I hear you, Steve. I'm a 50-something mainframe systems programmer and still work on the big iron. But I also have been playing with Linux since it came on 36 floppy disks and to install you had to create "ram disks". Just getting it to boot was a major success. In the early 90's I had Red Hat serving a handful of people with UUCP to send/receive e-mail (list serv) from all over the world. This was way before Al Gore invented the WWW. I don't know how I knew Linux and *nix was going to be so big but when IBM came our with USS I was overjoyed. And when IBM announced Linux for a mainframe LPAR it felt like a prophecy revealed.
Here's one systems guy all for taking advantage of all platforms (except Windoze). Ken Klein Sr. Systems Programmer [email protected] 502-495-5000 x7011 -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Comstock Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX? 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 <== ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
