subject:"z\/VM usability"

No, I have looked, and CMS Pipelines are nice indeed. But then so are pipes
under UNIX; indeed, pipes are the very core of UNIX. If you are not annoyed
by discussing it, I would love to hear your opinions on what is so primitive
about UNIX. :) 

Linux is more suitable in many ways; but that has a caveat - it depends of
course, on exactly what you are doing. For example, Linux (or UNIX) in the
raw character oriented mode is very *very* much like CMS with a bunch of
different commands. And UNIX is much nicer to code C programs in that is VM.
 But what would you expect? It was designed around C! It was also
designed to do text processing, and even today, it does that very well.
Still can drive typesetters in fact. 

Perl is a nice language - but so is REXX - and if you are using THE editor,
REXX is much cleaner than Perl. But along with Perl and REXX, you have about
six thousand other scripting languages you can use - everything from basic
"sh" scripts to TCL/TK and beyond. 

If you are a VM'er, the transition to Linux/UNIX is not as painful as you
might think. I never did system admin on VM, and only a very small amount of
development, while the opposite is true under UNIX. The opposite is also
true under OS/390 or z/OS) That probably warps my perceptive a bit, but not
that much. Well, I do admit to excessive nervousness when I have to make
changes in VM these days though. (I have to act like a System Prog for VM.
:) 

Anyway, I'd love to have a discussion about that. 

-Paul

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Rob van der Heij
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 2:17 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability

On 5/7/07, Paul Raulerson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Well - Linux works now, and can talk to all the CP services. Linux also
> comes with Rexx (Regina), XEdit (THE Editor from Tim Hessling), and pipes
> that are roughly equivalent to CMS Pipelines. Named pipes and message
queues
> and such are all available and under Linux and Solaris, very heavily used.

We're told Linux was so much more suitable because of the tools
available and was so much more intuitive to the new generation of
systems people. I fail to see what problem we solve by writing system
automation using Regina and THE because it will not be easier to
maintain or enhance for people used to Perl.

Compared to CMS Pipelines, UNIX pipes are a leaky garden hose. In a
CMS Pipelines introduction class, people are already beyond the
capabilities of UNIX pipes by the time of the first coffee break. Your
suggestion that it's roughly equivalent suggest to me you never
bothered to look at CMS Pipelines.

Rob

Re: z/VM usability

Yep, it is Mark indeed. My mistake. I should not type at work. :) 

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rich 
Smrcina
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 2:15 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability

Umm... that's Mark Hessling.

Paul Raulerson wrote:
> Well - Linux works now, and can talk to all the CP services. Linux also 
> comes with Rexx (Regina), XEdit (THE Editor from Tim Hessling), and 
> pipes that are roughly equivalent to CMS Pipelines. Named pipes and 
> message queues and such are all available and under Linux and Solaris, 
> very heavily used.
> 
> The biggest darn problem is that Linux is not very efficient compared to 
> CMS (or mvs, z/.OS, OS/390, etc.) which was written with the IBM arch. 
> in mind, and probably in assembler to boot.
> 
> Linux is quite capable and fast on a zSeries machine, but not as fast as 
> or anywhere near as efficient as CMS.
> 
> Music is pretty good I suppose.
> 
> -Paul

-- 
Rich Smrcina
VM Assist, Inc.
Phone: 414-491-6001
Ans Service:  360-715-2467
rich.smrcina at vmassist.com

Catch the WAVV!  http://www.wavv.org
WAVV 2007 - Green Bay, WI - May 18-22, 2007

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Lloyd Fuller

On Mon, 7 May 2007 13:20:43 -0400, George Haddad wrote:

>Before I ever used VM a company where I worked had timeshare accounts at 
>NCSS using VP/CSS. Except for the "personal disk" being P instead of A, 
>it resembled CP/CMS quite a bit. I wonder if that ever got open-sourced?
>For that matter, are the "public domain" versions of VM/370 fair game 
>for modification?
>
>Paul Raulerson wrote:
>> Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS? I mean, 
>> CMS, despite being tightly integrated 
to all things VM, is in the final analysis, "just another Host OS" isn't it? 
Surely over 40 years someone has written 
something that can be used to replace it, perhaps something open source? 
>> -Paul
>>
>>   

As one of the former maintainers of VP/CSS I can state no it never got open 
sourced.  It died before open source 
really got started.

Lloyd

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Rob van der Heij


On 5/7/07, Paul Raulerson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Well - Linux works now, and can talk to all the CP services. Linux also
comes with Rexx (Regina), XEdit (THE Editor from Tim Hessling), and pipes
that are roughly equivalent to CMS Pipelines. Named pipes and message queues
and such are all available and under Linux and Solaris, very heavily used.


We're told Linux was so much more suitable because of the tools
available and was so much more intuitive to the new generation of
systems people. I fail to see what problem we solve by writing system
automation using Regina and THE because it will not be easier to
maintain or enhance for people used to Perl.

Compared to CMS Pipelines, UNIX pipes are a leaky garden hose. In a
CMS Pipelines introduction class, people are already beyond the
capabilities of UNIX pipes by the time of the first coffee break. Your
suggestion that it's roughly equivalent suggest to me you never
bothered to look at CMS Pipelines.

Rob

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Rich Smrcina


Umm... that's Mark Hessling.

Paul Raulerson wrote:
Well - Linux works now, and can talk to all the CP services. Linux also 
comes with Rexx (Regina), XEdit (THE Editor from Tim Hessling), and 
pipes that are roughly equivalent to CMS Pipelines. Named pipes and 
message queues and such are all available and under Linux and Solaris, 
very heavily used.


The biggest darn problem is that Linux is not very efficient compared to 
CMS (or mvs, z/.OS, OS/390, etc.) which was written with the IBM arch. 
in mind, and probably in assembler to boot.


Linux is quite capable and fast on a zSeries machine, but not as fast as 
or anywhere near as efficient as CMS.


Music is pretty good I suppose.

-Paul


--
Rich Smrcina
VM Assist, Inc.
Phone: 414-491-6001
Ans Service:  360-715-2467
rich.smrcina at vmassist.com

Catch the WAVV!  http://www.wavv.org
WAVV 2007 - Green Bay, WI - May 18-22, 2007

Re: z/VM usability

Well - Linux works now, and can talk to all the CP services. Linux also comes 
with Rexx (Regina), XEdit (THE Editor from Tim Hessling), and pipes that are 
roughly equivalent to CMS Pipelines. Named pipes and message queues and such 
are all available and under Linux and Solaris, very heavily used.
The biggest darn problem is that Linux is not very efficient compared to CMS 
(or mvs, z/.OS, OS/390, etc.) which was written with the IBM arch. in mind, and 
probably in assembler to boot.
Linux is quite capable and fast on a zSeries machine, but not as fast as or 
anywhere near as efficient as CMS.
Music is pretty good I suppose.
-Paul


--- Begin Message ---
> Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS?

None are "easy" replacements, but IMHO there are several possible
candidates: 

MUSIC
Linux
Solaris (coming soon)

Only MUSIC is really "CMS-like". The other two are obvious Unix
derivatives, and would require retooling or emulation of the CMS DIAG
API. Linux would be consistent with other things going on in the
industry and inside IBM, and Solaris would ...well, just be weird. 

The key bit would be the presence of REXX and Pipes, IMHO. The other
external commands could be built on a piece-by-piece basis, but there's
a lot of logic for CMS users that really depends on those two parts. 


--- End Message ---

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Bob Bolch

>Build it and they won't come.  Show them how it makes their lives easier
and they WILL come -- lowering their TCO >and buying more mainframe mips,
too. 

>z/VM is a collection of fabulous tools.  Use the best tool for the job at
hand, sometimes: CMS. 

>Mike Walter   
 
A prime example of doing just that is the System Management Application
Programming Interface server, which has been available for last few years.
All of the facilities needed for creating and managing a collection of Linux
application servers under VM are available to a client program running in
Linux or even on Windows. The SMAPI server distributes control of your
running Linux servers and allows cloning of new servers using your choice of
VM:Secure or DIRMAINT directory managers. All the pieces run on CMS.  It's a
great place to run servers!
 
Bob Bolch

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Schuh, Richard

I suspect that the public domain VM/370 is fair game. It was the basis
for Amdahl's VM/470 which was used by the technicians during machine
installations. They used it as an operating system to drive several
diagnostics and exercise the virtualization hardware. 

Jerry dePass, who was then the VM program manager for IBM, used to laugh
about the package he received in the mail from Dewayne Hendricks of
Amdahl. He took it to the legal department unopened. When the lawyer
opened it, it was the VM/470 source code. 

One of the big differences between the two VMs was that VM/470 had no
DMKRIO or DMKSYS. It sensed I/O devices and allowed its operator to
define or delete devices during its first IPL. When finished defining
devices, it would save the configuration for future IPLs. This was mid
1970s.

Regards, 
Richard Schuh 

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of George Haddad
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 10:21 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability

Before I ever used VM a company where I worked had timeshare accounts at

NCSS using VP/CSS. Except for the "personal disk" being P instead of A, 
it resembled CP/CMS quite a bit. I wonder if that ever got open-sourced?
For that matter, are the "public domain" versions of VM/370 fair game 
for modification?

Paul Raulerson wrote:
> Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS? I
mean, CMS, despite being tightly integrated to all things VM, is in the
final analysis, "just another Host OS" isn't it? Surely over 40 years
someone has written something that can be used to replace it, perhaps
something open source? 
> -Paul
>
>

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread David Boyes

> Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS?

None are "easy" replacements, but IMHO there are several possible
candidates: 

MUSIC
Linux
Solaris (coming soon)

Only MUSIC is really "CMS-like". The other two are obvious Unix
derivatives, and would require retooling or emulation of the CMS DIAG
API. Linux would be consistent with other things going on in the
industry and inside IBM, and Solaris would ...well, just be weird. 

The key bit would be the presence of REXX and Pipes, IMHO. The other
external commands could be built on a piece-by-piece basis, but there's
a lot of logic for CMS users that really depends on those two parts.

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread George Haddad

Before I ever used VM a company where I worked had timeshare accounts at 
NCSS using VP/CSS. Except for the "personal disk" being P instead of A, 
it resembled CP/CMS quite a bit. I wonder if that ever got open-sourced?
For that matter, are the "public domain" versions of VM/370 fair game 
for modification?


Paul Raulerson wrote:
Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS? I mean, CMS, despite being tightly integrated to all things VM, is in the final analysis, "just another Host OS" isn't it? Surely over 40 years someone has written something that can be used to replace it, perhaps something open source? 
-Paul

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Mike Walter

> It's sad to accept that CMS won't be the application hosting solution in
> the future -- I think it's a mistake, but like Mike Walter, this is a
> battle we probably can't win, and pretty much it won't be a win to try.
> So what do we do?

Well, I think I just said that I won't be around for the battle.  But 
here's what we CAN do (and what I've been suggesting on and off since the 
year 2000)...
... show the Linux techs who are moving to run servers under VM what we an 
do with REXX, CMS Pipelines, XEDIT, and any other number of great 
productive development (and **production**) tools.  While they are being 
exposed, exploit a simple TCPIP connection between the Linux guest to pump 
data from the Linux server to CMS - where it can quickly and efficiently 
be processed, sending the result back to the Linux server via TCPIP.  Let 
CMS be a server, too! 

Build it and they won't come.  Show them how it makes their lives easier 
and they WILL come -- lowering their TCO and buying more mainframe mips, 
too.

z/VM is a collection of fabulous tools.  Use the best tool for the job at 
hand, sometimes: CMS.

Mike Walter 
Hewitt Associates 
Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily 
represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.




"David Boyes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 

Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System" 
05/07/2007 10:33 AM
Please respond to
"The IBM z/VM Operating System" 



To
IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
cc

Subject
Re: z/VM usability






> >By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws
products
> >from the marketplace, even some that people are using. 

Granted. IBM has that privilege, no argument. We rarely force you to
change your mind on these issues (at least where it really counted,
somebody took a risk continuing VM development, with obvious results).

It's sad to accept that CMS won't be the application hosting solution in
the future -- I think it's a mistake, but like Mike Walter, this is a
battle we probably can't win, and pretty much it won't be a win to try.
So what do we do?

> >It's true that if there is no
> >replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes,
the
> >application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And
> >sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions
it
> >makes and has to live with the consequences.

I think the best mitigation for those consequences would be to provide
some type of migration aid. 

So, I'd really like to turn the discussion back to the original
question: what do we need and how do we get from the existing CMS-based
environment to a new environment?



 
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Re: z/VM usability

Has anyone written a third party OS that can easily replace CMS? I mean, CMS, 
despite being tightly integrated to all things VM, is in the final analysis, 
"just another Host OS" isn't it? Surely over 40 years someone has written 
something that can be used to replace it, perhaps something open source?
-Paul


--- Begin Message ---
> >By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws
products
> >from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  

Granted. IBM has that privilege, no argument. We rarely force you to
change your mind on these issues (at least where it really counted,
somebody took a risk continuing VM development, with obvious results).

It's sad to accept that CMS won't be the application hosting solution in
the future -- I think it's a mistake, but like Mike Walter, this is a
battle we probably can't win, and pretty much it won't be a win to try.
So what do we do?

> >It's true that if there is no
> >replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes,
the
> >application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And
> >sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions
it
> >makes and has to live with the consequences.

I think the best mitigation for those consequences would be to provide
some type of migration aid. 

So, I'd really like to turn the discussion back to the original
question: what do we need and how do we get from the existing CMS-based
environment to a new environment?


--- End Message ---

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread David Boyes

> >By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws
products
> >from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  

Granted. IBM has that privilege, no argument. We rarely force you to
change your mind on these issues (at least where it really counted,
somebody took a risk continuing VM development, with obvious results).

It's sad to accept that CMS won't be the application hosting solution in
the future -- I think it's a mistake, but like Mike Walter, this is a
battle we probably can't win, and pretty much it won't be a win to try.
So what do we do?

> >It's true that if there is no
> >replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes,
the
> >application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And
> >sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions
it
> >makes and has to live with the consequences.

I think the best mitigation for those consequences would be to provide
some type of migration aid. 

So, I'd really like to turn the discussion back to the original
question: what do we need and how do we get from the existing CMS-based
environment to a new environment?

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-07 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler


Alan Altmark wrote:

Well, it's been nigh on 40 years that CMS has been around.  Seems like a
committment to me.  CMS is here to stay.  If all the people with z/OS
get z/VM and [re]discover CMS, who knows what might happen?  "Never say
die!"


re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#41 z/VM usability

well, cms (as in cambridge monitor system) started on cp40 (cambridge had
gotten a 360/40 and did the hardware modifications to implement virtual
memory ... pending getting 360/67) ...  cambridge then got 360/67 and
morphed cp40 into cp67 ... so it has been 40yrs (in part, CMS work
could even start on real 360/40 before cp40 was operational)

from Melinda's history
http://www.princeton.edu/~melinda/

By September of 1965, file system commands and macros already looked
much like those we are familiar with today: ``RDBUF'', ``WRBUF'',
``FINIS'', ``STATE'', etc

... snip ...

cambridge installed cp67 out at lincoln labs in 1967 and then last week
in jan68 came out to install cp67 at the univ where i was undergraduate.
Note, that in jan68, the cp67 people were still apprehensive about CMS
filesystem ... with cp67 source, assemble, and build still being done on
os/360 (keeping cp67 kernel build TXT files in card tray and modify/assemble
routine, punch new TXT file, update that file in the card tray and rebuild
kernel by doing IPL of real cards).

in the morph of cp67 to vm370 ... they changed the cms name to
conversational monitor system.

major change in cms from cp67 to vm370 was a little re-arranging of cms
kernel in anticipation of 370 (r/o) segment protection. However, in
doing the virtual memory hardware retrofit to 370/165 ... they ran into
problem with schedule slipping. In order to regain six months in the
schedule for 370/165 virtual memory, they dropped r/o segment protect
and some number of other features from the original 370 virtual memory
architecture (and to have compatibility across the 370 product line
... the same features had to also be removed from other 370 models that
already had implemented the full 370 virtual memory architecture).  With
370 hardware r/o segment protect dropped ... vm370 had to revert to the
page protect hack used by cp67 that involved fiddling the 360 storage
protect keys.

Then during the "future system" period ... much of the corporation was
distracted and a lot of 370 product activity fell by the way side.
Misc. past posts about future system:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys

I had made some unflattering comments about practicallity of future
system stuff and continued to do both cp67 and cms enhancements ...  and
then ported them from cp67 to vm370 ... some old email
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430

after FS was canceled, there was rush to get stuff back into 370 product
pipeline. Part of this was reason that small subset of the "virtual
memory management" enhancements ...  a lot of shared segment stuff
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#adcon
that had been integrated with the paged mapped filesystem stuff
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#mmap

was released as DCSS in vm370 release 3.

Canceling FS contributed to enabling me to also release the resource
manager (that included a lot of changes that were in cp67 that i had
done ...  which were dropped in the morph from cp67 to vm370)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#wsclock

It was also in the aftermath of killing FS that POK convinced the
corporation to kill the vm370 product, shutdown the vm370 product group
and move all the people to POK to help accelerate the mvs/xa development
schedule (again attempting to make up lost time in 370 product pipeline
resulting from the FS distraction). Eventually Endicott was able to
salvage the vm370 product mission.

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-06 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.vmesa-l,alt.folklore.computers as well.

Dave Wade wrote:
> I know there is no commercial value in it, so it won't
> happen, but wouldn't it be nice if IBM realeased a
> software emulation that worked like the original
> XT/370 that emulated both the Hardware and CP calls
> and so would allow CMS itself to be run native on
> Linux or Windows... 
> .. oh and of course would license CMS for such
> an evironment.

XT/370 was codenamed washington ... stripped down CP kernel running on
modified 68k processor that provided 370 emulation (for problem and some
privileged instructions). The "370" had its own dedicate processor
memory. Running under dos was a program called "cp/88" and the CP kernel
would communicate with "cp/88" for emulation of I/O operations
(i.e. cp/88 provided real device i/o support and communicated back and
forth with the cp kernel).

the original model had 384k "370" memory ... and I did some application
studies which showed that after the fixed cp kernel memory requirements
...  that cms applications frequently would "page thrash" in the
remaining real memory. Exaserbating the problem was that all disk i/o
(both cp paging and cms file i/o) involved communication with cp/88
which would then simulate the operations on XT hard disk that had
110millisecond avg. access.

the publishing of the elapsed time & page thrashing results resulted in
a corporate decision to ship the product with 512k "370" memory
... which involved a six month schedule slip ... which lots of people
blaimed on me.

However, in this time window ... I was allowed to incorporate an
enhanced page replacement algorithm (over and above what i was able to
ship in the vm370 resource manager) ... and CMS "paging access method"
filesystem support ... i.e. page-mapped operation ...  which I had
originally done on cp67/cms ... but never shipped in standard vm370
release.

the problem was that normal CMS operations are highly disk intensive.
DCSS sharing of applications on mainframes were somewhat able to
compensate for some of this (by having programs & applications already
available in real storage because of use by other users).  However, in
the xt/370 configuration none of this was applicable ...  there wasn't
enuf real storage for such caching ... and since it was a single user
system ... there wasn't any "sharing" use. however, I had demonstrated
avg of 300percent (or better) thruput improvement with the paged mapped
cms filesystem support for disk intensive operations. The page mapped
CMS filesystem support also allowed for asyncronous operation on program
loading ... allowing large block load of CMS "module" into whatever
available real storage ... but also allowing some asyncronous overlap of
CMS application execution with loading of the program (keeping all the
asyncronous activity straight and hidden from cms by playing games with
page invalid/valid bits). The page mapped CMS filesystem support also
had some enhancements for attempting to do contiguous (physical)
allocation when MODULE was generated (and/or written to disk) ... which
could be subsequently leveraged when program was loaded.

the same adapter board was later made available in ATs and called
AT/370.

the "follow-on" was a full-blown 370 in separate box with 4mbytes
of memory code-name "a74" (for the department in POK) and released
as 7437 ... old email with announcement of 7437
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#email880622

old email that includes list of source update files that I had to the cp
kernel as part of A74 support ("dmkpam" is the source routine containing
the cp changes supporting paged mapped operation).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#56 ECPS:VM DISPx instructions

other past posts mentioning A74:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#55 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#56 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#19 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the 
machine word size ...)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#51 DARPA was: Short Watson Biography
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#4 IBM Mainframe at home
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#27 End of Moore's law and how it can 
influence job market
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#40 IBM system 370
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#15 IEFBR14 Problems
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#65 computer industry scenairo before the 
invention of the PC?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#7 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC 
software?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#8 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC 
software?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#10 Whatever happened to IBM's VM PC 
software?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#14 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old 
days?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#76 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?

old email mentioning some of the activ

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-05 Thread Dave Wade

> 
> > Actually, a CMS shell that ran under Linux would
> be pretty neat.
> 
> Now there is a project for someone who wants to
> learn C#... just let
> me finish re-installing my iBook, getting Bacula to
> work, fixing the
> server that I messed up the other week, trying to
> get MS Windows to
> boot under Xen... shame the boss wouldn't sponsor me
> to do this...
> ah well...
> 

I guess in some ways we have turned the world upside
down. When IBM "owned" the PC platform it made
products like the XT/370 and AT/370 that allowed you
to run "real" CMS, not just a CMS shell on a PC That
included REXX and XEDIT but not sure if PIPES would
have run. Then we had the P/370 and P/390 cards that
allowed you to run a whole OS on a PC.  

Now IBM is supressing Mainframe code on the PC and
getting us to run LINUX images on VM and wants us to
do our personal computing Linux on VM, and stops
licensing for any 370 the PC platform.

On the other hand what goes round comes round, and if
you think of Linux as the main OS its licensing is
"similar" to the orignal VM/370.

I know there is no commercial value in it, so it won't
happen, but wouldn't it be nice if IBM realeased a
software emulation that worked like the original
XT/370 that emulated both the Hardware and CP calls
and so would allow CMS itself to be run native on
Linux or Windows... 
.. oh and of course would license CMS for such an
environment..

In fact I think this is what Roger Bowler originally
intended for Hercules...
> --
> Rod (who heartily seconds what Mike Walter said)
> 

Dave Wade

__
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-05 Thread Rod


I'm currently engaged in moving a bunch of things from VM/CMS to Linux.
Most of it is written in Rexx with a lot of Pipelines.  The Rexx part
has proved to be pretty easy -- ooRexx is mostly compatible and mostly
an improvement.  The Pipeline part is a lot tougher.


Writing something that does the basics of what CMS Pipelines does
is pretty simple (been there, done that, got the t-shirt about 5 years
ago). The problem is getting it to perform and getting it to do all the
clever stuff that CMS Pipelines does. That's what messes you up.
(I keep thinking I should revisit this stuff and recode it in C# as a
learning exercise...)


Actually, a CMS shell that ran under Linux would be pretty neat.


Now there is a project for someone who wants to learn C#... just let
me finish re-installing my iBook, getting Bacula to work, fixing the
server that I messed up the other week, trying to get MS Windows to
boot under Xen... shame the boss wouldn't sponsor me to do this...
ah well...

--
Rod (who heartily seconds what Mike Walter said)

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-04 Thread Alan Altmark

On Friday, 05/04/2007 at 10:45 EST, Dave Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> And how many time have we told you *not* to use big words like
> "hyperbole" or sophisticated literary devices like similes and
> metaphors; you're dealing with VM-ers here, after all..;-)

Erudite VMers, of course.  Erudite.  ;-)

> While IBM Endicott may have been committed to CMS for 40 years, the rest
> of IBM certainly has not followed suit. The decision to move away from
> OfficeVison to Notes by IBM certainly did not give the VM base the warm
> fuzzies, among the other things IBM has done over the years to, if not
> kill BVM of explicitly, at least deemphasis it considerably. These
> actions are noted by both the end users and the ISVs when they start
> making new product development plans and allocating software budgets.

But, you know, IBM Corporation never killed off VM.  In spite of various 
attempts by various parts of the company to do so, the people who 
ultimately make those decisions said (quoting Julia Roberts) "Tempting, 
but no".

Yes, we moved many of our most treasured apps off of CMS, but I firmly 
believe those were sound business decisions.  Annoying as all get out 
[oops..midwestern slang..sorry], sure, but the right thing to do.  As far 
as OV was concerned, it was a casualty of the larger "Office Wars" that 
include  e-mail, calendaring, collaboration, business process integration, 
business intelligence, and data warehousing.

I do miss its simplicityI don't miss the lack of a clustering HA 
solution or the inability to manage my calendar when not connected to the 
network.  (sigh)

Credit where credit is due:  IBM's lack of understanding [unwillingness to 
listen?] about how personal computing would imact departmental computing 
that would ultimately affect enterprise computing was the oxygen supply 
the fire needed, and so we found ourselves hoist on our own petard.

> > Your post gives the impression that we have a new PL/I compiler 
sitting
> > here on CMS that we don't want to ship.  If such a thing exists, I've
> > never seen it or heard of it.
> >
> Not so much a case of IBM having a new version of PL/I for CMS just
> sitting on a shelf somewhere and not being shipped as a case that the
> PL/I compiler team uses CMS in it's development and a version for that
> environment could be made available with very little additional effort.

I've poked at statements like this in the past.  Effort by how many 
people?  You know as well as anyone that developing a product is just one 
of the steps in bringing a product to market.  You have to validate it, 
package it, market it, service it, and, in general, manage it.  That ain't 
cheap.  I notice that not all Linux software is available on all 
platforms, either.  Why?  Because just cross-compiling isn't sufficient.

> Having such an updated PL/I compiler, with the many new features and
> functions that have been introduced since the current compiler for VM
> ("PL/I for MVS and VM", 5688-235) was made available, would be a real
> boon to the ISVs who use PL/I.

I hope that all the z/VM ISVs who are using PL/I are pounding on their PWD 
contacts to express their concerns.

> You're correct as far as you go with that statement, AlanCMS is a
> great scripting tool environment, which also makes it a great place do
> to "real" application development and deployment as well.

I'm not sure I see the relationship, Dave.  Why does a good scripting 
environment imply a good AD environment?   (2 pages, 1/2" margins, pica, 
double spaced, due Monday, you have a good w/e too!).

TGIF.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-04 Thread Dave Jones


Hi, Alan.

Thanks for taking the time to respond in an intelligent and thoughtful 
manner to my rather "ranting-style" post. I appreciate it.


Alan Altmark wrote:
On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 07:35 EST, Dave Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

No, no new pipelines stages.

That's simply b.splease see Rob van der Heij's "What's New with CMS
Pipelines"  presentation from the zExpo last month. There are at least 5
new Pipes stages that have been introduced and others are on the way.


You're right, Dave, I was using hyperbole to make a point (damn that 
Chuckie): there are few new stages.


And how many time have we told you *not* to use big words like 
"hyperbole" or sophisticated literary devices like similes and 
metaphors; you're dealing with VM-ers here, after all..;-)



No, no new PL/I compiler. They are also

nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a
time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual
server arena.
As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS
application development" where it currently says "large scale
virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development
engine to focus on CMS.  As long as it keeps selling new hardware.


But the market will not signal it's willingness until it sees that IBM
(the owner of CMS after all) is committed to the platform and that they
can be sure it will be around for awhile. Why invest time and money if
IBM is not willing to do so.especially if the development community
knows that, e.g., there are versions of the new z/OS PL/I compilers that
are available for CMS, but IBM chooses not to release them for that
environment.?


Well, it's been nigh on 40 years that CMS has been around.  Seems like a 
committment to me.  CMS is here to stay.  If all the people with z/OS get 
z/VM and [re]discover CMS, who knows what might happen?  "Never say die!"




While IBM Endicott may have been committed to CMS for 40 years, the rest 
of IBM certainly has not followed suit. The decision to move away from 
OfficeVison to Notes by IBM certainly did not give the VM base the warm 
fuzzies, among the other things IBM has done over the years to, if not 
kill BVM of explicitly, at least deemphasis it considerably. These 
actions are noted by both the end users and the ISVs when they start 
making new product development plans and allocating software budgets.


Your post gives the impression that we have a new PL/I compiler sitting 
here on CMS that we don't want to ship.  If such a thing exists, I've 
never seen it or heard of it.


Not so much a case of IBM having a new version of PL/I for CMS just 
sitting on a shelf somewhere and not being shipped as a case that the 
PL/I compiler team uses CMS in it's development and a version for that 
environment could be made available with very little additional effort. 
Having such an updated PL/I compiler, with the many new features and 
functions that have been introduced since the current compiler for VM 
("PL/I for MVS and VM", 5688-235) was made available, would be a real 
boon to the ISVs who use PL/I.


I think their grass is greener than mine

The place CMS really shines is as a scripting tool.  That was a major 
motivation for the ldap client programs and is what is driving the demand 
for snmp and ssh clients.  Requirements that deal with this aspect of CMS 
have a much better chance, I think, of being satisfied.


You're correct as far as you go with that statement, AlanCMS is a 
great scripting tool environment, which also makes it a great place do 
to "real" application development and deployment as well.


Have a good weekend, too.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott


--
DJ
V/Soft

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-04 Thread Colin Allinson

barton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>So question:  If there was a web/browser interface on z/vm that would 
support a complete 
>>interactive CMS environment, would that be of interest? It's not that 
difficult (says the 
>>guy that tells other people to do the work). We already take 3270 CMS 
applications and run 
>>them with a web interface on z/VM.  The real question is what 
applications would 
>>installations really want to build on CMS and would giving them a 
browser interfact for 
>>this help or be a waste of resources?

First, Yes - it would be of interest.

Now comes the difficult bit - we have had a full function web interface 
(not yours I am afraid) for some years now but it has never taken off 
because of the effort of webifying legacy applications. We have only a 
couple of applications that are written for it. Part of this may be down 
to the particular web interface we use where the controls for implementing 
a new application seem like a black art. Mainly this is because most 
applications are created by users and this would need to be much easier 
for them to do.

Now, if there was a web interface that could allow users to log on & 
provide a general purpose CMS interface that was nice to use and, at the 
same time, handle fullscreen interfaces from legacy applications (mainly 
DMS/CMS & full screen xedit but also ISPF, fullscreen CMS & IOS3270) then 
we would be talking. 

With best regards / mit den besten Grüßen,

Colin G Allinson
Technical Manager VM
Amadeus Data Processing GmbH
T +49 (0) 8122-43 49 75
F +49 (0) 8122-43 32 60
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.amadeus.com

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Germany

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-04 Thread Dave Elbon

I'm currently engaged in moving a bunch of things from VM/CMS to Linux.
Most of it is written in Rexx with a lot of Pipelines.  The Rexx part
has proved to be pretty easy -- ooRexx is mostly compatible and mostly
an improvement.  The Pipeline part is a lot tougher.  I sure wish CMS
Pipelines could be ported to Linux (and Mac OS X, for that matter;
ooRexx works there as well).  I miss Xedit, but THE is almost as good
and works pretty well with ooRexx.  THE lacks update support, which
would be a big help, but I'm sure that would be a complicated thing to
implement.  Actually, a CMS shell that ran under Linux would be pretty
neat.  There is always a Linux replacement for a VM/CMS feature, but
often it isn't nearly as nice.  A lot of times rethinking something from
the CMS way to the Linux way helps, but sometimes not.  Some things are
actually easier with Linux.  I wish IBM had done some things differently
10 years ago.

First IBM is rarely succesful at eliminating a platform on purpose. they've tried to
eliminat VM (and VSE) many times, Mr. Gerstner thought he could eliminate vm by replacing
PROFS with NOTES - took his corporate EMAIL market share from about 80% to 30% at a cost
of $4B. Made a lot of VM sites go away but luckily that was only one application. But he
did have the power to make the application PROFS (OfficeVision) go away mostly because
Microsoft was so ready to help. and probably lost OS/2 with the same move. The lesson is
that it is the applications on the platform that matter. And applications last a very
long time.

So question: If there was a web/browser interface on z/vm that would support a complete
interactive CMS environment, would that be of interest? It's not that difficult (says the
guy that tells other people to do the work). We already take 3270 CMS applications and run
them with a web interface on z/VM. The real question is what applications would
installations really want to build on CMS and would giving them a browser interfact for
this help or be a waste of resources?

Alan Altmark wrote:

nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a
time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual
server arena.
As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS
application development" where it currently says "large scale
virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development
engine to focus on CMS. As long as it keeps selling new hardware.

But the market will not signal it's willingness until it sees that IBM
(the owner of CMS after all) is committed to the platform and that they
can be sure it will be around for awhile. Why invest time and money if
IBM is not willing to do so.especially if the development community
knows that, e.g., there are versions of the new z/OS PL/I compilers that
are available for CMS, but IBM chooses not to release them for that
environment.?

Well, it's been nigh on 40 years that CMS has been around. Seems like a
committment to me. CMS is here to stay. If all the people with z/OS get
z/VM and [re]discover CMS, who knows what might happen? "Never say die!"

Your post gives the impression that we have a new PL/I compiler sitting
here on CMS that we don't want to ship. If such a thing exists, I've
never seen it or heard of it.

And you'd be wrong, with all do respect...that is not the feed back I am
getting from my young, recent college graduate that I am teaching VM to
these days. Once they get past the 3270 hurdles, they think the CMS
environment is wy cool. And the way to get them past the 3270
hurdles is to simply demo to them that the 3270 interface is *exactly*
like filling in a form on a web browser...you can only type in certain
areas, and nothing happens until you click on the 'submit" button...they
grok that right away.

Re: z/VM usability

On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 07:35 EST, Dave Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > No, no new pipelines stages.
> 
> That's simply b.splease see Rob van der Heij's "What's New with CMS
> Pipelines"  presentation from the zExpo last month. There are at least 5
> new Pipes stages that have been introduced and others are on the way.

You're right, Dave, I was using hyperbole to make a point (damn that 
Chuckie): there are few new stages.

> No, no new PL/I compiler. They are also
> > nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a
> > time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual
> > server arena.
> > As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS
> > application development" where it currently says "large scale
> > virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development
> > engine to focus on CMS.  As long as it keeps selling new hardware.
> >
> But the market will not signal it's willingness until it sees that IBM
> (the owner of CMS after all) is committed to the platform and that they
> can be sure it will be around for awhile. Why invest time and money if
> IBM is not willing to do so.especially if the development community
> knows that, e.g., there are versions of the new z/OS PL/I compilers that
> are available for CMS, but IBM chooses not to release them for that
> environment.?

Well, it's been nigh on 40 years that CMS has been around.  Seems like a 
committment to me.  CMS is here to stay.  If all the people with z/OS get 
z/VM and [re]discover CMS, who knows what might happen?  "Never say die!"

Your post gives the impression that we have a new PL/I compiler sitting 
here on CMS that we don't want to ship.  If such a thing exists, I've 
never seen it or heard of it.

> And you'd be wrong, with all do respect...that is not the feed back I am
> getting from my young, recent college graduate that I am teaching VM to
> these days. Once they get past the 3270 hurdles, they think the CMS
> environment is wy cool. And the way to get them past the 3270
> hurdles is to simply demo to them that the 3270 interface is *exactly*
> like filling in a form on a web browser...you can only type in certain
> areas, and nothing happens until you click on the 'submit" button...they
> grok that right away.

I said what *I'd* do, having spent nearly 30 years programming on 
keypunches, 2741s and 3270s.  OTOH, if I'm going to be a sysprog, then I'd 
much rather do that on z (VM, please) with my trusty 3270.  [Please 
forgive me.  I'm not a fan of SCRIPT/VS, either.  I prefer WYSIWYG 
document editors.]

I think their grass is greener than mine

The place CMS really shines is as a scripting tool.  That was a major 
motivation for the ldap client programs and is what is driving the demand 
for snmp and ssh clients.  Requirements that deal with this aspect of CMS 
have a much better chance, I think, of being satisfied.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Gillis, Mark

Since IBM announced the demise of VSE/VSAM for VM I've been toying with
the idea of writing a VSAM substitute (at least one good enough for our
GCS-based products that rely on VSAM). I was thinking it would be based
around the *BLOCKIO IUCV service.

Unfortunately, the 1 piece of infrastructure that CMS has that is
missing in GCS is the SUBSYS operand on the FILEDEF command, to allow a
VSAM emulator to get control.

Given that IBM will never bring back VSE/VSAM for VM, what are the
chances of this being provided (allowing exits to get control at OPEN
time, etc) to at least allow vendors to do something else?

Mark Gillis
Senior Software Engineer
Tel: +61 2 9429 2337
Fax: +61 2 9429 2394
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Alan Altmark
Sent: Friday, 4 May 2007 2:31 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability

On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 11:35 AST, "Edward M. Martin" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
> supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operating
> systems.
> 
> IBM is basically breaking a working system. (IMHO)
> 
> And I am working on away to get off the VM/VSAM part, and it looks
like
> it will be a NON-IBM solution.  But I am still looking.

By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws products 
from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  There are still 
people using VM/ESA V2. 

It was nearly two years ago (June 2005) that we announced that you would

no longer be able to order VM/VSAM effective September 30, 2005.  In 
August of the same year we announced that VM/VSAM would end service 
February 28, 2007.  Standard meaning: "Don't deploy new applications
that 
depend on VM/VSAM and begin working on a migration or risk mitigation
plan 
for applications you already have."  It's true that if there is no 
replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes,
the 
application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And 
sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions it 
makes and has to live with the consequences.

I'm also sensitive to the fact that those decisions can also affect 
someone's livlihood (inside IBM and out).  I don't blame anyone for
being 
upset, if that's the case.

Don't get me wrong, I wish VM/VSAM was still around, but it isn't, so 
you're doing the right thing, triggering an application review.  If you 
choose that the risk of being unsupported is greater than the benefit
your 
company derives from the application, then it is time for a change.

Finally, to the best of my knowledge, we have done nothing to "break" a 
working system.  If you find a defect in CMS that causes VSAM to break, 
and you have a VM support contract, we will fix it.  If you find a
defect 
in VSAM itself, no such luck unless you have an extended VSAM support 
contract.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Dave Jones


Hi, Alan.

Alan Altmark wrote:
On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 02:26 AST, Craig Dudley 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

How about comments on one of the basic premise of this thread - CMS
is "functionally stabilized"? From an external POV, it does appear
that CMS (and adjunct components like SFS) isn't (aren't) being enhanced
for the continuing support role it has in maintaining a z/VM CP
environment.


Wow.  Tough question, but a good one.

In the last few years, I'd say that CMS application-oriented enhancements 
generally have indeed been limited and primarily focused on:

- security: SSL, new APIs
- networking: IPv6, NFS client, LDAP (including CMS clients!)

No, no new pipelines stages.  


That's simply b.splease see Rob van der Heij's "What's New with CMS 
Pipelines"  presentation from the zExpo last month. There are at least 5 
new Pipes stages that have been introduced and others are on the way.

No, no new PL/I compiler. They are also
nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a 
time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual 
server arena.  
As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS 
application development" where it currently says "large scale 
virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development 
engine to focus on CMS.  As long as it keeps selling new hardware.


But the market will not signal it's willingness until it sees that IBM 
(the owner of CMS after all) is committed to the platform and that they 
can be sure it will be around for awhile. Why invest time and money if 
IBM is not willing to do so.especially if the development community 
knows that, e.g., there are versions of the new z/OS PL/I compilers that 
are available for CMS, but IBM chooses not to release them for that 
environment.?


When we have to choose between virtualization and CMS, we choose 
virtualization.  What we have gained with that strategy exceeds what we 
have lost.  The CMS changes we have made are those needed to let our 
customers conform with new best practices, laws and regulations regarding 
privacy, and to allow the system to integrate into tomorrow's networks. 
(Still more to do.)


Would CMS be a great AD platform?  Yes!  Our efficiency and good 
interactive response are wonderful. But how many AD platforms does one 
company need? on System z?  (Stockholder concern peeking through - sorry.)


If I were just graduating from college, I think I'd rather use some fancy 
shmancy AD GUI thingy (e.g. eclipse) and run the resulting program on 
Linux.  Why?  Because (a) it's waaay easier than a 3270, and (b) it's what 
I know.


And you'd be wrong, with all do respect...that is not the feed back I am 
getting from my young, recent college graduate that I am teaching VM to 
these days. Once they get past the 3270 hurdles, they think the CMS 
environment is wy cool. And the way to get them past the 3270 
hurdles is to simply demo to them that the 3270 interface is *exactly* 
like filling in a form on a web browser...you can only type in certain 
areas, and nothing happens until you click on the 'submit" button...they 
grok that right away.



"Virtualization.  That's what z/VM is all about, Charlie Brown."

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott


--
DJ
V/Soft

Re: z/VM usability

On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 02:26 AST, Craig Dudley 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> How about comments on one of the basic premise of this thread - CMS
> is "functionally stabilized"? From an external POV, it does appear
> that CMS (and adjunct components like SFS) isn't (aren't) being enhanced
> for the continuing support role it has in maintaining a z/VM CP
> environment.

Wow.  Tough question, but a good one.

In the last few years, I'd say that CMS application-oriented enhancements 
generally have indeed been limited and primarily focused on:
- security: SSL, new APIs
- networking: IPv6, NFS client, LDAP (including CMS clients!)

No, no new pipelines stages.  No, no new PL/I compiler.  They are also 
nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a 
time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual 
server arena.  To quote from IBM's 1Q07 results "prepared remarks":
---
System z revenue grew 12 percent, fueled by double-digit growth in Asia 
Pacific and Europe.

MIPS grew 9 percent, marking seven consecutive quarters of year-to-year 
MIPS growth ? and longer than any product cycle in recent history. This 
sustained growth is supported by a strong demand for traditional mainframe 
engines, specialty engines for Linux and Java, and growing recognition of 
System z as the premiere tool for large scale virtualization. As a result 
we are seeing new clients and new work coming to the platform and
leveraging our latest technology. System z performance also reflects 
continued good sales execution and we
believe we gained market share.

As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS 
application development" where it currently says "large scale 
virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development 
engine to focus on CMS.  As long as it keeps selling new hardware.

When we have to choose between virtualization and CMS, we choose 
virtualization.  What we have gained with that strategy exceeds what we 
have lost.  The CMS changes we have made are those needed to let our 
customers conform with new best practices, laws and regulations regarding 
privacy, and to allow the system to integrate into tomorrow's networks. 
(Still more to do.)

Would CMS be a great AD platform?  Yes!  Our efficiency and good 
interactive response are wonderful. But how many AD platforms does one 
company need? on System z?  (Stockholder concern peeking through - sorry.)

If I were just graduating from college, I think I'd rather use some fancy 
shmancy AD GUI thingy (e.g. eclipse) and run the resulting program on 
Linux.  Why?  Because (a) it's waaay easier than a 3270, and (b) it's what 
I know.

"Virtualization.  That's what z/VM is all about, Charlie Brown."

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Dave Jones

This is a very interesting discussion about the future of CMS (or the 
lack there of) and I'd like to add a few thingsand I want to make 
clear at the start that I am a big fan of CMS and it's tool set and I 
can see no really valid reason for IBM to spend time and money trying to 
migrate current CMS usage (for whatever tasks) to another platform. As 
some one already mentioned, if it ain't broken, don't try to fix it...


Two of the main issues that everyone seems to be most concerned about 
are the following:


1) IBM/ISVs are no longer producing and/or supporting "applications" for 
 CMS and that IBM has basically "functionally stabilized" CMS. While 
there may be fewer vertical market business focused applications being 
developed for the CMS environment (applications like NOMAD or IBM's 
OfficeVision), there are a number of *new* CMS-based applications being 
produced by IBM and other vendorse.g., the new IBM suite of VM 
system management products (which are quite good), Mainstar's   	
Provisioning Expert, and (:shameless plug) V/Soft's encryption software 
(http://www.vsoft-software.com/products.html) (:eshameless plug). Even 
CA is updating their VM:Backup and Hidro products. And the new z/VM 5.3 
release incorporates a CMS-based LDAP server.
While the application focus may have changed, the fact that CMS provides 
a very efficient and flexible application development environment has 
not. A number of us on this list can recall Jeff Savit's remarks that, 
when he was with Merill Lynch and developing cross CMS-Unix 
applications, the CMS side was always completed first, because the tools 
were so much better. The one thing IBM could do today to spur this 
growth would be to release a recent version of the PL/X compiler for 
CMS, if they did that, CMS application development would explode (RSK 
based servers would be everywhere).


2) learning CMS is either uninteresting or too difficult for people new 
to the z/VM environment. I've been teaching a number of introductory 
z/VM classes lately, both here in the US and abroad, and I can tell you 
without fear of contradiction that the young folks that are beginning to 
learn about z/VM are fascinated by the capabilities of CMS. It is very 
easy to learn, especially if you are not a native speaker of English, 
and the power and flexibility of the CMS toolset is simply amazing. 
While the CMS environment has many new and unfamiliarly concepts to 
young college IT graduates, they are very quick to grasp the usefulness 
of tools like Rexx and CMS Pipelines; they're shocked by what can be 
accomplished with resorting to coding in Cand very pleased. these 
new college graduates, familiar with Perl, C/C++ and Python, get CMS, 
Rexx, Xedit, and Pipes very quickly. One Chinese student in my class in 
Shenzhen a few weeks ago announced that he was dropping Linux in favor 
of CMS for new coding projects


CMs is not dead (or even dying) and any ideas of trying to replace CMS 
with Linux are simply a waste of time and money, imho. As a frequent 
poster to this list frequently states "the right tool for the right job" 
and in many cases under z/VM the right tool is simply CMS based.


Counter arguments welcome.

--
DJ
V/Soft

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Mike Myers

nd.


Mike Walter
Hewitt Associates  
Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily 
represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.





*"Craig Dudley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>*

Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System" 

05/03/2007 01:26 PM
Please respond to
"The IBM z/VM Operating System" 




To
IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
cc

Subject
Re: z/VM usability









Alan,
How about comments on one of the basic premise of this thread - CMS
is "functionally stabilized"? From an external POV, it does appear
that CMS (and adjunct components like SFS) isn't (aren't) being enhanced
for the continuing support role it has in maintaining a z/VM CP
environment.
--
Craig Dudley
Manager, Mainframe Technical Support Group
Office of Information Technology
State of New Hampshire
27 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-1506Fax 603-271-1516

>On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 11:35 AST, "Edward M. Martin"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
>> supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operating
>> systems.
>>
>> IBM is basically breaking a working system. (IMHO)
>>
>> And I am working on away to get off the VM/VSAM part, and it looks like
>> it will be a NON-IBM solution.  But I am still looking.
>
>By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws products
>from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  There are still
>people using VM/ESA V2.
>
>It was nearly two years ago (June 2005) that we announced that you would
>no longer be able to order VM/VSAM effective September 30, 2005.  In
>August of the same year we announced that VM/VSAM would end service
>February 28, 2007.  Standard meaning: "Don't deploy new applications 
that
>depend on VM/VSAM and begin working on a migration or risk mitigation 
plan

>for applications you already have."  It's true that if there is no
>replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes, 
the

>application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And
>sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions it
>makes and has to live with the consequences.
>
>I'm also sensitive to the fact that those decisions can also affect
>someone's livlihood (inside IBM and out).  I don't blame anyone for 
being

>upset, if that's the case.
>
>Don't get me wrong, I wish VM/VSAM was still around, but it isn't, so
>you're doing the right thing, triggering an application review.  If you
>choose that the risk of being unsupported is greater than the benefit 
your

>company derives from the application, then it is time for a change.
>
>Finally, to the best of my knowledge, we have done nothing to "break" a
>working system.  If you find a defect in CMS that causes VSAM to break,
>and you have a VM support contract, we will fix it.  If you find a 
defect

>in VSAM itself, no such luck unless you have an extended VSAM support
>contract.
>
>Alan Altmark
>z/VM Development
>IBM Endicott


- End Forwarded Message -

--
Craig Dudley
Manager, Mainframe Technical Support Group
Office of Information Technology
State of New Hampshire
27 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-1506Fax 603-271-1516



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Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Huegel, Thomas

To be sure it is all economic. If IBM thought they could sell CMS
separately, (an enhanced version -- CMS/SP--) you can believe they would do
it. As far as VM itself goes, it could be looked as a real money loser.
Think about it, we run nearly a dozen VSE's (now there is an operating
system IBM really tried to kill) under VM. Without VM, no LPARs either,
there would be 12 real machines and 12 VSE lice$ne$. More likely if VM were
gone so would VSE and we would all be consumed by the monster zO$ whether we
needed it or not..

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Mike Walter
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 2:31 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability



Personally, not speaking for Hewitt Associates... 

:Rant on 

Years ago IBM senior management tried to kill off not only CMS development
-- but all of VM.  Actually, that's happened several times.  Sometimes the
bell tolled for source code (effectively preventing new features from being
added by customers), sometime it tolled as "co-existence" (functional VM
stabilization).  Most often the bell tolled for marketing, of which
effectively there was none for many years.  No marketing = no sales.  No
sales = business case for IBM to say "no one cares: kill it."  A
self-fulfilling prophesy.  Apparently VM customers did not sell enough Big
Iron - after all VM and CMS apps are exceedingly "resource thrifty", needing
far less resources to perform the same tasks as some "O"ther "S"ystems.   

At least twice customers rose up en mass, and in almost in arms, to fight
back.  (Think: SHARE's "Source Force" and VMSHARE's "MEMO NOTAGAIN".)  The
customer argument was that senior IBM management did not know what they
would lose if VM was dropped.  Basically, IBM senior management did not know
for what VM customers used their systems, nor how critical VM was to their
business.  And the VM customers did not do a good job complaining to IBM
when they wanted something new in VM.  We just used the terrific VM
capabilities to write our own.  I'm still pretty sure that IBM doesn't have
a good grasp of what their customers "do" with VM, nor how valuable it is.
IMHO - the most important point is that VM did not sell enough Big Iron. 

But now (even after so many attempts to kill off VM), it *is* selling Big
Iron -- a large percentage of all new Big Iron.  For Linux.  What would have
happened to IBM had senior management been successful in killing off VM on
the first try?  (Think: OS/2 and the PC business.)  Certainly, no IFLs.  And
the inability to convert legions of decentralized servers onto single System
z platforms.   

One of the arguments often heard against *nix is it's level of immaturity.
They are still trying to do things that CP and CMS have done for years,
honed to a fine edge, and do with excellent (mature) reliability.  But now
CMS is only good as a maintenance tool?  Again: The customer argument was is
that senior IBM management did does not know what they would will lose if VM
was CMS is dropped (to the level of hipervisor support).   

Ignorance breeds intolerance.  There seems to be a lot of intolerance by
senior IBM management for continued CMS enhancements.  I really don't know
how to educate senior IBM management.  Maybe set up a series of "common
application" development projects and try them in competing platforms to
learn which is the first to reach production, runs the fastest, runs with
the lowest TCO, runs the most reliably across a set of standard outages, and
which recovers fully in the least time?  But I won't hold my breath waiting
for that to happen.  CMS would probably score very well, not providing the
desired results to match the stated direction. 

Another argument against CMS development: schools aren't teaching mainframe
skills for newbies.  Commendably, IBM is attacking that problem head on.
For z/OS, Linux, and others - but I'd be willing to bet a nice steak dinner
that CMS application development is not included in that educational attack.
Chicken/egg.  Good thing that my bet wasn't a southern fried chicken dinner
- we'd be EATing CMS development!  :-( 

:Rant off - I'm getting too old to keep tilting at the same old windmills,
staffed by the next new senior managers with no CMS expertise or
understanding, but with a pre-closed mind. 

Mike Walter 
Hewitt Associates   
Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates. 





"Craig Dudley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 

Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System"  


05/03/2007 01:26 PM 


Please respond to
"The IBM z/VM Operating System" 




To
IBMVM@LIST

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Mike Walter

Personally, not speaking for Hewitt Associates...

:Rant on

Years ago IBM senior management tried to kill off not only CMS development 
-- but all of VM.  Actually, that's happened several times.  Sometimes the 
bell tolled for source code (effectively preventing new features from 
being added by customers), sometime it tolled as "co-existence" 
(functional VM stabilization).  Most often the bell tolled for marketing, 
of which effectively there was none for many years.  No marketing = no 
sales.  No sales = business case for IBM to say "no one cares: kill it." A 
self-fulfilling prophesy.  Apparently VM customers did not sell enough Big 
Iron - after all VM and CMS apps are exceedingly "resource thrifty", 
needing far less resources to perform the same tasks as some "O"ther 
"S"ystems. 

At least twice customers rose up en mass, and in almost in arms, to fight 
back.  (Think: SHARE's "Source Force" and VMSHARE's "MEMO NOTAGAIN".)  The 
customer argument was that senior IBM management did not know what they 
would lose if VM was dropped.  Basically, IBM senior management did not 
know for what VM customers used their systems, nor how critical VM was to 
their business.  And the VM customers did not do a good job complaining to 
IBM when they wanted something new in VM.  We just used the terrific VM 
capabilities to write our own.  I'm still pretty sure that IBM doesn't 
have a good grasp of what their customers "do" with VM, nor how valuable 
it is.  IMHO - the most important point is that VM did not sell enough Big 
Iron.

But now (even after so many attempts to kill off VM), it *is* selling Big 
Iron -- a large percentage of all new Big Iron.  For Linux.  What would 
have happened to IBM had senior management been successful in killing off 
VM on the first try?  (Think: OS/2 and the PC business.)  Certainly, no 
IFLs.  And the inability to convert legions of decentralized servers onto 
single System z platforms. 

One of the arguments often heard against *nix is it's level of immaturity. 
 They are still trying to do things that CP and CMS have done for years, 
honed to a fine edge, and do with excellent (mature) reliability.  But now 
CMS is only good as a maintenance tool?  Again: The customer argument was 
is that senior IBM management did does not know what they would will lose 
if VM was CMS is dropped (to the level of hipervisor support). 

Ignorance breeds intolerance.  There seems to be a lot of intolerance by 
senior IBM management for continued CMS enhancements.  I really don't know 
how to educate senior IBM management.  Maybe set up a series of "common 
application" development projects and try them in competing platforms to 
learn which is the first to reach production, runs the fastest, runs with 
the lowest TCO, runs the most reliably across a set of standard outages, 
and which recovers fully in the least time?  But I won't hold my breath 
waiting for that to happen.  CMS would probably score very well, not 
providing the desired results to match the stated direction.

Another argument against CMS development: schools aren't teaching 
mainframe skills for newbies.  Commendably, IBM is attacking that problem 
head on.  For z/OS, Linux, and others - but I'd be willing to bet a nice 
steak dinner that CMS application development is not included in that 
educational attack.  Chicken/egg.  Good thing that my bet wasn't a 
southern fried chicken dinner - we'd be EATing CMS development!  :-(

:Rant off - I'm getting too old to keep tilting at the same old windmills, 
staffed by the next new senior managers with no CMS expertise or 
understanding, but with a pre-closed mind.

Mike Walter 
Hewitt Associates 
Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily 
represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.

"Craig Dudley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 

Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System" 
05/03/2007 01:26 PM
Please respond to
"The IBM z/VM Operating System" 

To
IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
cc

Subject
Re: z/VM usability

Alan,
How about comments on one of the basic premise of this thread - CMS 
is "functionally stabilized"? From an external POV, it does appear
that CMS (and adjunct components like SFS) isn't (aren't) being enhanced 
for the continuing support role it has in maintaining a z/VM CP 
environment.
-- 
Craig Dudley
Manager, Mainframe Technical Support Group
Office of Information Technology
State of New Hampshire
27 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-1506Fax 603-271-1516

>On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 11:35 AST, "Edward M. Martin" 
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
>> supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operati

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Edward M. Martin

Hello Alan,

I hope you understand that I am venting to you and not at you
specifically. 

I have sent the require messages to IBM.

It seems like there were a lot of VM/VSAM customers but
apparently not as many as I thought. 

"Ha, Such is life!"

Ed Martin 
Aultman Health Foundation
330-588-4723
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
ext. 40441

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Craig Dudley

Alan,
How about comments on one of the basic premise of this thread - CMS 
is "functionally stabilized"? From an external POV, it does appear
that CMS (and adjunct components like SFS) isn't (aren't) being enhanced 
for the continuing support role it has in maintaining a z/VM CP 
environment.
-- 
Craig Dudley
Manager, Mainframe Technical Support Group
Office of Information Technology
State of New Hampshire
27 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-1506Fax 603-271-1516

>On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 11:35 AST, "Edward M. Martin" 
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
>> supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operating
>> systems.
>> 
>> IBM is basically breaking a working system. (IMHO)
>> 
>> And I am working on away to get off the VM/VSAM part, and it looks like
>> it will be a NON-IBM solution.  But I am still looking.
>
>By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws products 
>from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  There are still 
>people using VM/ESA V2. 
>
>It was nearly two years ago (June 2005) that we announced that you would 
>no longer be able to order VM/VSAM effective September 30, 2005.  In 
>August of the same year we announced that VM/VSAM would end service 
>February 28, 2007.  Standard meaning: "Don't deploy new applications that 
>depend on VM/VSAM and begin working on a migration or risk mitigation plan 
>for applications you already have."  It's true that if there is no 
>replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes, the 
>application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And 
>sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions it 
>makes and has to live with the consequences.
>
>I'm also sensitive to the fact that those decisions can also affect 
>someone's livlihood (inside IBM and out).  I don't blame anyone for being 
>upset, if that's the case.
>
>Don't get me wrong, I wish VM/VSAM was still around, but it isn't, so 
>you're doing the right thing, triggering an application review.  If you 
>choose that the risk of being unsupported is greater than the benefit your 
>company derives from the application, then it is time for a change.
>
>Finally, to the best of my knowledge, we have done nothing to "break" a 
>working system.  If you find a defect in CMS that causes VSAM to break, 
>and you have a VM support contract, we will fix it.  If you find a defect 
>in VSAM itself, no such luck unless you have an extended VSAM support 
>contract.
>
>Alan Altmark
>z/VM Development
>IBM Endicott


- End Forwarded Message -

-- 
Craig Dudley
Manager, Mainframe Technical Support Group
Office of Information Technology
State of New Hampshire
27 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-1506Fax 603-271-1516

Re: z/VM usability

On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 11:35 AST, "Edward M. Martin" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
> supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operating
> systems.
> 
> IBM is basically breaking a working system. (IMHO)
> 
> And I am working on away to get off the VM/VSAM part, and it looks like
> it will be a NON-IBM solution.  But I am still looking.

By "business as usual", I mean that IBM continually withdraws products 
from the marketplace, even some that people are using.  There are still 
people using VM/ESA V2. 

It was nearly two years ago (June 2005) that we announced that you would 
no longer be able to order VM/VSAM effective September 30, 2005.  In 
August of the same year we announced that VM/VSAM would end service 
February 28, 2007.  Standard meaning: "Don't deploy new applications that 
depend on VM/VSAM and begin working on a migration or risk mitigation plan 
for applications you already have."  It's true that if there is no 
replacement product from IBM, and no 3rd-party substitute, then, yes, the 
application is eventually re-hosted or discontinued completely.  And 
sometimes on a non-IBM, non-Linux platform.  IBM makes the decisions it 
makes and has to live with the consequences.

I'm also sensitive to the fact that those decisions can also affect 
someone's livlihood (inside IBM and out).  I don't blame anyone for being 
upset, if that's the case.

Don't get me wrong, I wish VM/VSAM was still around, but it isn't, so 
you're doing the right thing, triggering an application review.  If you 
choose that the risk of being unsupported is greater than the benefit your 
company derives from the application, then it is time for a change.

Finally, to the best of my knowledge, we have done nothing to "break" a 
working system.  If you find a defect in CMS that causes VSAM to break, 
and you have a VM support contract, we will fix it.  If you find a defect 
in VSAM itself, no such luck unless you have an extended VSAM support 
contract.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Edward M. Martin

Hello Alan,

But the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  was caused by IBM not
supporting a product that is supported by the other IBM Operating
systems.

IBM is basically breaking a working system. (IMHO)

And I am working on away to get off the VM/VSAM part, and it looks like
it will be a NON-IBM solution.  But I am still looking.

Ed Martin 
Aultman Health Foundation
330-588-4723
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
ext. 40441

> -Original Message-
> From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On
> Behalf Of Alan Altmark
> Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 10:18 AM
> To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> Subject: Re: z/VM usability
> 
> On Wednesday, 05/02/2007 at 06:58 AST, David Boyes
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > > >Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have
> > > >CMS-oriented users today, where are they going to go?
> > > I think that's an old question these days.  Around here, it's
pretty
> > > hard to find a CMS-only oriented person.
> >
> > Probably badly phrased on my part: CMS-oriented applications is
probably
> > a better description. The stuff works, it's tested, and rewriting it
> > probably isn't cost-effective. Where do those applications go? And
how?
> 
> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  If it's dependent on VSAM, then
you
> have to re-examine the "isn't cost-effective" assumption.  The cost of
a
> VSAM failure is higher than it used to be since you no longer have the
> help of the Support Center.
> 
> The same goes for using old compilers.  Evaluate the risks and
benefits
> and proceed from there.  It's not an academic thought experiment, it's
a
> business decision.
> 
> This is all business as usual, isn't it?  We're just
> accustomed/conditioned to CMS being the same year after year after
year.
> 
> Alan Altmark
> z/VM Development
> IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread George Haddad


And Santa Clara !

Stracka, James (GTI) wrote:

Ah, fond memories of those amdahl classes in Columbia, Maryland

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Bill Munson
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 10:03 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability


IBM education for VM that was .

I remember 17 years ago going to back to back VM classes in Crystal City
CP internals and CMS internals.  Then a week long VMSES/E class in New 
York taught by David Chase.   Those were the days my friend those were 
the days

Re: z/VM usability

On Wednesday, 05/02/2007 at 06:58 AST, David Boyes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > >Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have
> > >CMS-oriented users today, where are they going to go?
> > I think that's an old question these days.  Around here, it's pretty
> > hard to find a CMS-only oriented person.
> 
> Probably badly phrased on my part: CMS-oriented applications is probably
> a better description. The stuff works, it's tested, and rewriting it
> probably isn't cost-effective. Where do those applications go? And how?

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  If it's dependent on VSAM, then you 
have to re-examine the "isn't cost-effective" assumption.  The cost of a 
VSAM failure is higher than it used to be since you no longer have the 
help of the Support Center.

The same goes for using old compilers.  Evaluate the risks and benefits 
and proceed from there.  It's not an academic thought experiment, it's a 
business decision.

This is all business as usual, isn't it?  We're just 
accustomed/conditioned to CMS being the same year after year after year.

Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Stracka, James (GTI)

Ah, fond memories of those amdahl classes in Columbia, Maryland

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Bill Munson
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 10:03 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability


IBM education for VM that was .

I remember 17 years ago going to back to back VM classes in Crystal City
CP internals and CMS internals.  Then a week long VMSES/E class in New 
York taught by David Chase.   Those were the days my friend those were 
the days 

Bill Munson
IT Specialist
Office of Information Technology
State of New Jersey
(609) 984-4065

President MVMUA
http://www.marist.edu/~mvmua



Jim Bohnsack wrote:
> I think that you are talking about something that is either going to 
> hit
> us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will 
> eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and, 
> having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of you.

> You look around at SHARE and you almost never see someone who is
closer 
> to college age than retirement age.  Those rare ones are not sitting
in 
> on the kind of VM sessions  most of us do.  There is, for all
practical 
> purposes, no IBM education that would take a new, inexperienced person

> from an Intro to VM course level to an  advanced level.
> 
> Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS
> knowledgeable sysprogs.  Notice the greatly expanded number of lpars 
> that are permitted on the newer processors.  An lpar is really a
virtual 
> machine running under a CP based hypervisor.  How much CP/CMS is
needed 
> to carve out an lpar?  Something like that may be where we are
going--or 
> at least the rest of you.  I'll be at full SS retirement age in a year

> and a half.
> 
> Jim
> 
> David Boyes wrote:
>> All true at a high level. But, I think we're going to have to 
>> struggle very soon with a number of these usability issues.  Note 
>> that in recent IBM presentations on VM futures, CMS investment seldom

>> or never appears. Many of these functions (SFS, directory management,

>> backup, etc) depend on knowledge of CMS -- most of us on this mailing

>> list survived the situations that lead up to the development of these

>> various Good Things, so we have the context and the skill set to 
>> support them. We're entering a time when that context is missing in 
>> the next generation of system administrators, and we no longer have 
>> CMS users as the primary focus of VM.=20
>>
>> I believe we need to ask the question of usability improvement for 
>> these functions. The skills are no longer there, and we are focusing 
>> VM on serving a community that wants to develop them about as much as

>> they want to learn JCL. Telling someone to RTFM -- well, they'd have 
>> to find the right FM first.=20
>>
>> Perhaps I'm worrying about the "system after next" again. I think 
>> it's a question that we need to start to think about, though.=20
>>
>>   
> 
>


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Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Bill Munson


IBM education for VM that was .

I remember 17 years ago going to back to back VM classes in Crystal City
CP internals and CMS internals.  Then a week long VMSES/E class in New 
York taught by David Chase.   Those were the days my friend those were 
the days 


Bill Munson
IT Specialist
Office of Information Technology
State of New Jersey
(609) 984-4065

President MVMUA
http://www.marist.edu/~mvmua



Jim Bohnsack wrote:
I think that you are talking about something that is either going to hit 
us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will 
eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and, 
having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of you.  
You look around at SHARE and you almost never see someone who is closer 
to college age than retirement age.  Those rare ones are not sitting in 
on the kind of VM sessions  most of us do.  There is, for all practical 
purposes, no IBM education that would take a new, inexperienced person 
from an Intro to VM course level to an  advanced level.


Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS 
knowledgeable sysprogs.  Notice the greatly expanded number of lpars 
that are permitted on the newer processors.  An lpar is really a virtual 
machine running under a CP based hypervisor.  How much CP/CMS is needed 
to carve out an lpar?  Something like that may be where we are going--or 
at least the rest of you.  I'll be at full SS retirement age in a year 
and a half.


Jim

David Boyes wrote:

All true at a high level. But, I think we're going to have to struggle
very soon with a number of these usability issues.  Note that in recent
IBM presentations on VM futures, CMS investment seldom or never appears.
Many of these functions (SFS, directory management, backup, etc) depend
on knowledge of CMS -- most of us on this mailing list survived the
situations that lead up to the development of these various Good Things,
so we have the context and the skill set to support them. We're entering
a time when that context is missing in the next generation of system
administrators, and we no longer have CMS users as the primary focus of
VM.=20

I believe we need to ask the question of usability improvement for these
functions. The skills are no longer there, and we are focusing VM on
serving a community that wants to develop them about as much as they
want to learn JCL. Telling someone to RTFM -- well, they'd have to find
the right FM first.=20

Perhaps I'm worrying about the "system after next" again. I think it's a
question that we need to start to think about, though.=20

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Bill Munson


All those CMS based applications are here at the State of New Jersey.

We spent a year removing calls to 'PROFS' from CMS users exec's and 
profile's. This was from June 2005 to June 2006.  Part of this was a 
nightly process to update the System Names file.


And now we are working on the nightly process to create ACF2 reports 
from VM and MVS and update thousands of CMS files with DATA available to 
 ISR's using an inhouse panel system based on PSS and INFOLIST.


AND everyone's Profile exec brings up an 'INFOMENU' panel with hundreds 
of choices of applications and exec's and data panels.


A lot's and lot's of CMS (REXX) applications running here.

It will keep me busy till my (second) retirement in 2010.
(first was 2004)

Viva VM

Bill Munson
IT Specialist
Office of Information Technology
State of New Jersey
(609) 984-4065

President MVMUA
http://www.marist.edu/~mvmua



David Boyes wrote:

Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have
CMS-oriented users today, where are they going to go? 

I think that's an old question these days.  Around here, it's pretty
hard to find a CMS-only oriented person.  


Probably badly phrased on my part: CMS-oriented applications is probably
a better description. The stuff works, it's tested, and rewriting it
probably isn't cost-effective. Where do those applications go? And how?

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread George Haddad

David Kreuter wrote:
Really? Most IT grads (college, university, private) I come across (training, conferences, etc.) seem predominantly windows trained.
Unix/linux dudes and dudettes (jeesh did I just say that? I'm just a kid at heart) seem to be engineering/physics graduates - a generally scary lot 'cause most of them are pretty smart and worse yet think they know everything. At least they sure can toss those acronyms around with the best of them. They have more in common with IBM (that most of them seem to dislike until they get a job) than they realize.

Maybe my view is skewed because at MSU, our CS department spawned from
the College of Engineering. This is in stark contrast to my alma mater,
Wayne State, where it CS was originally a branch of our Liberal Arts
Mathematics dept.

I just don't see this onslaught of young men and women with this dynamite
unix/linux skill. At least not in North America. Maybe elsewhere. I'm ready to
classify this on most days as yet another urban legend, you know, like the mole
people that live seven levels below Grand Central station.

I have also encountered some real, and I mean real, sloppy practices in linux
with many of these youngsters. Linux covers them pretty well until the fan
gets hit, and then watch out. Linux is prime time but a lot of the
technoweenies aren't ready for the big show.

Well yes, but I attribute this to the early Unix/C books which used very
terse code samples. I figure that the students who learned from them
thought that all code was SUPPOSED to be unreadable. And they've just
passed along that wisdom to the next generations!

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-03 Thread Mrohs, Ray

> -Original Message-
> From: The IBM z/VM Operating System 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcy Cortes
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 7:23 PM
> To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> Subject: Re: z/VM usability
> 
> CMS for applications is pretty clearly a dead end, although I don't
> think anyone wants to admit that at IBM.  Even our other vendors don't
> seem to be wanting to do new things for CMS (-- the biggie right here
> now that has our CMS apps people rethinking their platform 
> yet again is
> Connect:Direct (aka NDM) and it's lack of anything new esp the Secure+
> feature).
> 
> Marcy

Still, if you add up all the CMS users world-wide they will number into
the tens or hundreds of thousands. We account for over 3,000 ourselves.
At what point does it's viability go away? Should IBM bring out a
stabilized "VM Classic" to keep the old diehards happy, while regular VM
continues on it's open systems march? Our organization has plans to
"eventually" migrate from it's CMS applications. However in the meantime
we are bringing in new CMS users from other less secure or
unmaintainable systems. 

Everyone agrees that in the long term CMS plays a shrinking role.
However, it will be important for IBM to provide support for the large
and medium-scale CMS shops that continue to be in operation. How will
IBM even know they still exist?   


Ray Mrohs
U.S. Department of Justice
202-307-6896

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Gregg C Levine

Hello!
We should also remember that the station is honeycombed with empty offices.
Practically all of the floors above the station proper are empty the train
companies only use the street levels and one or two above. Now I will grant
you both the logic that there are levels around the main station levels that
are unused, including the platform for the "President's Train". It has not
been used since FDR. And David K is right about the dearth of homeless, they
are living in the subway stations elsewhere. (Or worse.)

Now can we get back on topic before we start discussing strange theories and
conspiracy theories?

Parting shot, folks today and yesterday I was at an IBM event that discussed
everything doable aboard a Z9 family machine, even z/VM. I also ran into
Eric from the local VM user's group, I shall spare you all what we
discussed, (Eric and I).  The discussions revolved around the other OS that
runs there, Linux was mentioned and just not in detail as he is here. 

And here's where it gets loopy, it seems there are schools who are preparing
the next generation for the mainframe, they are just rather clueless as to
directions and are looking to both IBM and the companies who use them for
hints and clews. 
--
Gregg C Levine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The Force will be with you. Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi

> -Original Message-
> From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of Adam Thornton
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 11:07 PM
> To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> Subject: Re: z/VM usability
> 
> On May 2, 2007, at 10:02 PM, David Kreuter wrote:
> 
> > I don't doubt that  there were/are people living under Grand
> > Central. Seen the dearth of homeless in Manhattan lately? They've
> > gone somewhere.
> 
> Did I forget to mention?  "Soylent Green" isn't fiction either.
> 
> > It's the "seven levels below" that I think is legend.
> 
> Well, that's true.  It goes much, *much* deeper.
> 
> Adam

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Adam Thornton


On May 2, 2007, at 10:02 PM, David Kreuter wrote:

I don't doubt that  there were/are people living under Grand  
Central. Seen the dearth of homeless in Manhattan lately? They've  
gone somewhere.


Did I forget to mention?  "Soylent Green" isn't fiction either.


It's the "seven levels below" that I think is legend.


Well, that's true.  It goes much, *much* deeper.

Adam

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread David Kreuter

I don't doubt that  there were/are people living under Grand Central. Seen the 
dearth of homeless in Manhattan lately? They've gone somewhere. It's the "seven 
levels below" that I think is legend. The book "The Mole People" is a great 
read.
But I digress.

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System on behalf of Adam Thornton
Sent: Wed 5/2/2007 10:59 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: [IBMVM] z/VM usability

On May 2, 2007, at 9:51 PM, David Kreuter wrote:
> yet another urban legend, you know, like the mole people that live  
> seven levels below Grand Central station.

Dude.  You have *no* idea.  C.H.U.D.?  *Not* science fiction.  Not  
even fiction.

Adam

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Adam Thornton


On May 2, 2007, at 9:51 PM, David Kreuter wrote:
yet another urban legend, you know, like the mole people that live  
seven levels below Grand Central station.


Dude.  You have *no* idea.  C.H.U.D.?  *Not* science fiction.  Not  
even fiction.


Adam

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread David Kreuter

Really? Most IT grads (college, university, private) I come across (training, 
conferences, etc.) seem predominantly windows trained.  
Unix/linux dudes and dudettes (jeesh did I just say that? I'm just a kid at 
heart) seem to be engineering/physics graduates - a generally scary lot 'cause 
most of them are pretty smart and worse yet think they know everything. At 
least they sure can toss those acronyms around with the best of them. They have 
more in common with IBM (that most of them seem to dislike until they get a 
job) than they realize.

I just don't see this onslaught of young men and women with this dynamite 
unix/linux skill. At least not in North America. Maybe elsewhere. I'm ready to 
classify this on most days as yet another urban legend, you know, like the mole 
people that live seven levels below Grand Central station.

I have also encountered some real, and I mean real, sloppy practices in linux 
with many of these youngsters.  Linux covers them pretty well until the fan 
gets hit, and then watch out. Linux is prime time but a lot of the 
technoweenies aren't ready for the big show.

David

George Haddad said:
> But *IX is taught extensively in 
> schools so that "newbies" arrive with a working knowledge.

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Jim Bohnsack

A thought that came to my mind when I read David Boyes' posting is "why 
shouldn't IBM have stopped CMS development?".  I say this with the 
background of 40 years of IBM mainframe sysproging and almost 30 years 
of being a VM sysprog.  I will add to the IBM background, an MBA from 
the UofC so I also have some background in business.  How much would it 
have added to IBM's bottom line if people had continued to use XEDIT and 
other CMS based programs rather than switching to a PC?  IBM would have 
had to have come out with a Full Screen version of CMS that really was a 
good/better alternative to MS Windows.  How much would that have helped 
the bottom line?


Perhaps to partially answer the question I originally posed, rather than 
having to educate the new VM people, just eliminate the need for them.  
If there is no CMS based app's and a new release were a lot easier and 
new userid's, whether a LINUX or a TPF system, were just a new lpar that 
could be defined with a command to the LPAR hypervisor, who cares about 
CMS?


The license fee for the base VM/OS to IBM is still there.  There is no 
CMS development cost.  IBM hardware sales keep on going?  Gradually all 
of us old people get out of the business.  As an IBM stock holder and 
retiree, I'm happy. 


Jim

To be blunt: because IBM is not-so-gradually killing CMS's ability to
host application workload by means of starvation. No VSAM, no updated
compilers other than C, no tooling that is not absolutely necessary to
maintain CP equals no capability to continue to host commercial
applications. The writing is on the wall.=20

Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have CMS-oriented
users today, where are they going to go? How are you going to get them
there? We've got plenty of evidence that TSO certainly isn't it. What
are your choices, and how do you salvage as much of the existing
already-built-and-paid-for business logic as you can?=20

I'd rather start working on answers to these questions *before* I have
to do it in an emergency fire-drill mode. I think it's fair to ask IBM
to help us find those answers if they're going to break our toys, so I'd
like to tell them what we need so they can work with us to find an
answer.=20

  



--
Jim Bohnsack
Cornell University
(607) 255-1760
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Marcy Cortes

Yes, you are sure right about the other platforms.  My last windows
update wouldn't. and wouldn't. and wouldn't.  Took lots of google
research to find enough tricks to get it past that.  God forbid you get
one that renders you unbootable.

The commands aren't cryptic with commas all over the place nor do they
have funny names like awk.  There's lots to love about VM, don't get me
wrong.  It's just that I think the age of CMS applications has passed
and IBM is right in not investing there (course that's a chicken and egg
thingie too :)

Marcy Cortes

"This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the
addressee, you must not use, copy, disclose, or take any action based on
this message or any information herein.  If you have received this
message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail
and delete this message.  Thank you for your cooperation."

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of George Haddad
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 5:36 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: [IBMVM] z/VM usability

I'm not sure this is a problem with only VM. Having "grown up" with
old-school IBM tech manuals and CMS HELP, I still find *IX "man pages" 
to be cryptic on many occasions. But *IX is taught extensively in
schools so that "newbies" arrive with a working knowledge.

As for getting from one-version to another, a very wise man (Vito!)
taught me early in my sysprog days, that Rule Number 1 is "make sure you
can always get back to yesterday". This was almost trivial with a
working knowledge of VM due to its modularity. We were almost always
able to install maint/upgrades one component at a time. Made  it great
for  troubleshooting/backout. You are correct, Marcy, that most vendors
don't document the common VM maintenance tricks -- and for that matter,
is GENIPLER ever going to be "standard" ?? But that said, at least the
facilities exist.

With Windows servers, I find myself often having to update multiple
components at once. Backing off a patch is iffy at best. Talk about
mixing code and config !!The only "sure bet" is a good image restore. 
And the Windows Registry design is a nightmare IMO.

Fortunately virtualization is on its way. It's still lacking I/O
performance to keep it from hosting  many prime-time apps, but I'm told
the next generation Intel processors will address this by including
features that sound an awful lot like DAT. Geez we're almost back to the
1970s! This won't address the MS complexities per se, but will make
backoffs an awful lot less painful. 

Marcy Cortes wrote:
> performance data, .. etc) and the fact that the vendor doc isn't 
> exactly geared for newbies either (e.g. CA :).  None of the software 
> seems to be good at telling you how to get from one version to another

> (very few products tell you that you can use alternate minidisks and a

> quick edit of the directory entry to flip --- or they are even worse 
> and mix their code and configuration stuff on the same minidisks, 
> trusting that you'll want to do the upgrade by running some exec and 
> hoping for the best instead of allowing you to have test copies).
>
>

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread George Haddad

I'm not sure this is a problem with only VM. Having "grown up" with 
old-school IBM tech manuals and CMS HELP, I still find *IX "man pages" 
to be cryptic on many occasions. But *IX is taught extensively in 
schools so that "newbies" arrive with a working knowledge.


As for getting from one-version to another, a very wise man (Vito!) 
taught me early in my sysprog days, that Rule Number 1 is "make sure you 
can always get back to yesterday". This was almost trivial with a 
working knowledge of VM due to its modularity. We were almost always 
able to install maint/upgrades one component at a time. Made  it great 
for  troubleshooting/backout. You are correct, Marcy, that most vendors 
don't document the common VM maintenance tricks -- and for that matter, 
is GENIPLER ever going to be "standard" ?? But that said, at least the 
facilities exist.


With Windows servers, I find myself often having to update multiple 
components at once. Backing off a patch is iffy at best. Talk about 
mixing code and config !!The only "sure bet" is a good image restore. 
And the Windows Registry design is a nightmare IMO.


Fortunately virtualization is on its way. It's still lacking I/O 
performance to keep it from hosting  many prime-time apps, but I'm told 
the next generation Intel processors will address this by including 
features that sound an awful lot like DAT. Geez we're almost back to the 
1970s! This won't address the MS complexities per se, but will make 
backoffs an awful lot less painful. 


Marcy Cortes wrote:

performance data, .. etc) and the fact that the vendor doc isn't exactly
geared for newbies either (e.g. CA :).  None of the software seems to be
good at telling you how to get from one version to another (very few
products tell you that you can use alternate minidisks and a quick edit
of the directory entry to flip --- or they are even worse and mix their
code and configuration stuff on the same minidisks, trusting that you'll
want to do the upgrade by running some exec and hoping for the best
instead of allowing you to have test copies).

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Marcy Cortes

>Probably badly phrased on my part: CMS-oriented applications is
probably a better description. 
>The stuff works, it's tested, and rewriting it probably isn't
cost-effective. Where do those 
>applications go? And how? 

Some that work stay just chugging along.

Those that need rewrites or big changes to keep up with the changing
business climate (mergers, acquisitions, more online stuff, new
finanical products, security, SOX) usually get tossed in favor of
whatever they are putting the new apps on at the moment.

Now, I should say that most of the things we have on CMS are not the
core business stuff (the linux happily is though :) - mostly back office
reporting, analysis, etc.  z/OS, where the core business stuff does run,
seems to just get flanked with stuff interfacing with it (preferably in
an SOA kind of way) although I think they've seen their share of stuff
leave too, but the flanking it stuff drives way more tranactions than a
little old human teller ever could so it continues to grow crazily as
well.

I say give us stuff to cluster our VM systems to make managing multiples
of them easier and Linux that can move from one to another.  Also,
improve the ability to use the heavy stuff like making disaster recover
easier (GDPS/XRC?/global mirroring?), whatever the next big thing is.
And keep up with whatever cool things VMWARE and those other
virtualization things are doing.  

CMS for applications is pretty clearly a dead end, although I don't
think anyone wants to admit that at IBM.  Even our other vendors don't
seem to be wanting to do new things for CMS (-- the biggie right here
now that has our CMS apps people rethinking their platform yet again is
Connect:Direct (aka NDM) and it's lack of anything new esp the Secure+
feature).

Marcy


"This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the
addressee, you must not use, copy, disclose, or take any action based on
this message or any information herein.  If you have received this
message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail
and delete this message.  Thank you for your cooperation."

Re: z/VM usability

> >Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have
> >CMS-oriented users today, where are they going to go? 
> I think that's an old question these days.  Around here, it's pretty
> hard to find a CMS-only oriented person.  

Probably badly phrased on my part: CMS-oriented applications is probably
a better description. The stuff works, it's tested, and rewriting it
probably isn't cost-effective. Where do those applications go? And how?

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Marcy Cortes

I tend to agree with Steve M.  My newbies have had pretty much the same
experience I'd say.  What usually trips them up is the stuff we've had
forever (examples -- our stuff for processing audit, account,
performance data, .. etc) and the fact that the vendor doc isn't exactly
geared for newbies either (e.g. CA :).  None of the software seems to be
good at telling you how to get from one version to another (very few
products tell you that you can use alternate minidisks and a quick edit
of the directory entry to flip --- or they are even worse and mix their
code and configuration stuff on the same minidisks, trusting that you'll
want to do the upgrade by running some exec and hoping for the best
instead of allowing you to have test copies).

>Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have 
>CMS-oriented users today, where are they going to go? How are 
>you going to get them there? We've got plenty of evidence that 
>TSO certainly isn't it. What are your choices, and how do you 
>salvage as much of the existing already-built-and-paid-for 
>business logic as you can?

I think that's an old question these days.  Around here, it's pretty
hard to find a CMS-only oriented person.  Everyone's been on a server
(when you've got like 10,000 of them, it's not hard :).   I don't see
any new CMS applications being deployed (and haven't in quite some
number of years).  The applications folks have to know Java now and
databases, and not all that much about their operating systems clearly.

Marcy Cortes


"This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the
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this message or any information herein.  If you have received this
message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail
and delete this message.  Thank you for your cooperation."


-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of David Boyes
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 2:36 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: [IBMVM] z/VM usability

> Surely you jest!!!

Well, no, actually. 

> Using Linux to build a TPF system was something IBM 'forced' onto the
TPF
> users despite their kicking and screaming to the contrary. Just ask
anyone
> of the TPF users how much they like using Linux to build their TPF 
> systems.

Curious. The TPF people I come into contact with on a semi-regular basis
seem to like it a lot. May be industry specific; dunno. 
 
> Why expend all the energy, money and manpower to build all of the 
> emulation requirements you mention in another platform when you
already
> have the real thing now - and they work!

To be blunt: because IBM is not-so-gradually killing CMS's ability to
host application workload by means of starvation. No VSAM, no updated
compilers other than C, no tooling that is not absolutely necessary to
maintain CP equals no capability to continue to host commercial
applications. The writing is on the wall. 

Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have CMS-oriented
users today, where are they going to go? How are you going to get them
there? We've got plenty of evidence that TSO certainly isn't it. What
are your choices, and how do you salvage as much of the existing
already-built-and-paid-for business logic as you can? 

I'd rather start working on answers to these questions *before* I have
to do it in an emergency fire-drill mode. I think it's fair to ask IBM
to help us find those answers if they're going to break our toys, so I'd
like to tell them what we need so they can work with us to find an
answer.

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Tom Duerbusch

Just kind of wonder

Is IBM making TPF users depend on a non-IBM product (zLinux), to maintain TPF?

About 3 or 4 years ago, we had a rather lengthy topic on using a canned 
Linux/390, similar to GCS or even CMS in order to host Linux type servers.  
Mostly small stuff (as common at that time), like firewalls, routers, even the 
IP stack.

Something that your only controls were:

.  How much disk space for that image
.  How much virtual memory
.  The machine's priority.

The results were, since it is not IBM's code, they can't control it.  They 
can't package it.  And by picking a Linux flavor, it may look like they are 
throwing their weight behind that flavor.

So, forward space 3-4 years

Did they do it for TPF?  
Which flavor of zLinux?
Is it a canned, drop down, keep you hands off, or a regular install?

Tom Duerbusch
THD Consulting
(just wondering)

>>> David Boyes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 5/2/2007 4:35 PM >>>
> Surely you jest!!!

Well, no, actually. 

> Using Linux to build a TPF system was something IBM 'forced' onto the
TPF
answer.

Re: z/VM usability

> Surely you jest!!!

Well, no, actually. 

> Using Linux to build a TPF system was something IBM 'forced' onto the
TPF
> users despite their kicking and screaming to the contrary. Just ask
anyone
> of the TPF users how much they like using Linux to build their TPF
> systems.

Curious. The TPF people I come into contact with on a semi-regular basis
seem to like it a lot. May be industry specific; dunno. 
 
> Why expend all the energy, money and manpower to build all of the
> emulation requirements you mention in another platform when you
already
> have the real thing now - and they work!

To be blunt: because IBM is not-so-gradually killing CMS's ability to
host application workload by means of starvation. No VSAM, no updated
compilers other than C, no tooling that is not absolutely necessary to
maintain CP equals no capability to continue to host commercial
applications. The writing is on the wall. 

Ultimately, I'm trying to answer the question: if you have CMS-oriented
users today, where are they going to go? How are you going to get them
there? We've got plenty of evidence that TSO certainly isn't it. What
are your choices, and how do you salvage as much of the existing
already-built-and-paid-for business logic as you can? 

I'd rather start working on answers to these questions *before* I have
to do it in an emergency fire-drill mode. I think it's fair to ask IBM
to help us find those answers if they're going to break our toys, so I'd
like to tell them what we need so they can work with us to find an
answer.

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Steve . Mitchell

Finally, a topic where I fell I may have something to add vs learn!
I am 'new' to z/VM, other than IBM education classes I logged on to 'our'
first VM system May 2005.  I've spent the previous 25 years in COBOL, CICS,
& z/OS.
We ventured into the z/VM to support linux to support WebSphere.  Its
worked 'great' for us.  I've learned a lot of linux, I can do that at home.
I've had the opportunity to attend z/VM sessions at z/Series Expo and the
Installation for linux guest class.  To date I'm able to limp my way around
CMS to keep things working, but the vast majority of what you all discuss
here is way beyond my ability to grasp.  I'd draw the correlation of a
Senior Biology major listening to a discussion between tenured Biology
professors.  I understand the words, but the picture that is being painted
is incomprehensible.
Having said that, to date I've found little reason to delve into these
topics.
I'm not sure 'why' I need to learn more CMS.  I know this is likely the
ignorance of inexperience, but, how can you 'miss' what you dont know?  Our
environment is working great supporting linux guests.   In essence, z/VM is
doing what we want.  We are able to get by with a minimum of experience, I
see that as a 'positive' for z/VM rather than the loss of CMS expertise
being a harbinger of its demise.

Steve Mitchell
Sr Systems Software Specialist
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas
(785) 291-8885

'There are no degrees of Honesty-you're either Honest or you're not!

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Raymond Noal

David,

Surely you jest!!!



I think it's pretty clear that we will need ways to build and maintain CP from 
Linux (the TPF guys have a pretty good head start on this one), 



Using Linux to build a TPF system was something IBM 'forced' onto the TPF users 
despite their kicking and screaming to the contrary. Just ask anyone of the TPF 
users how much they like using Linux to build their TPF systems.

I for one hope we NEVER have to use another operating system to build our 
beloved VM/CMS systems (OK, so we use VM to do this now at second level).  Why 
expend all the energy, money and manpower to build all of the emulation 
requirements you mention in another platform when you already have the real 
thing now - and they work!

How much simpler can IBM make the installation/service of z/VM? When IBM was 
trying to entice new Linux users to run Linux under VM, IBM developed/refined a 
lot of the steps required. Now, you just type in 'SERVICE ALL 181', sit back 
and watch the lights blink. Some of the things IBM did to simplify the use of 
VM worked, some did not, or at least were not embraced as IBM had hoped. The 
major complaint was why learn z/VM just to install Linux. The TPF folks felt 
the same way. 

It's not that I'm against change. In this business, change is a requirement and 
not an option. When changes benefit the end user, I'm all for it. 

HITACHI
 DATA SYSTEMS 
Raymond E. Noal 
Senior Technical Engineer 
Office: (408) 970 - 7978 

-Original Message-
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of 
David Boyes
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 1:36 PM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: z/VM usability

> I think that you are talking about something that is either going to
hit
> us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will
> eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and,
> having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of you.

One of the questions I asked George Madl in his VM Directions session at
zExpo in Munich was that given that there seems to be no further roadmap
for additional CMS investment, what the migration plan might look like
for CMS users to (probably) a Linux environment as the "personal
operating system" for interactive users. He didn't have an answer, but
asked me to assemble a list of things we think we might need.

I think it's pretty clear that we will need ways to build and maintain
CP from Linux (the TPF guys have a pretty good head start on this one),
and we'll need some REXX and CMS command utility emulation to provide a
moderately smooth migration for our execs. We'll need a formalization of
Linux access to CP services and capabilities, either by a common API or
by REXX and Perl function packages. We'll need at least emulation of the
linemode capabilities of XEDIT (a full-screen emulation that is
termcap-aware would be awesome, but a lot harder), and some kind of
emulation for CMS Pipelines. 

I think we'll also need tools to migrate compiled modules -- sort of a
Cygwin for CMS applications; intercept the CMS APIs and emulate them. 

Other ideas? I'd be very interested to know what others think about
this.

> Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS
> knowledgeable sysprogs.

One of the basic value points of the combination of LPAR and VM is the
ability to virtualize resources at both a macro (LPAR) and micro
(virtual machine) level, which is much finer control than is present in
any other virtualization solution. I'd expect more a plan to finally
make VM a ubiquitous feature of the hardware -- at the current price
points, and given the withdrawal of VSAM pretty much kills CMS as an
application support and testing platform, layering the cost of VM
development into the price of hardware doesn't seem to hurt much and
it's a huge PR win vs VMWare or Xen. 

Heady stuff. 

-- db

Re: z/VM usability

> I think that you are talking about something that is either going to
hit
> us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will
> eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and,
> having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of you.

One of the questions I asked George Madl in his VM Directions session at
zExpo in Munich was that given that there seems to be no further roadmap
for additional CMS investment, what the migration plan might look like
for CMS users to (probably) a Linux environment as the "personal
operating system" for interactive users. He didn't have an answer, but
asked me to assemble a list of things we think we might need.

I think it's pretty clear that we will need ways to build and maintain
CP from Linux (the TPF guys have a pretty good head start on this one),
and we'll need some REXX and CMS command utility emulation to provide a
moderately smooth migration for our execs. We'll need a formalization of
Linux access to CP services and capabilities, either by a common API or
by REXX and Perl function packages. We'll need at least emulation of the
linemode capabilities of XEDIT (a full-screen emulation that is
termcap-aware would be awesome, but a lot harder), and some kind of
emulation for CMS Pipelines. 

I think we'll also need tools to migrate compiled modules -- sort of a
Cygwin for CMS applications; intercept the CMS APIs and emulate them. 

Other ideas? I'd be very interested to know what others think about
this.

> Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS
> knowledgeable sysprogs.

One of the basic value points of the combination of LPAR and VM is the
ability to virtualize resources at both a macro (LPAR) and micro
(virtual machine) level, which is much finer control than is present in
any other virtualization solution. I'd expect more a plan to finally
make VM a ubiquitous feature of the hardware -- at the current price
points, and given the withdrawal of VSAM pretty much kills CMS as an
application support and testing platform, layering the cost of VM
development into the price of hardware doesn't seem to hurt much and
it's a huge PR win vs VMWare or Xen. 

Heady stuff. 

-- db

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread George Haddad

VIrtualization is (finally) a hot topic among the young 'uns in the 
industry. Unfortunately, most have never heard of the IBM's VM. I have 
run into a few younger (30-something) folks who have discovered the 
roots of virtualization and have tried to play around with it with 
Hercules. Unfortunately they are limited to primitive versions of 
VM/370. I don't think they are even allowed to run SEPP or BSEP, so 
editing is in line-mode only. These folks likely will never attend SHARE 
since they are doing this for fun, and not for any traditional 
organization.


If  there were someway they could license a more recent VM for a  
non-production test/development 
Hercules environment, they MIGHT discover the joys of CMS as we know it. 
Ultimately they COULD grow up thinking that todays' 30-40-something 
IBM-hating mgt-types are WRONG. Might even lead to addtl Z-processor 
sales down the road.  But I don't want to open THAT can-of-worms in this 
discussion!


Jim Bohnsack wrote:
I think that you are talking about something that is either going to 
hit us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will 
eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and, 
having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of 
you.  You look around at SHARE and you almost never see someone who is 
closer to college age than retirement age.  Those rare ones are not 
sitting in on the kind of VM sessions  most of us do.  There is, for 
all practical purposes, no IBM education that would take a new, 
inexperienced person from an Intro to VM course level to an  advanced 
level.


Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS 
knowledgeable sysprogs.  Notice the greatly expanded number of lpars 
that are permitted on the newer processors.  An lpar is really a 
virtual machine running under a CP based hypervisor.  How much CP/CMS 
is needed to carve out an lpar?  Something like that may be where we 
are going--or at least the rest of you.  I'll be at full SS retirement 
age in a year and a half.


Jim

Re: z/VM usability

2007-05-02 Thread Jim Bohnsack

I think that you are talking about something that is either going to hit 
us real hard or IBM is going to come out with something that will 
eliminate the need to the CMS based tools "old folks" such as me and, 
having met a lot of you at SHARE conferences, most of the rest of you.  
You look around at SHARE and you almost never see someone who is closer 
to college age than retirement age.  Those rare ones are not sitting in 
on the kind of VM sessions  most of us do.  There is, for all practical 
purposes, no IBM education that would take a new, inexperienced person 
from an Intro to VM course level to an  advanced level.


Maybe this means that IBM is going to eliminate the need for us CP/CMS 
knowledgeable sysprogs.  Notice the greatly expanded number of lpars 
that are permitted on the newer processors.  An lpar is really a virtual 
machine running under a CP based hypervisor.  How much CP/CMS is needed 
to carve out an lpar?  Something like that may be where we are going--or 
at least the rest of you.  I'll be at full SS retirement age in a year 
and a half.


Jim

David Boyes wrote:

All true at a high level. But, I think we're going to have to struggle
very soon with a number of these usability issues.  Note that in recent
IBM presentations on VM futures, CMS investment seldom or never appears.
Many of these functions (SFS, directory management, backup, etc) depend
on knowledge of CMS -- most of us on this mailing list survived the
situations that lead up to the development of these various Good Things,
so we have the context and the skill set to support them. We're entering
a time when that context is missing in the next generation of system
administrators, and we no longer have CMS users as the primary focus of
VM.=20

I believe we need to ask the question of usability improvement for these
functions. The skills are no longer there, and we are focusing VM on
serving a community that wants to develop them about as much as they
want to learn JCL. Telling someone to RTFM -- well, they'd have to find
the right FM first.=20

Perhaps I'm worrying about the "system after next" again. I think it's a
question that we need to start to think about, though.=20

  



--
Jim Bohnsack
Cornell University
(607) 255-1760
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

z/VM usability