Overview

This five-day Boot Camp course is the essential introduction to the IBM z Systems enterprise computing environment and its flagship operating system, z/OS. The course introduces the concepts and terminology encountered and used by IS personnel every day, and explains them in an easily understandable manner.<br><br>The concepts, facilities and use of TSO and IBM's Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) are taught during this week, with a focus on the functions for data editing and dataset management. <br<br>The week concludes with an introduction to z/OS Job Control Language (JCL). Attendees will be introduced to the coding of job control statements to execute programs and access datasets in a z/OS environment. They will also learn how to write and test catalogued procedures. Throughout the week the formal classroom teaching is combined with an engaging and progressive series of hands-on practical sessions using a variety of IBM utilities.<br><br>This course is available 'On Demand' (minimum 2 students) and is also available for one-company, on-site presentations.
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Prerequisites

None.
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Delegates will learn how to

  • identify the principal components of IBM z Systems
  • describe how data is stored, the different data codes and types, and the devices used
  • explain the concepts of operating systems
  • use basic TSO commands
  • use and customise ISPF panel structures
  • browse and edit datasets
  • customise ISPF edit profiles
  • use advanced edit functions
  • submit and manage batch jobs
  • use the ISPF utilities such as copy and list
  • use search facilities
  • state the purpose of each z/OS job control statement
  • code JCL statements to access disk and cartridge files
  • describe and use the commonly used parameters
  • correct syntax errors in JCL statements
  • code in-stream procedures and override, nullify and add parameters
  • appreciate the implications of SMS when using z/OS JCL.
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Outline

The IBM z Systems Technical Environment

Origins; Types of computers; General purpose; Scientific; Scientific AND general purpose?; The PC; The Graphical User Interface (GUI); The application development backlog; The Local Area Network (LAN); Who runs the distributed data centre?; Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); Today's real world; What is a mainframe?; What can it do?; Hardware and software; Types of computing; Batch; Batch processing today; Interactive; On-line; Real time.

Enterprise Computing Hardware

Enterprise computing hardware; An IBM z Systems data centre and its contents; The processor complex; Parallel sysplex; Channels; Controllers; I/O units; Addressing; Local and remote; Disk storage; Old technology; Storing data on a traditional disk; The cylinder concept; Sectors; Cache storage; RAID - a newer technology; Disk Mirroring (RAID-1); Data Striping (RAID 5/6); Remote Disk copy; Virtual disks; Optical disks; Why magnetic tape?; Reel to reel tape; Cartridges; High performance tapes; Automated Tape Libraries; Virtual Tape Server; Other Input/output peripherals; Terminals, Laser printers, Line printers, Micro film and microfiche; Magnetic Ink Character Recognition; Optical Character Recognition; Bar codes; Communications equipment.

z Systems Software and Programs

What is software?; Types of software; System software; Exits; Application software; What does a program comprise?; Main module; Subroutines and procedures; Functions; Data; EBCDIC; ASCII; Building a program; Programming languages; Executing a program.

Practical Operations

Who runs the IT environment ?: Operators, Help Desk Operatives, Security Administrators, Systems Programmers, Storage Administrators, Network Analysts, Application Developers/Support' Database Administrators.

z/OS Operating System

The z/OS operating system - MVS; Some important definitions; Address spaces; Common area; Private area; Main components of MVS; MVS processing environments; On-line; TSO; z/OS communications server; VTAM; TCP/IP; JES: JES2, JES3; Transaction Servers: CICS, IMS; Databases: DB2, IMS; UNIX System Services; WebSphere Application Server.

Introduction to TSO

What is TSO; main uses of TSO; using TSO; when the TSO screen fills; logging on to TSO; logging off.

Basic TSO Commands

SEND, LISTBC, LISTALC, HELP and PROFILE commands; command prompting; aborting a TSO command.

Introduction to ISPF

What is ISPF; the ISPF panels; the pull-down menus; the Primary Option Menu; changing ISPF settings, function settings and log/list defaults; identifying error messages, entering TSO commands from ISPF, exiting from ISPF.

Browsing datasets in ISPF

Dataset naming rules and conventions; DASD dataset organisation; Partitioned Datasets; Partitioned Dataset Extended; specifying dataset names, PDS member list panel and shortcuts; browsing the data; scrolling; FIND command; finding picture strings; the LOCATE command; splitting the screen.

Basic Edit via ISPF

The editing process; the edit entry panel; member or dataset edit panel; scrolling during edit; edit line commands; manipulating lines; ending an edit session.

The ISPF Edit profile

Function of the Edit profile; displaying the Edit profile; profile options; creating new members; the insert and delete keys; CHANGE command; UNDO command; when you get locked up.

Advanced Edit with ISPF

Excluding and re-displaying lines; RESET command; switching between upper and lower case; column boundaries; text entry facilities; tab settings; manipulating data; submitting a batch job; nested edit sessions; saving data; cancelling an edit session.

Basic ISPF utilities

Utility selection menu; library utility; data set utility; move/copy utility; hardcopy utility; outlist utility.

ISPF Data Set List Utility

Dataset list; wildcard characters; dataset list and member list line commands; using a TSO command; SHOWCMD command; VTOC list and information; freeing unused space; repeating commands.

SuperC and Search-For

SuperC utility; SuperCE utility; Search-For utility; Search-ForE utility.

z/OS: Structure and Components

MVS background and history; MVS main memory and virtual storage; MVS versions; Address space layout; Common area; Private area; Main components of MVS; MVS processing environments: On-line, TSO, ISPF, Batch; MVS spooling; Other program products and their functions.

Introduction to z/OS JCL

Basic job structure; Job stream processing; JCL output; JCL statement types; JCL statement format and coding rules; JES2 control statements; JES3 control statements; JCL error points.

The JOB Statement

The JOB statement overview; Accounting information - positional; Programmer's name - positional; Keyword parameters; Other keyword parameters; Example JOB statements.

The EXEC Statement

The EXEC statement; EXEC format - program; EXEC format - procedure; EXEC keyword parameters; Other EXEC keyword parameters; COND parameter; EVEN or ONLY; Example EXEC statements; EXEC statement summary.

Printing and In-stream Data

Print files & In-stream data; Printing: Examples, DEST, COPIES, DCB; Output statement; OUTPUT statement: Implicit, Explicit, Multiple output; Output statement parameters; Examples; OUTDISP parameter; In-stream data.

The DD Statement

The DD statement; DD parameters: DSN, DISP, UNIT and VOL; SMS considerations; DD statement summary: Existing catalogued data set, Existing non-catalogued data set.

The DD Statement - Working with Datasets

Dataset types; Sequential datasets; Partitioned Data Sets; VSAM datasets; BUFNO; Accessing existing datasets; Creating new non-VSAM datasets; Data Control Block parameters; SPACE parameter; Space allocation DSCBs; System Managed Storage: Disk datasets with SMS, Space allocation with SMS. DCB parameters with SMS; Creating VSAM datasets in JCL; Generation datasets; SMS GDG considerations; Stages in creating a generation dataset; Tape datasets; . LABEL parameter; DD statement summary; Creating a new dataset on disk - non-SMS; Creating a new tape dataset.

Further DD Considerations

Special ddnames; JOBLIB; STEPLIB; Dump datasets; Concatenated datasets; Temporary dataset names; Dummy datasets.

Catalogued Procedures

JCL procedures; In-stream procedures; What a catalogued procedure cannot contain; Cataloguing a procedure; INCLUDE statement; Calling a procedure; Symbolic parameters; Examples of symbolic translation; Default parameters; Resolving symbolic parameters; SET statement; Modifying EXEC statement parameters; Modifying DD parameters; Concatenated datasets; Adding DD statements; Substitution prefixes; Using a standard COBOL compile/link/go procedure.

Conditional JCL Statements

The general construct; Name field; Relational-expression field; Relational-expression keywords; Comparison operators; Logical operators; NOT operator; Order of priority of operators; Parentheses; THEN and ELSE clauses; Contents of THEN and ELSE clauses; IF/THEN/ELSE/ENDIF and COND.

Common MVS Abend Codes

Problem handling; Program abends; Common MVS completion codes.

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