Tailoring
Tailoring your solution to the zSeries platform may mean that you want
to have your application have the same look and feel that other applications
have on the zSeries platform. This way the application will be familiar
to zSeries and z/OS users. Or, alternatively it may mean that you want your
application to have the same look and feel it has on other platforms that
it runs on, so that those who are familiar with your software will be comfortable
using it on the new platform. It could be that you want to do both in order
to accommodate both types of users and have the flexibility for the end
user to use your application in different ways, depending on their prior
familiarity with either the zSeries platform or your application. Some influence how the application
looks and feels. Others influence its behavior in set up and operation.
The goal of this Web site is to remind you to ask all of the questions
that might be interesting to ask, so that when you are done, you will have
confidence in the appeal of your solution to zSeries customers.
Licensing
zSeries servers provide facilities that permit you to license and price your software product based on CPU usage in the same
manner in which zSeries products are licensed. There is the notion of sub-capacity pricing on zSeries servers, since a physical zSeries machine may be divided into many operating system images.
For more information on this type of licensing, see zSeries Software Pricing Web site.
Installation and packaging
Installation and packaging of your software on the zSeries platform is
not similar to other UNIX platforms and is usually based on SMPe.
Documentation available for packaging and delivering zSeries applications via SMPe are listed
below:
Operations and System Administration
If you are familiar with other UNIX systems, such as HP-UX or Solaris,
you will find a substantial learning curve to transition to the z/OS operating system.
Traditionally, most UNIX system adminstrators prefer to use a command-line
interface (CLI), but UNIX System Services customization is done mostly with traditional
z/OS batch job submissions and ISPF sessions. So it is important to become familiar with these facilities of z/OS.
The z/OS and tcsh shells are provided
on the z/OS operating system, whereas some UNIX
systems use the C-shell by default. If your application
makes use of specific administration or scripting tools, you may want to
tailor these to the z/OS platform. To find more information on z/OS USS shells, see :
z/OS has introduced a set of administrative wizards to assist in z/OS system programming tasks.
One such wizard addresses the UNIX System Services area. See
- z/OS Information Wizardry - Comprehensive set of z/OS Installation and Customization Wizards
User Interface
The heritage of z/OS and OS/390 is that of a line mode user interface. However, with the introduction of UNIX System Services, there are now
UNIX-style user interfaces. These include X Window System libraries, Motif Widgets, and UNIX-style shells. The curses library is also provided.
The UNIX System Services Tools and Toys contain some user interface packages, namely the
rsh, rlogin, ssh, xterm, and vim clients.
The IBM eServer Solutions Connection lists numerous
User Interface tools.
zSeries Workload Management and Performance Tuning Tools
z/OS provides several workload management and system monitoring tools as
well as performance tuning tools. A part of tailoring your application
to a new platform is ensuring that your code continues to perform optimally.
Using a combination of these system monitoring and performance tuning tools
will allow you to optimize your solution leading to increased customer
satisfaction.
The Workload Manager (WLM) is a feature included in the base z/OS and OS/390 Operating System.
It is a tool to manage system workloads and system resources on the
zSeries platform. WLM can automate resource administration such as ensuring
critical applications get full resources at peak demands. Resource policies
can be created by the system administrator based on the time or day. WLM
gives you greater control over how the scheduler and virtual memory manager
(VMM) allocate CPU, I/O, and physical memory resources to processes.
This can be used to prevent different classes of jobs from interfering
with each other and to explicitly apply resources based on the requirements
of different groups of users. This feature allows you to take advantage
of server consolidation. See these references for the WLM:
z/OS Performance Management
Performance tuning tools are also provided for the z/OS operating system. RMF is IBM's strategic product for z/OS performance measurement and management. It is the base product to collect performance data for z/OS and sysplex environments to monitor systems' performance behavior and allows you to optimally tune and configure your system according to your business needs. See the following for detail on RMF:
z/OS Security References
z/OS provides enterprise-level security in a flexible yet reliable manner.
Different levels of authority can be set up
to handle such tasks as print queue or user management separately which
allows the safe delegation of authority. The links provided below offer
system administrators guidelines and principles by which they should implement
security on z/OS. Depending
on your software, understanding how security is implemented on z/OS may
be crucial to your application running on the zSeries platform.
z/OS Security Resources:
Internationalization references and tools
In today's global economy, it's important that you consider the internationalization or localization of your code. When your code is internationalized or localized for countries
around the world, it will not only support different character sets
such as Chinese or Cyrillic, but also support different date and calendar
formats. Whether you currently have customers globally or planning for them in the future, internationalization
of your code is something you should consider. Below are some basic references
to get you started with internationalization. One tool that you may want
to review is an open source tool called ICU (International Components for
Unicode). See the ICU FAQ link below for more information:
Problem Management tools and references
There is a centralized zSeries support Web site which has links to problem solving and support information. Below is a link to that site as well as
other links that you may find useful in tailoring your problem solving
methods to z/OS.
- zSeries Support - Contains many links to problem solving information
- Linux Support - Download fixes here for all Linux distributions
Database Access
DB2 Universal Database (UDB) for zSeries is a Licensed Program Product. It is a robust relational database system with a long successful history in the commercial marketplace.
For more information on DB2 UDB for zSeries, including migration see:
Printing
z/OS and OS/390 provide a print spooling subsystem and Advanced Function Printing (AFP) that can manage printing for you. In particular, IBM Infoprint Server and Infoprint Server Transforms for zSeries can help provide a scalable, highly available foundation for your e-business output infrastructure. Featuring a print interface that receives print requests from remote clients, a printer inventory, a print transmission facility, and management tools, Infoprint Server and Infoprint Server Transforms let you route your print jobs to any printers defined by Infoprint Server. To learn how to
leverage zSeries-specific print facilities, see the following:
General References and Interesting Redbooks
For more information, see:
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