Announcing z/OS Release 8

z/OS is designed to deliver the highest qualities of service for enterprise transactions and data and extends these qualities to new applications using the latest software technologies. It provides a highly secure, scalable, high performance base on which to deploy SOA-enabled applications using Internet and Java technologies. It can help to deliver a more comprehensive and diverse application execution environment coupled with a highly secure and resilient enterprise data store.

z/OS and z/OS.e V1.8, planned to be available September 29, 2006, are focused on simplifying z/OS management and enhancing z/OS robust qualities of service for data and applications.

Simplifying z/OS management

z/OS V1.8 delivers on more ease of use enhancements for mainframe professionals. IBM Health Checker for z/OS (enhanced and integrated as base component in z/OS 1.7) provides more checks and has an improved framework to make it easier to write checks, thus helping make it easier to test against best practices for configuration values. The Hardware Configuration Manager is vastly improved, adding new commands and enhanced function to the intuitive graphical user interface which was introduced in the previous release.

The IBM Configuration Assistant for z/OS Communications Server GUI, introduced with z/OS V1.7 as the z/OS Network Security Configuration Assistant, is extended to include support for QoS (Quality of Service) and IDS (Intrusion Detection Services) policy configuration. This is designed to help administrators configure IPSec, Application Transparent TLS, QoS, and IDS policies using a consistent user interface.

Additional ease of use enhancements are provided through:

• InfoPrint Central's improved operations and network connectivity diagnosis and problem resolution
• ISPF's easier search, auto-discover of workstation IP addresses, and improved alias processing
• RRS's new SHUTDOWN command
• RMF's new functionality

Also, the IBM OMEGAMON z/OS Management Console (a no-charge availability monitoring product) is designed to help improve the ease of use of z/OS. The console's advanced graphical user interface can deliver real-time health-check information provided by the IBM Health Checker for z/OS, and configuration status information for z/OS systems and sysplex resources. The IBM OMEGAMON z/OS Management Console has built-in alerting and expert advice capabilities that can offer detailed contextual information on alerts and corrective actions.

Designed for extreme scalability and availability for your data and applications

z/OS V1.8 helps extend system limits and continues support for data and application workload growth. z/OS V1.8 supports up to 4 TB of real memory on a single z/OS image, allowing the use of up to 512 GB of real memory on a single z/OS image on IBM System z9 EC servers and up to 256 GB on z990 servers. There are also improved support capabilities for large-format sequential data sets, increased system-wide and intra-address space limits for Global Resource Serialization (GRS), and improved high-level language support for VSAM data sets with extended addressability.

z/OS 1.8 also continues to help address requirements for high availability. z/OS V1.8 can extend DFSMS fast replication to the data set level on 2105 (Enterprise Storage Server) and later storage controllers. In addition, a new trigger for HyperSwap is based on I/O Timeout (MIH) - a proactive approach to switching disk volumes, designed to allow transactions to resume processing more quickly on secondary volumes.

Sysplex availability can be enhanced with functionality designed to provide:

• Improved recoverability for the z/OS UNIX System Services (z/OS UNIX) Byte Range Lock Manager
• Improved Coupling Facility Resource Manager (CFRM)
• Dynamic registration and deregistration of Domain Name Server (DNS)
• Improved Consoles processing and System Logger

In addition, the Server Time Protocol (STP) (planned for 4Q 2006*) is the new server timer protocol that is planned to replace ETR. STP is planned to be compatible with ETR and is intended to simplify configuration by eliminating an external sysplex timer and consolidating timer links with existing coupling links (ISC, ICB). STP is also planned to allow the GDPS/PPRC distance to be extended to 100 km without an intermediate External Time Reference.

Extending security leadership and networking enhancements

In z/OS V1.8, z/OS is designed to continue delivering industry leadership for security. Improvements that are all intended to help deliver the kind of security-rich environment that has made z/OS an industry leader include: RACF infrastructure for password phrases from 14 to 100 characters in length, improvements to IdenTrust-certified support for digital certificates (including SCEP and multiple-CA support), improvements for tape data set protection using RACF (or another external security manager), as well as support for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for IPSec.

In addition, there are significant improvements for networking and communications including improved Communication Server, Enterprise Extender, FTP, and Telnet as well as improved connectivity between z/OS SMB server and Windows clients via Windows Terminal Server (WTS) support. Sysplex networking is improved with the ability to specify subplexes for TCP/IP communications and improved sysplex autonomic functions, improvements in networking security, and support for Windows Terminal Server

Integrating and managing the infrastructure for application development and deployment

z/OS V1.8 has several important functions intended to deliver further application integration support and support for industry and de facto standards.

A new LDAP server for z/OS, IBM Tivoli Directory Server for z/OS, is designed to improve performance, scalability, auditability, availability, and ease of use (planned to be available 1H 2007*).

A new z/OS system component, z/OS XML System Services (z/OS XML), is designed to deliver an optimized set of XML parsing services for middleware that use XML.

In addition, Perl (version 5.8.7) has been ported to z/OS UNIX System Services and is easier to install and can improve reliability over past Perl implementations.

Also, z/OS UNIX, C/C++, Language Environment's Preinitialized Environments for Authorized Programs, Unicode support, ISPF, and XPLINK tracing have been designed to help with ease of use, system optimization, and application support.

z/OS V1.8 can also provide enhanced system management support. The Communications Server offers additional network and workload balancing improvements by favoring local servers, when possible, to help reduce inter-CEC network traffic. This release also has improvements that can:

• Enhance Workload Manager (WLM) processing for zAAP workloads
• Improve I/O priority for tape devices
• Help provide more integration between WLM and Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM)
• Support the latest CIM (Common Information Management) open standard

Manageability within a sysplex is designed for improvement with:

• z/OS Sysplex Distributor (working with WLM) option to favor local servers where possible
• Global Resource Serialization (GRS) enhancements
• JES2 batch workload balancing
• Improved sysplex autonomics that monitor network interfaces and can invoke recovery in the event of an interface failure.

z/OS.e

z/OS.e V1.8, also planned to be available September 29th, 2006, is a specially priced offering of z/OS for new applications on the z890, z800, and System z9 Business Class servers. z/OS.e provides an operating environment comparable to z/OS in all aspects of services, management, and reporting. z/OS.e supports the zAAP and zIIP and can participate in a Parallel Sysplex.

Requires IBM System z9 or zSeries servers

z/OS V1.8 requires z/Architecture and only runs on IBM System z9 and zSeries (z890, z990, z800, z900) servers.

Migration

z/OS V1.8 is an important release for all z/OS V1.5 customers because it is the last z/OS release that you can migrate to in a single step. End of service for z/OS V1.5 is planned for March 2007 and your plans to migrate to z/OS V1.8 should be in place to ensure migration is complete by this date.

* All statements regarding IBM future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represents goals and objectives only.