On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:29:04 -0600, Jim Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Just something to be aware of when ordering z/OS V1R10. IBM has just >withdrawn Enterprise COBOL for z/OS V3R4 (5655-G53) from marketing. What >was not expected is when we ordered a ServerPac which should include >COBOL, it is not included. What could be included is Enterprise COBOL for z/OS >V4R1 (5655-S71); SURPRISE. > >After much discussion with our SE and ServerPac team, they offered a "fee >service" to put together a COBOL distribution of 5655-G53 to ship to us. After >much more discussion and exchanging tears of injustice IBM agreed to send a >CBPDO as a final gesture for N/C. > >OK, first for the observation. The SE's back in the 20th Century looked out for >us as far as keeping tabs on software upgrades, etc, advising and reminding >us to order, etc. Seems in this new 21st Century I get to monitor all the >Announcement letters on my own and look out for Ole #1 (the new way). > >Question: are others finding this to be true and if so, what tools or things do >you use to keep pace with withdrawls, etc, for what you own? > Did you do the ordering or someone else? There should have been a warning about the products that you couldn't order and suggestions for a supported version at that time. Not only that, there are confirmations emails that show you all the products ordered. So I really don't understand why this would have been a surprise unless someone wasn't paying attention at all. As to "what to do": There isn't even an EOS date for Enterprise COBOL 3.4 as far as I know, so there is no compelling reason to upgrade if you don't want to or don't need the new features. Assuming you already had 3.4 (as we do), I would just not order any COBOL and then migrate 3.4 from my existing SMP/E zones to my new set of zones with BUILDMCS. Another option is to just build a separate set of zones for it. You might want to do that anyway (or at least a separate target zone) if you think you would order a newer release of COBOL before a new OS ServerPac. Mark -- Mark Zelden Sr. Software and Systems Architect - z/OS Team Lead Zurich North America / Farmers Insurance Group - ZFUS G-ITO mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] z/OS Systems Programming expert at http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/ Mark's MVS Utilities: http://home.flash.net/~mzelden/mvsutil.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
