In its third annual CICS report released today, H&W Computer Systems (H&W) is disclosing the results and analysis of the 2012 CICS® survey that leading mainframe publication z/Journal conducted. In addition to announcing the 2012 results, the new report compares this year’s findings to those from 2011 and 2010 and explains their significance in the context of the modern IT environment. H&W is providing these findings through a special arrangement with z/Journal.
Latest Entries
The way we dealt with savings in IT in the past was often more tactical than strategic, with results we didn’t always anticipate. Can you honestly say we really did do proper risk analysis when we were asked to cut another 10 percent? The effects of years of cost-cutting exercises have taken some time, but they’re finally hitting us at exactly the worst possible moment.
With a network of thousands of independent insurance representatives throughout the U.S. and Canada selling term life insurance, Primerica’s corporate commitment to 24x7 processing with continuous availability and support goes without saying, as does its commitment to zEnterprise technology in its data centers. However, supporting and building upon a sound technology base also includes the ability to grow staff along with the technology and to implement more effective technology monitoring and problem diagnosis and resolution tools.
When people think of groundbreaking medical advances, they think of Boston, New York, maybe Los Angeles or Houston, but not Orlando. Florida Hospital, a major faith-based, full-service, academic and teaching healthcare system headquartered in Orlando, however, might change that.
The delivery of IT services is more difficult today than ever due to several factors. First is the constant growth of data volumes that not only stress primary storage but also make backup and recovery extraordinarily difficult. This is exacerbated by users’ much higher expectations for data availability that in turn severely restrict backup windows and restore times. In addition, the expanding use of virtualization and cloud-based services give users a taste of immediacy and location-independence they lap up like hungry dogs; virtual machines can be created in minutes, and data can be accessed via the cloud rapidly from any location, with multiple devices. Mainframe systems aren’t immune to these new developments and are increasingly being asked to provide unprecedented services and service levels, particularly in terms of data availability and protection. As the business becomes accustomed to secure, scalable, efficient backup procedures and instant recovery of applications, mainframe systems must adjust.
z/VSE 5.1 has been available for order since late November 2011. The key building blocks for user exploitation of z/VSE 5.1—third-party vendor system and application software—are ready and available.
With so many different kinds of mobile devices, applications and users, many companies try to minimize abuse by writing a policy statement providing rules and guidelines. This document is usually three to five pages, starting with a statement of purpose and indicating who the policy applies to. This might be worded as follows:
It’s been very hard to write this column. What do you say when one of your closest friends has a near-death experience, and the only thing you can do is sit by his or her side and hope for the best? It’s also been a very quiet period in the Linux on System z world. There isn’t much to talk about from the usual suspects, but I’ve done some digging to find several things that merit discussing in the column.
In previous columns, I described a structured approach to evaluating your mainframe security, starting with controls over access to the system. I also described how your security software (RACF, ACF2, or Top Secret) can control system access for each of several paths, including TSO, started tasks, and batch jobs.
In a previous article, “ISPF Power Tools”, we introduced the Data Set List (DSLIST). Here we will examine some of the basic and advanced options available when using the DSLIST.
