'm trying to verify.

Our shop is in "serious cost-cutting" mode, and toward that end we're
evaluating "downgrading" from SoftwareXcel Extended to either Basic, or
Resolve.  Aside from ordering "packaged" service (RSU, etc.) via
ShopzSeries (and now RECEIVE ORDER), we've found we don't use any of the
other "Extended" features.

This document <http://www.vm.ibm.com/service/zmatrix.pdf> is what's
causing us confusion and consternation, for it seems to imply that if we
"downgrade" from Extended (aka Enterprise Edition), we would lose our
entitlement to order "packaged" service via ShopzSeries (and by
extension, via RECEIVE ORDER), even though ShopzSeries is not mentioned
by name in that document.

Sometimes it appears that even IBM doesn't know what IBM is talking
about.  :-(

   -jc- 


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Brian Peterson]

Yes, the HFS used for electronic delivery needs to be double or triple the
size of the package being downloaded.  Your characterization of this HFS as
being "huge" and "a problem" are what I would disagree with.  I just
downloaded z/OS 1.10 plus four XML FMIDs, and it all fit in one zFS
(appropriately sized).  I don't think that HFS was "huge".

Brian

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:29:00 -0500, Eric Bielefeld wrote:

>We had basic support when I was at Washington University.  I know how that
>goes - they tried to cut as many costs as possible.  I still think ordering
>tapes for maintenance is the best option.  You have a free archive for the
>PTFs, and if you need it, IBM gets you the tape the next day, usually in the
>morning.
>
>I remember all the horror stories about the huge HFS file systems needed to
>receive the PTFs.  Often, over double the size of the all of the PTFs.  Is
>that still a problem?
>
>Eric Bielefeld

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Mark Zelden]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:38:52 -0500, Brian Peterson
 wrote:

> Your characterization of this HFS as
>being "huge" and "a problem" are what I would disagree with.  I just
>downloaded z/OS 1.10 plus four XML FMIDs, and it all fit in one zFS
>(appropriately sized).  I don't think that HFS was "huge".
>

It's a generational / platform problem.   It seems that even the younger
(relative term) mainframe people I work with just can't grasp the concept
that 3390-9 isn't "huge".We were just going through an internal battle
trying to talk our storage management folks  -  aka DASD freaks :-)  -
into 3390-54 instead of 3390-27 for a migration that is starting. 
Because these folks have micro-managed mainframe storage for so 
long they are afraid to do it any other way.  

There were issues raised like "what will we do when application abc requests 
5G of storage for project xyz when they are on mod-54s and out of
space? We'll have to add another volume with all that wasted space."

Of course this comes from micro-managing the SMS storage pools also.
And as far as I know, we don't even do are charge back using that
method anyway (I think there is an "after the fact" process that goes
by data set name).

The distributed folks would laugh at us if they sat in some of the meetings
I have sat in.  

I'm glad we're not ready for EAVs!  :-)

Mark
--
Mark Zelden
Sr. Software and Systems Architect - z/OS Team Lead
Zurich North America / Farmers Insurance Group - ZFUS G-ITO
mailto:mark.zel...@zurichna.com
z/OS Systems Programming expert at http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/
Mark's MVS Utilities: http://home.flash.net/~mzelden/mvsutil.html

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Skip Robinson]

I'm tired of my belly hurting from laughing at them. Let them cramp up for
a change.  ;-)

.
.
JO.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
jo.skip.robin...@sce.com


   
 Mark Zelden   
   To 
 Sent by: IBM  IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
 Mainframe  cc 
 Discussion List   
  Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER:
   Prerequisites?  
   
 03/19/2009 02:25  
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 Please respond to 
   IBM Mainframe   
  Discussion List  

   
   




On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:38:52 -0500, Brian Peterson
 wrote:



The distributed folks would laugh at us if they sat in some of the meetings
I have sat in.



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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:25:12 -0500, Mark Zelden wrote:
>
>It's a generational / platform problem.   It seems that even the younger
>(relative term) mainframe people I work with just can't grasp the concept
>that 3390-9 isn't "huge".We were just going through an internal battle
>trying to talk our storage management folks  -  aka DASD freaks :-)  -
>into 3390-54 instead of 3390-27 for a migration that is starting.
>Because these folks have micro-managed mainframe storage for so
>long they are afraid to do it any other way.
>
And some of them were likely carrying twice the storage of
a mod-54 in their shirt pockets.

However, SMP/E's design is short of ideal.  The scheme
is to unpack all the SMPPTFIN files to HFS; dynalloc
all concatenated to SMPPTFIN and do the RECEIVE.  In a
test, I have even exceeded the OS limit on DD concatenations.

A more economical approach would be to allocate SMPPTFIN
to the output of a POSIX pipe and in a concurrent process
unpack each SMPPTFIN archive, write it to the input of the
pipe, and delete before unpacking the next.  Yah, I know,
this would create new error scenarios where an unpack
failed midway in the process.  It can be dealt with.

-- gil

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Eric Bielefeld]

Huge depends on what you have available for DASD at the time.  If most of 
your volumes are allocated, and there is little room for anything new, 2 
3390 Mod 3s to hold the HFS (now probably ZFS) could be huge.  At my last 
contract job, we just got a new Shark when I started, and at that time there 
was triple the amount of DASD space.  They decided to flash everything as a 
test, which gave me a GREAT test sysplex - all dasd was copied and totally 
separate from the production sysplex.  Every time they asked me to allocate 
another 5 Mod 9s for something, there was plenty of room.


Contrast that to my last full time job where in 1996 they still had lots of 
real 3380s and 3390s in their newly built datacenter.  The dasd to hold 
double the amount of data just to hold an order wasn't available.  Of 
course, neither was ShopZ back then, but a lot of smaller shops are still in 
that kind of situation.  DASD is a lot cheaper now, but adding more still 
costs real money that many shops are unwilling to spend.


Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414-475-7434


- Original Message - 
From: "Brian Peterson" 

Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: 
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?



Yes, the HFS used for electronic delivery needs to be double or triple the
size of the package being downloaded.  Your characterization of this HFS 
as

being "huge" and "a problem" are what I would disagree with.  I just
downloaded z/OS 1.10 plus four XML FMIDs, and it all fit in one zFS
(appropriately sized).  I don't think that HFS was "huge".

Brian 


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Richards, Robert B.]

Eric,

About the tapes.see FLASH 10671, posted on Monday.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/FLASH10671

Abstract: IBM plans to discontinue delivery of software on 3480, 3480
Compressed (3480C), and 3490E tape media. IBM's future software delivery
enhancements will be focused on *Internet delivery*.

Bob

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Eric Bielefeld
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 4:29 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

> I still think ordering tapes for maintenance is the best option.  You
have > a free archive for the PTFs, and if you need it, IBM gets you the
tape the > next day, usually in the morning.

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Tom Marchant]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:03:27 -0500, Eric Bielefeld wrote:

>Huge depends on what you have available for DASD at the time
>
>... in 1996 ...

1996 was a long time ago.  In 1996, I upgraded a year from a 750 MB hard
drive to a whopping 4.2 GB.  These ancient stories are irrelevant today.

-- 
Tom Marchant

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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Staller, Allan]

This phrase was also in the z/OS 1.9 announcement (and probably even
earlier).
I still haven't been able to get a date as to when this is planned to
occur!


Abstract: IBM plans to discontinue delivery of software on 3480, 3480
Compressed (3480C), and 3490E tape media. IBM's future software delivery
enhancements will be focused on *Internet delivery*.


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Eric Bielefeld]

War stories has always been a part of IBM-Main, ever since I joined many 
years ago.  I'm just saying that even if dasd is cheaper now, there are 
still accounts where a Mod3 or 2 is not available.


Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414-475-7434


- Original Message - 
From: "Tom Marchant" 

Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: 
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 7:22 AM
Subject: Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?



On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:03:27 -0500, Eric Bielefeld wrote:


Huge depends on what you have available for DASD at the time

... in 1996 ...


1996 was a long time ago.  In 1996, I upgraded a year from a 750 MB hard
drive to a whopping 4.2 GB.  These ancient stories are irrelevant today.

--
Tom Marchant 


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Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?

[Eric Bielefeld]

Thanks Bob.  We had a 3590 base unit at my last job.  I think the z/OS 1.9 
order came on 3 tapes, which was nice.  By the way, when I started there, 
they had 16 3490E drives, and a big area filled with tape racks.  Over the 6 
months I was there, they converted all the tapes to 3490s, got rid of the 
drives, and the tape racks.  They hadn't installed the pool or ping pong 
tables yet though!


Eric

Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
414-475-7434


- Original Message - 
From: "Richards, Robert B." 

Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: 
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 4:53 AM
Subject: Re: SMP/E RECEIVE ORDER: Prerequisites?



Eric,

About the tapes.see FLASH 10671, posted on Monday.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/FLASH10671

Abstract: IBM plans to discontinue delivery of software on 3480, 3480
Compressed (3480C), and 3490E tape media. IBM's future software delivery
enhancements will be focused on *Internet delivery*.

Bob


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