Archive
This archive contains links to PDF versions of all previously published Hot Topics articles and magazines prior to 2020.
2019 articles
| Title | Authors | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Pervasive Encryption Information Goldmine | Jacky Doll, Cecilia Carranza Lewis | July 25th, 2019 | Pervasive encryption is a consumable approach to enable extensive encryption associated with protecting data and achieving compliance mandates. With the z14, you can encrypt all data—in flight and at rest—faster, and less expensively. Pervasive encryption capabilities on the z14 enable you to protect data efficiently, allowing you to encrypt data at the database, data set and disk level, with no changes to applications. |
| z/OS Cloud Broker Enables z/OS Resource Consumption | Ivan Dovgan, William Keller | July 12th, 2019 | To give developers a friendly user experience when developing for IBM Z*, we need to shift away from traditional models of resource consumption and understand how resources are readily consumed in the rest of the development world. With the click of a button, developers can now receive databases, application servers, message queues and seemingly endless other resources. Developers’ ability to manage their own environments is now a staple. Without it, agility and efficiency is lost. This is precisely where IBM z/OS Cloud Broker helps bridge the gap for workloads on z/OS. |
| IBM zCX Frequently Asked Questions | Caroline Turner, Kim Betros, Gary Puchkoff | May 22nd, 2019 | IBM z/OS Container Extensions (zCX) is a new z/OS 2.4 feature that enables clients to deploy Linux on Z applications as Docker containers in a z/OS system to directly support z/OS workloads. This is done without provisioning a separate Linux server, maintains operational control within z/OS and is supported by z/OS Qualities of Service (QoS). This article provides answers to the most commonly asked questions about zCX. |
| Trusted Key Entry Policy Wizards | Garry Sullivan | March 1st, 2019 | Do you have IBM Z host crypto modules and want to manage them using the most secure tool and processes available? Do you find the thought of using Trusted Key Entry (TKE) overwhelming? Well, don’t worry. TKE has a set of wizards for you to use to help uncomplicate things. |
| Cultivating Talent for IBM Z | Troy Crutcher | January 1st, 2019 | I work on the IBM Z Academic Initiative team and each day I hear similar questions. Are young folks interested in this technology? Are schools teaching the mainframe? How have other companies addressed their retiring workforce? A large percentage of my team is retirement-eligible, can you help? Do these questions sound familiar? If so, you’re in the right place! We helped some amazing clients and students to share their stories with you. |
2018 articles
| Title | Authors | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBM Z Hardware Management Console YouTube Videos | Eric Weinmann, Brian Valentine, Christine Smith | November 1st, 2018 | IBM Z Hardware Management Console (HMC) customers wanted a quick way to learn about some of the latest HMC features. In response, we created some YouTube videos, which provide task-centered visual instructions to complement the documentation we already provide. |
| Confidently producing secure PDFs by using Signed Secure PDF Transform for z/OS | Anthony Mingo, Tariq Choudhry | October 1st, 2018 | The IBM Signed Secure PDF Transform feature enables users to sign PDF documents produced by IBM Print Transform from AFP to PDF for Infoprint Server for z/OS. It builds on the base of the AFP to PDF product to produce a digitally signed PDF by applying a digital certificate to the PDF content. It also provides additional security to prevent changes to sensitive transactional documents and to enable tamper detection. |
| IBM Z Content Solutions | Jacky Doll, Nicole Rae, William Keller | September 1st, 2018 | With hundreds of z/OS and related books in the IBM Knowledge Center along with countless other resources scattered throughout the web, finding information about z/OS offerings can be overwhelming. When you do find information, it can be difficult to know where to start, and what steps to take. The resolution to these challenges? IBM Z content solutions. |
| Container Pricing for IBM Z Brings Predictability to Cost | Andrew M. Sica, William Keller | July 1st, 2018 | Container Pricing for IBM Z* allows IBM to deliver a revolution in the pricing of qualified solutions on z/OS*: pricing that’s not affected by the cost of unrelated software or whether the solution runs during a peak time. IBM has designed a set of solutions around the framework, each of which targets a key requirement of z/OS clients. |
| Confidently Secure Your Data with Hyper Protect DBaaS in IBM Cloud on IBM Z | Pradeep Parameshwaran | May 2nd, 2018 | In the present cognitive computing world, data is everything. By the year 2020, enterprises will have accumulated 44 ZB (zettabytes) of data. Much of that data includes highly valuable information about an enterprise itself or the individuals associated with the enterprise—for example, the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of employees or customers. To protect such data, an enterprise must have a secured infrastructure and databases. |
| What’s New With ICSF HCR77C1 | Bob Petti | May 1st, 2018 | Cryptographic Support for z/OS V2R1 - z/OS V2R3, also known as ICSF FMID HCR77C1 or web deliverable number 17, was released in September of 2017 and has many things to brag about. The updates contained in this release vary from usability improvements, such as an ISPF-based browser for CKDS key material, to integrated support for a PCI HSM configured CCA coprocessor. |
| Be Prepared! Tape Delivery Disappearing! | Lucy Miller | April 1st, 2018 | As stated in the IBM Software Announcement 218-118, dated March 6, 2018, you soon will no longer have the delivery on tape media option for your z/OS product or service orders. As of July 1, 2018, the only supported delivery methods will be Internet and DVD with an effective date of July 16, 2018. Now would be a good time to begin using an alternate delivery method. Internet delivery is the recommended method and is used for nearly 90 percent of z/OS software orders. If you require a physical delivery method, choose DVD. |
| z/OS V2.3 Migration Book Is Transformed to a z/OSMF Workflow | Wayne O'Brien, Marna Walle | April 1st, 2018 | Looking for the “z/OS* V2.3 Migration” book? Don’t look now, but it’s been transformed into an IBM z/OS Management Facility (z/OSMF) workflow. For the past decade, whenever you upgraded to a new release of z/OS, you turned to the venerable migration book. You’ve come to rely on this critical asset for all the important details. |
| Terminal Talk: 'The Mainframe Podcast I Didn’t Know That I Needed' | Jeff Bisti, Frank De Gilio | March 1st, 2018 | Think back to your first day working on the mainframe. You were probably completely overwhelmed and wondering why everything had to be so complicated. To make matters worse, the mainframe has developed its own culture, terminology and library of acronyms that seem like they were inherited from a sci-fi novel. It’s confusing and there’s so much to learn. How can someone new to the mainframe platform ever expect to catch up, much less have fun with it? This is where the “Terminal Talk” podcast can help. |
| Transform z/OS Output to Accessible PDF for the Visually Impaired | Anthony Mingo, Tariq Choudhry | February 1st, 2018 | Learn how to augment information from AFP input and produce accessible PDF output that’s compliant with the ISO 14289-1 PDF/UA standard or WCAG 2.0 AA. |
| IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS Helps Organizations Become Service Providers | Hiren Shah | January 1st, 2018 | z/OS V2.3 delivers enhancements to the z/OS platform’s cloud capabilities that you can use to begin your transformation from an IT cost center to a value-generating service provider, delivering world-class services internally over the intranet or externally over the internet. These enhancements, referred as IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS, were also rolled back to z/OS V2.2 (with PTFs UI42847 and UI46543) and z/OS V2.1 (with PTF UI43814). |
2017 articles
| Title | Authors | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| RACF Ghost Busted: Easily Finding and Fixing Ghost Profiles | Jun Ogata, Scott Woolley | December 11th, 2017 | Is your RACF database still haunted by ghost profiles? Do you enter the SEARCH command and still find (apparently) generic profiles that you are unable to change? Well the folks that brought you the “RACF Ghost Hunters” Hot Topics article have some great news for you. Your RACF ghosts are now busted! |
| Crypto Statistics Monitor Watches Resource Usage | Eysha Powers, Ronald Edick | June 6th, 2017 | Security is a principle concern in today’s world, and the secure handling of data is an essential component of security. Cryptographic Support for z/OS V2.1 to z/OS V2.3, provides a means for the secure and reliable handling of data with Crypto Statistics Monitor. It helps security administrators and capacity planners monitor the use of cryptographic resources and shows which resources are being used, how much these resources are being used, and who is using these resources. |
| Monitor the Cryptographic Protection of Your z/OS Network Traffic | Chris Meyer, Dave Wierbowski, Michael Gierlach | October 9th, 2017 | With the increasing number corporate, industry, and government regulations regarding cryptographic protection of data in flight, as well as discoveries of weaknesses in existing cryptographic protocols and algorithms, it has become very important that z/OS administrators and auditors have a way to assess the quality of the cryptographic network protection being applied to their key z/OS workloads. |
| Aggregate Content for IBM Z Products With IBM Doc Buddy V2 | Alicia Mao, Emily Siu, Yvonne Ma | September 29th, 2017 | With the IBM Doc Buddy mobile app, you can search messages and codes issued from IBM Z products online and offline. You can also locate helpful Mainframe information (including blogs, videos, and IBM Knowledge Center topics) on the Doc Buddy App. |
| Metering and Capping on z/OS for Apache Spark | Jessie Yu, Michael Gildein, Elpida Tzortzatos, Tom Rankin | September 11th, 2017 | The new Metering and Capping support allows the system capacity planner more granular control over CPU and memory consumption for various workloads and enables the system to host new workloads more easily. You can use this new support to ensure resource-hungry workloads, such as z/OS Platform for Apache Spark (z/OS Spark), coexist nicely alongside other production workloads. |
| IBM z13 Configuration Best Practices | Kevin McKenzie | August 7th, 2017 | The end of Moore's Law has meant that hardware no longer gets free performance boosts every generation; instead, IBM provides capacity by increasing the number of engines, and by making architectural changes to both the hardware and software to make sure they work well together. Be sure to check out these configuration best practices. |
| IBM Machine Learning for z/OS Is Supported By Apache Spark | Francois Puget, Mythili Venkatakrishnan | July 5th, 2017 | Businesses must constantly adapt to changing conditions: competitors introduce new offerings, consumer habits evolve, the economic and political environment change, etc. While this isn’t new, the velocity at which business conditions change is accelerating. This pace of change places a new burden on technology solutions developed for a business, creating a unique opportunity for machine learning, which is designed to address the fluid nature of these problems. |
Previous Hot Topics newsletters
| Title | Product number | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #30 | GA32-0892-03 | August 1st, 2016 | Cloud computing, Analytics, z/OSMF. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #29 | GA32-0892-02 | August 1st, 2015 | Security. The printed copy of z/OS Hot Topics, issue 29 has incorrect technical information in 'Track down GRS requests with SMF' on page 30. The first two sentences have been revised and the paragraph under the topic for 'Enter global resource serialization' has also been revised. The revised article is in the online PDF on this webpage. To see the solution to the word search on page 25, go to the z/OS Hot Topics page on Facebook. While you're there, make sure to Like us! |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #28 | GA32-0892-01 | August 1st, 2014 | Smarter Computing with z/OS V2R1. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #27 | GA32-0892-00 | August 1st, 2013 | z/OS V2R1, IBM zEnterprise, Flash Express, zAware, z/OSMF. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #26 | GA22-7501-22 | August 1st, 2012 | The fine art of z/OS. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #25 | GA22-7501-21 | August 1st, 2011 | z/OS: a smarter operating system for a Smarter Planet. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #24 | GA22-7501-20 | January 1st, 2011 | zEnterprise gets you where you are going. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #23 | GA22-7501-19 | August 1st, 2010 | Business resiliency and problem determination. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #22 | GA22-7501-18 | March 1st, 2010 | Security and auditing. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #21 | GA22-7501-17 | August 1, 2009 | Simplification. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #20 | GA22-7501-15 | February 1, 2009 | 10th Anniversary Special. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #19 | GA22-7501-15 | August 1st, 2008 | On to V1R10 - And a greener data center. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #18 | GA22-7501-14 | February 1st, 2008 | Stand-alone dump best practices. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #17 | GA22-7501-13 | August 1st, 2007 | Meet zIIP and zAAP IBM's specialty processors. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #16 | GA22-7501-12 | February 1st, 2007 | All things data. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #15 | GA22-7501-11 | August 1st, 2006 | zIIP, Encryption, Coupling facility, z/OS basic skills, continuous availability. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #14 | GA22-7501-10 | February 2nd, 2006 | z/OS: Simply secure. |
| History of the Mainframe poster | N/A | February 1st, 2006 | Bonus PDF. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #13 | GA22-7501-09 | August 1st, 2005 | IBM Health Checker for z/OS. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #12 | GA22-7501-08 | February 1st, 2005 | Making the most of 64-bit SVC dumps. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #11 | GA22-7501-07 | August 1st, 2004 | Infrastructure simplification. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #10 | GA22-7501-06 | February 1st, 2004 | z/OS download for dummies. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #9 | GA22-7501-05 | August 1st, 2003 | Tools. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #8 | GA22-7501-04 | February 2003 | Migrating to z/OS. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #7 | GA22-7501-03 | August 2002 | Security. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #6 | GA22-7501-02 | February 2002 | zSeries, a key to tomorrow's e-business. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #5 | GA22-7501-01 | August 2001 | New architecture, shop for zSeries. |
| z/OS Hot Topics Newsletter #4 | GA22-7501-00 | February 2001 | z/OS: The path to the new world. |
| Hot Topics Newsletter #3 | GA22-7431-02 | August 2000 | Making your information technology installation a more dynamic place. |
| Hot Topics Newsletter #3 Supplement | GA22-7431-02 | August 2000 | Parallel sysplex. |
| Hot Topics Newsletter #2 | GA22-7431-01 | February 2000 | TCP/IP. |
| Hot Topics Newsletter #2 Supplement | GA22-7431-01 | February 2000 | UNIX. |
| Hot Topics Newsletter #1 | GA22-7431-00 | August 1999 | Language environment. |
Hot Spotlight articles
| Title | Authors | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driving home the mainframe memories: Forty-four years of disk-drive development | John Eells | November 2009 | John Eells continues his mainframe retrospective with our third installment about the history of IBM disk drives. |
| Ask Mr. Catalog: Answers to common ICF catalog questions | Stephen M. Branch | August 2009 | Another in a set of questions and answers about catalogs from Stephen Branch, Mr. Catalog himself. |
| Mirror, mirror (on the site): Deployment scenarios for TPC-R on z/OS | Nick Clayton | September 2009 | Learn how to deploy TotalStorage Productivity Center for Replication (TPC-R) in your z/OS enterprise by Nick Clayton. |
| Life begins at 40... Happy birthday, CICS | David Reynolds and Nick Garrod | September 2009 | Celebrate 40 years of CICS with a birthday salute from David Reynolds and Nick Garrod. |
| Latch onto better contention resolution | Chris Brooker, Nick Matsakis, and Steven Partlow | September 2009 | Learn about how to handle latch contention in z/OS V1R11 with global resource serialization (GRS) from Chris Brooker, Nick Matsakis, and Steven Partlow. |
| Enhance your I/O performance with IBM System Z | Harry Yudenfriend | April 2009 | Read about the latest enhancements to I/O performance including FICON I/O operations and the IBM System Storage DS8000 solid state drive (SSD) technology by Harry Yudenfriend. |
| z-the Difference: Sysplex availability | Dave Raften | August 2008 | Read about how the System z sysplex makes all the difference when it comes to availability. |
| Please DO touch that dial: zFS performance tuning | TJ Morrissey | August 2008 | Find out how the zSeries File System provides the best in performance tuning of zFS. |