Hi,

The z10 supports up to z/OS 2.2 so you can be relatively current, but you ahve 
to order it pretty soon, or there will be an extra charge from IBM to do so, 
and if you decide to save money by moving to a z/13 or z/14 down the road (the 
software cost is cheaper), then you will be staged perfectly upgrades.  You are 
probably already using z/VM to get beyond some of the problems with OS/390 and 
the z10, and you will need to make sure that the LPARs are running the correct 
archlevels.

Catalog sharing is no problem at all, so long as you aren't going to attempt to 
migrate an active sysplex (which I doubt) you won't have to worry about 
anything relating to catalogs or datasets.  If you have ISAM datasets, you 
might want to convert them first because while z/OS 1.13 "supports" them, they 
really don't work well there.   You won't be able to use the new catalog 
sharing buffers when you are sharing the catalogs, but the difference in access 
times is trivial anyway.  Sharing unsupported datasets on the systems is also 
something to be aware of, Linear VSAM datasets and PDS/e's will need to be 
protected from the OS/390 system, and I wouldn't try to make OS/390 use any new 
really large DASD, but it gives you something to look forward to later:).  
There should be no sharing of the JES2 spool, but you can NJE between the LPARs 
(JES to JES) with no problems.  Even the TCP/IP update and the fact that your 
new system can manage OSA directly (do you have any on the z10, if not, buy 
some and get rid of your old control units, you will be happy you did).

When you get to the actual OS/390 to z/OS conversion the operating system part 
is quite simple and as others have already stated, you are going to need to 
nail down the Exits and home grown code before you start.  Exits are basically 
very simple to re-write, and I have found that it's best to just figure out 
what they were trying to do and put it in the right place.  You would be 
surprised at the things some sites will do in a SMF exit that was better off 
under Jes, or vice-versa, and many "things' won't even need to be redone 
because they are able to be controlled via parms instead of exits.  There are 
also probably several/many usermods to the system (and/or subsystems).  Many 
things won't need to be converted (exit and mods wise), but there is always 
some that you will want to keep.  No one wants to end up with something very 
important "missing" when you try to run production.

There will be a great number of subsystems and vendor products that will need 
to be converted at the same time.  That's where the bulk of your effort will 
come in because z/OS was the "easy" part.  If they are using CICS, that's one 
more conversion you have to juggle, DB/2, that's another, IMS, HSM, etc.  Then 
you have the vendor code, every vendor (CA, COMPUWARE, BMC, etc.) will not only 
want to double (or more) your costs, but they will have a series of conversions 
that you will have to go through.  For instance, if you are running CA-View, 
you will need to convert the database it uses two different times.  None of it 
is hard, but you have to know this all going into the project, or you will be 
eaten alive by the "one-more-thing" syndrome that vendors love to drag you 
through.

Once you have more information on where you are currently (subsystems and 
vendor software), I can be more specific.  Everything though will depend on the 
software a the platform you are "actually" running on now, and what IBM 
subsystems and vendor products that they are currently using.  Even the COBOL 
conversion can be a issue if you let it get away from you.  You can run the 
older (1974) COBOL on z/OS 2.3, you just have to set it up correctly, and it 
won't play well with LE/COBOL V6, whereas it can inter-operate with LE/COBOL 
4.2 with almost no problems at all.

Any way, you can contact me off-list if you want or I'll wait for your on-list 
responses.  My "checklist" for converting to z/OS from OS/390 is well over 
38,000 items and their "solutions", but that covers all IBM and Vendor products 
and all versions of z/OS back to MVS/XA 2.  I moved it to an iPad (and two 
backup iPads) several years ago so that I didn't have to page through multiple 
documents any more.

Brian Westerman

 

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