When I grew up in the mainframe world, UNIX was
considered to be the enemy. But I was working for
IBM, and UNIX products were competitors, so that's
kind of an expected perspective.
Today, z/OS provides a rich set of UNIX services,
including HFS/zFS files, a shell, a UNIX kernel,
and more, to supplement / complement the classic
MVS facilities.
People who grew up with UNIX seem to despise or
denigrate z/OS UNIX as missing a lot of features or
behaviors that they are used to. But those of us who
grew up in the OS/360-and-successors world don't know
what we're missing, so it all seems to be pretty
handy as is. Of course, there's always something new
in the next release.
There has been a perception that UNIX is less secure
than z/OS. But I think that is an old perception.
And when you utilize z/OS UNIX, your primary security
comes from z/OS security services (RACF, Top Secret,
ACF2, and so on), so that applications using z/OS
UNIX should be as secure as any other z/OS applications.
Several people on the list talk about their manager's
dislike, distrust, disdain for z/OS UNIX (for example,
John McKown recently wrote, speaking of people at his
installation that would be left if he were to lose his
job: "They seem to regard UNIX on z/OS as an abomination.")
I'd like to understand this visceral reaction, with an
eye to seeing what can be done to moderate it down to at
least a level of skepticism ("OK, what can this do for
me?").
Of course, I have an agenda in doing this: I've written
a number of courses on using z/OS UNIX, and I'd like to
see some interest in companies taking this training.
I'm just finishing up a course on writing COBOL CGIs,
and it seems to me that if IT management truly wants to
keep costs down, they would look at using z/OS for
web hosting.
This can be done very inexpensively:
* IBM provides two free HTTP servers, one
comes automatically with z/OS, the other
is free but must be ordered separately
* Most installations already have a COBOL
compiler for writing CGI code, so there's
no additional cost for software and you
have staff that already knows the language
or you can write CGIs in Assembler (a
less attractive option in most shops)
* Your installation already has VSAM and
probably some database product such as DB2,
so there's no need for any additional
software to serve up data
* Although you don't need Java to do this,
if you want to use Java facilities, IBM
provides it at no charge
You don't need WebSphere; you don't need Java.
Just the free facilities available with your
z/OS system and your current programming staff.
But you do need to use at least some parts of
z/OS UNIX.
So what's the hangup about z/OS UNIX?
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
z/OS Application development made easier
* Our classes include
+ How things work
+ Programming examples with realistic applications
+ Starter / skeleton code
+ Complete working programs
+ Useful utilities and subroutines
+ Tips and techniques
==> Check out the Trainer's Friend Store to purchase z/OS <==
==> application developer toolkits. Sample code in four <==
==> programming languages, JCL to Assemble or compile, <==
==> bind and test. <==
==> http://www.trainersfriend.com/TTFStore/index.html <==
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