IBM Academic Initiative, System z™ course materials
This page holds the course materials for the System z program of the IBM Academic Initiative. Most of the materials are intended for use in a 15-week semester IT course (although some are smaller and can be used to supplement other course materials.) The audience is assumed to be college students in an Information Technology, Business Information Systems, or Computer Science curriculum.
Available System z courses
Introduction to the COBOL Language
This course introduces the student to COBOL Language on the mainframe platform. The student will learn computer programming and reporting for file-oriented, computerized information systems utilizing the COBOL language. It introduces COBOL sorting routines, table handling features, structured coding techniques, and sequential disk organization. There are 14 modules consisting of PowerPoint slides. There are six labs, five homework assignments, and three exams.
An Introduction to the Mainframe: Large Scale Commercial Computing
Today the mainframe plays a central role in the daily operations of most of the world's largest corporations. The reasons for mainframe use are many. This course helps students gain an understanding of the reasons companies chose mainframe systems to run (and grow) their large scale computing environments. Topics include capacity, scalability, integrity and security, availability, access to large amounts of data, systems management, and autonomic capabilities. Materials include a textbook with 8 chapters, a set of PowerPoint slides for each chapter, and exercises.
An Introduction to the Mainframe: Networking
This textbook for a full-semester course provides students of information systems technology with the background, knowledge, and skills necessary to begin using the basic communication facilities of a mainframe system. It provides a broad understanding of networking principles and the hardware and software components necessary to allow the mainframe to participate in a high volume data communications network. Topics covered include: overview of the importance of the mainframe environment, functions and roles of networking professionals, TCP/IP, SNA, SNA/IP implementation on the mainframe, networking operations, security, and problem determination. Materials include a textbook with 13 chapters, a set of PowerPoint slides for each chapter, and exercises.
An Introduction to the Mainframe: z/OS Basics (course text)
This course includes a 20-chapter Student textbook, an instructor version of the book with answers to chapter questions and some additional material, thePowerPoint slides with speaker notes for each chapter, and 11 lab exercises (in the textbook). The text is divided into four parts: introduction to z/OS and the mainframe environment, application programming on z/OS, online workloads for z/OS, and system programming on z/OS.
An Introduction to the Mainframe: Security
This textbook for a full-semester course provides students of information systems with the background, knowledge, and skills necessary to begin using the basic security facilities of large systems (mainframes). It enables a broad understanding of both the security principles and the hardware and software components needed to insure that the mainframe resources and environment are secure. Topics include elements of security, system architecture and virtualization, cryptography, as well security in operating systems, networks, middleware and applications. Materials include a textbook with 24 chapters, a set of PowerPoint slides, and questions for review and discussion.
e-business with WebSphere Application Server for z/OS
This course describes WebSphere Application Server for z/OS V5 and shows how it enables Java programs to be used in a z/OS environment. The course covers Java on z/OS, Enterprise Java beans, installing and configuring WAS for z/OS, managing WAS for zOS, deploying Java applications on z/OS, and using Java to access IMS and DB2 data on the mainframe. The audience is college students with some knowledge of z/OS, Java and the UNIX System Services component of z/OS.
z/OS Basic Interfaces: ISPF
This course introduces students to the basic end-user interface of the z/OS operating system, Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF), with special emphasis on the Program Development Facility (PDF). It begins by describing the menu system through which you access ISPF starting with the ISPF Primary Options Menu. You will learn ways to navigate and jump throughout the system and use interesting ISPF features. The course also covers the fundamentals of manipulating data sets, including browsing, viewing, and allocating.
The ISPF editor facility is covered in detail, describing inserting, repeating, copying, moving, and deleting lines. You will learn to customize the environment through edit modes and creating edit profiles. Advanced techniques like finding and changing text, excluding and redisplaying lines, and shifting text are described.
A thorough foundation in the ISPF utilities is provided. This includes the library utilities, data set utilities, move/copy utility, data set list utility, and compare/search utilities.
The final topic covers the processing of background jobs. It explains the phases of a background job. You will learn how to submit a job for background processing, monitor the status of a job while it is waiting, executing, or waiting for its output to print, and retrieve the output for a job that is completed.
Enterprise Server Transaction Management (course)
This course is based on CICS Transaction Manager for OS/390, and was created in 2000. It introduces you to major concepts and features that are applicable to the entire Customer Information Control System (CICS) family of products. You will learn about the internal structure of CICS, how CICS uses management functions with the associated tables to process a user-inititated transaction and how supplied CICS transactions are used for online system management. This course also covers CICS connectivity and intercommunciation facilities that are used for communicating between CICS systems. The course presents the CICS Application Programming Interface
(API), introduces you to general guidelines that support CICS application programming design along with CICS testing and debugging facilities. The course is in four units and has a total of 188 slides. There are also four labs and questions for three exams.
Enterprise Server Data Management (course)
This course presents the concepts of relational database management with DB2 through the example of the data storage and retrieval issues in a bicycle shop. It has six sections: Overview, DB2 for End Users, DB2 for Programmers, DB2 for Administrators, Data Modeling and Database Design, and Distributed Data Considerations. There are 21 modules in Word format with illustrations, nine labs, and questions for seven exams. Topics include: file systems, relational database management systems, writing SQL statements, programming roles, creating a test environment, preparing a program for execution, stored procedures, static vs dynamic SQL, system and database administrators, business and data modeling, planning for distributed data, and data warehousing. The course has 21 units of graphics and text in MS Word format, nine labs, and questions for a final exam.
Enterprise Server Intro to Programming -- Assembler (modules)
This course introduces the student to Assembler Language on the OS/390 platform. It is intended for students with some previous programming background in another language (COBOL, PL/1, C, C++, etc.). It introduces binary data representation, hexadecimal notation, basic arithmetic operations, data representation concepts, addressing, general and special-purpose registers, instruction formats and conventions, data structures, masks and condition codes, widely-used instructions, Boolean logic operations, and macro instructions.
The course is in three sections: Introduction, Intermediate Assembler, and Advanced Assembler, with five modules in each section. Each module consists of PowerPoint slides with speaker notes. There are four labs and six exams.
Enterprise Server Intro to Programming -- JCL (modules)
This course teaches students how to use z/OS and OS/390 JCL and selected utility programs. SMS considerations are also covered. Students learn how to code basic JCL statements using proper syntax and coding rules, including JCL for: creating new data sets, referring to existing data sets, testing condition codes, using conditional phrases, coding in-stream and cataloged procedures, using symbolic parameters in procedures, using utility programs, and recognizing and resolving common problems. There are sixteen modules of PowerPoint slides and four labs in this course.
Enterprise Server Intro to Programming -- VSAM (modules)
This course provides a background for people who will be managing data sets using IDCAMS (VSAM Access Method Services). The student is assumed to have a working knowledge of Job Control Language (JCL). Since students will be creating and submitting jobs, as well as viewing and interpreting job output, they should also be familiar with TSO/ISPF/PDF and TSO outlist or SDSF (or equivalent). This course is designed for data processing managers, system analysts, application and systems
programmers, storage administrators, and anyone who needs a basic understanding of the VSAM access method as it is used in the z/OS environment. It has eight sets of slides and four labs.
Linux on System z (course)
This course introduces the major functions and capabilities of Linux on System z and describes the technical differences between Linux on System z and other UNIX/Linux implementations, especially the UNIX System Services component of z/OS. It also goes into the advantages of Linux on System z -- total cost of ownership, scalability, performance, administration, availability, system resouces, memory management, security and connectivity advantages (virtual networking). It shows how Linux on System z fits into the e-business/e-Server environment and includes a brief introduction to On-demand and Grid computing. There are practical exercises on installing and cloning Linux images as well as installing web servers and firewalls on a virtual machine. The course has 13 modules of PowerPoint slides, 13 Word files of speaker notes, three
tests, and 13 labs.
The UNIX System Services component of z/OS (modules)
Introduction to z/VM (course)
The course describes basic z/VM concepts and terminology, including the functions of a Virtual Machine and where z/VM fits in the z/Architecture framework; the major z/VM components, CMS and CP; the REXX programming language; CMS Pipelines; performance considerations for a z/VM system; storage management options for z/VM; networking devices and protocols available with a z/VM system; and system security and data integrity. The course has 13 PowerPoint modules with speaker notes, 13 labs, and 13 tests.
|
 |
|
