First off, you don't want to track 'PTFs' so much as APARs. Often a single APAR applies to multiple release levels, each of which will have its own unique PTF. If you track and order by APAR, you can submit essentially the same order for each level (CSI) that you support.
As far as knowing what to track, I use... -- ASAP, a function of ServiceLink. Unfortunately I have not found a slick way to tell ASAP about the FMIDs I want to track, but once you get them all defined, you will get notified of important APARs for each tracked FMID. 'Important' generally means PE, HIPER, or ATTENTION. There are frequent, more or less daily, updates, but the number is not overwhelming. -- FIXCAT (fix category). This info comes along with HOLDDATA when you download 'ALL' data. A FIXCAT report tells you what important PTFs you're missing. 'Important' here is defined by each support organization, which supplies the HOLDDATA. If you report the results of these tracking mechanisms, you should satisfy this rather onerous demand. (Think pointy haired boss.) BTW any tracking method may have trouble with z/OS 1.9, which despite your contract is technically 'unsupported'. . . JO.Skip Robinson SCE Infrastructure Technology Services Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 626-302-7535 Office 323-715-0595 Mobile jo.skip.robin...@sce.com From: "Barkow, Eileen" <ebar...@doitt.nyc.gov> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Date: 04/07/2011 11:16 AM Subject: Re: Identifying Latest zOS Fixes Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu> Look at preventive service planning on ibmlink- Select maint search on left, then z/os, fill in system (z/os from menu) and year and put level https://www-304.ibm.com/ibmlink/psp/submit.wss -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Tony Lessells Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 1:43 PM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: Identifying Latest zOS Fixes Hi all, our management have asked us to do a weekly review of new PTFs to ensure we apply any that are relevant. I realise there are flaws to this but who am I to argue. However I don't really know where to start - we've a mixture of zOS 1.9 (under extended support) and 1.11 systems - is there somewhere on IBM support that simply lists all the latest PTFs? I have tried using the My Notifications under Electronic Support but wasn't convinced this gave me a definitive list. Any advice on where to start on this would be appreciated. Thanks. Tony. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
