clist104.html

Cheryl's List #104 -
December 12, 2005

1. Cheryl Watson's TUNING Letter 2005 No. 6
2. Lotus Word Pro File Viewer
3. Java 2 SDK 5 is Now Available
4. SHARE in Seattle

1. Cheryl Watson's TUNING Letter 2005 No. 6

The fifty page 2005 No. 6 TUNING Letter was emailed to subscribers on December 8, 2005. Single issues may be obtained for $135 each from our Web site at http://www.watsonwalker.com. The following is a summary of just some of the contents of this latest TUNING Letter:

zPCR Tool Now Available
In our previous issue we described a new IBM tool that will assist you when planning for a processor upgrade. We are convinced that many of the problems encountered during such upgrades could be avoided if more planning were done using tools such as this. Although the tool itself was not available when that issue was published, we did point you to some resources that would allow you to learn about it while you were waiting. Well, the wait is over, because zPCR has been released and can be downloaded at no charge from an IBM Web site. You can get all of the details from our previous issue, but also make sure to read the update on page 4 of this issue. As we said previously, we encourage everyone to invest the few hours needed to learn how to use this tool effectively.

Justifying Performance Software
It's that time of year again when many managers must endure the annual ritual of justifying their software budgets. As prices escalate and budgets shrink, this can become a frustrating exercise. Particularly difficult may be the justification of software used for performance management and capacity planning. Because such software does not have a direct relationship with business profitability, it may be more difficult to justify, and you may face increased pressure to reduce these types of expenses. If you find yourself in this situation, please see our article on page 38, where we share some good ideas for reducing costs and making such software more visible to management.

Improved Health Checker
Everyone wants to improve the reliability of their z/OS systems and avoid unplanned outages. But did you realize that up to 20% of these problems can be caused by configuration errors? Perhaps you ran out of a resource because a threshold was set too low, or perhaps an option was simply not selected that would have improved your performance and reliability? How much would you be willing to pay an expert to visit your organization, examine your current configuration options and make recommendations? Well, you can do this for free with a new Health Checker feature available in z/OS 1.7. A prototype of the product has been available as a free download since 2003. We have mentioned this prototype previously, and many of you have installed it and run it regularly. The new version is even better, because it is part of the operating system and it is designed with an open architecture that allows new check routines to be added dynamically. You will find all of the details about this new tool in our Focus article on page 13. Users of z/OS 1.4 through z/OS 1.6 will also be pleased to learn that the tool can be installed in those environments as well.

Elsewhere in This Issue
See page 28 for more of the information from the last SHARE, including some new resources that mainframe professionals may use to exchange ideas. We also pass along some good advice in our User Experiences section starting on page 32. You will learn about an RMF oddity and why dedicated processors may be difficult to monitor. We also pass along more ideas for fixing the broken GDG catalog entries that can be created if you are at the wrong maintenance level. This has been mentioned in the last couple of issues, but new ideas keep arriving.

2. Lotus Word Pro File Viewer

Because the former Lotus software company is now owned by IBM, it is not unusual to find files on IBM Web sites that have been created by Lotus products. If you find a file with the suffix LWP, it was probably created with the Lotus Word Pro program. This can be frustrating, because most other word processing programs don't seem to be able to convert files in the Word Pro format. But Tom Walker recently found a utility program that can be downloaded and used to read Word Pro files. You can download this tool using the following address: ftp://ftp.lotus.com/pub/lotusweb/product/smartsuite/kvlot32.exe.

After you download and then execute the file, it will install a program called "KeyView for Lotus" on your computer. You can then start this program and use it to open and view Word Pro documents. Although the viewer does not have all the power of a commercial word processing program, it does support common functions such as finding strings, copying text to the clipboard and printing the document.

We have not run extensive tests on the program, but it did seem to work as advertised on several different Word Pro documents that we found on IBM Web sites. The included help information claims that the program can be used to view other types of Lotus files, but we have not tested that claim. In any case, this seems to be a handy tool for those times when you find a Word Pro file and want to learn what it contains.

3. Java 2 SDK 5 is Now Available

A participant of the MVS-OE discussion group recently alerted us to the fact that Version 5 of the Java 2 SDK (Software Development Kit) for z/OS is now available. Visit the z/OS Java Web site at http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/software/java/. You have the option of downloading either the 31-bit version or the 64-bit version. The build date for both versions is November 4, 2005.

4. SHARE in Seattle

With a new year almost upon us, it will not be that long until the next SHARE meeting, which will be held in Seattle, Washington, on March 5-10, 2006.

You can visit the SHARE Web site (http://www.share.org) to register for the conference, to reserve a hotel room, or to check out the sessions that will be offered. It looks like it will be a good meeting, and we hope many of you will be able to attend.

If you register before January 28th, you can take advantage of early registration rates to save some money.

Stay tuned!

Cheryl Watson
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