SPARTA News

October 2024

SPARTA President’s Corner

contributed by Randy Springs

This month, we will again be holding our SPARTA meetings via Zoom. We might go back to our in-person meetings if we can find an appropriate venue. Let us know if you have any suggestions for a meeting location.

For our October meeting, join us for a presentation from [unknown at publication time].

Invite your fellow systems programmers to join us for this informative and interesting online meeting.

We hope to see you online on Tuesday, October 1, on Zoom. Watch for meeting information coming your way soon.

Randy Springs
Retired (Truist)

Future Speakers (subject to change)

October 1, 2024 - TBA by TBD of Unknown

November 5, 2024 - TBA by TBD of Unknown

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact Ron Pimblett by phone as noted below.

2024-2025 SPARTA

Board of Directors

Randy Springs - President

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Raleigh, NC 27604

Ron Pimblett - Vice President

MDI Data Systems

Land line 613 599 6970

Mobile 613 981 6919

190 Guelph Private

Kanata, ON K2T 0J7

Chris Blackshire - Secretary

Retired (Dell, Perot Systems, Nortel)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Durham, NC 27713

Randy Springs - (Acting) Treasurer

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

see Randy

Springs earlier

Ed Webb -  Communications Director

Retired (SAS Institute Inc.)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Apex, NC 27523

Mike Lockey -  Web Master

Guilford Co. Information Services  336-641-6235

201 N. Eugene St.

Greensboro, NC 27401

Meetings

Coronavirus Change: All meetings for the foreseeable future will be held online at 3 p.m. via the Zoom App. The link to meeting is sent to SPARTA Mailing list within 24 hours of the meeting time for security reasons. Stay safe.

Meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in January), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings usually are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto T.W. Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building (1912 T.W. Alexander Drive). In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Bill Johnson. Bill will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter e-Mailings

The SPARTA policy is to e-mail a monthly notice to our SPARTA-RTP Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA distribution List is maintained by Chris Blackshire; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Chris at chrisbl@nc.rr.com.

August 2024 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V507 (dated August 7, 2024) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Ed Webb (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the September 10, 2024 Meeting

• The September 10, 2024 meeting was called to order at 3:00 PM by Chris Blackshire standing in for Randy Springs, the SPARTA President.

• The September 10, 2024 meeting was cancelled because of speaker availability issues.

• This Forty-fifth (April 2020 to September 2024) virtual SPARTA meeting was held via the Zoom Software.

• Nine (9) people were present at the virtual meeting.

• The business portion of the meeting followed the presentation.

• The meeting started at 3 PM to accommodate the speaker's availability.

OLD BUSINESS

• The minutes of the July 9, 2024 meeting as published in the August 2024 Newsletter were approved.

• The minutes of the last meeting as published were approved.

• The August 31, 2024 Treasurer's report as published in the September 2024 Newsletter was approved. As of August 31, 2024, the current balance is $805.46.

• Call For Articles: Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don't really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you want to share with the membership.

• The SPARTA Web page is available at this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

• 2024 meeting dates, Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Ron Pimblett.

• The next SPARTA monthly meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.

• The annual dues have been suspended (motion passed in the March 2021 monthly meeting).

• Thanks to Randy Springs for online hosting the September meeting via Zoom.

• There are currently about 100 people on the SPARTA e-mail distribution list.

• Send any e-mail address changes to Chris Blackshire so he can update the SPARTA distribution List. The SPARTA meeting notices are being sent via a simple distribution list maintained by Chris.

• Randy Springs is looking for a new Treasurer volunteer. He projects about 2 hours per month is needed.
- Contact Randy if you are interested.

• Randy Springs has setup a SPARTA group on LinkedIn. Please join.

• There has been some discussion about a possible 2024 in-person meeting, depending on vaccinations and room availability. Stay tuned.
- Randy will contact Bill Johnson to determine the LabCorp meeting place status.
- Jay Hall will look into using a NCSU Centennial Campus room.

NEW BUSINESS

• None.

• There was significant discussion about how to increase attendance at SPARTA meetings. After discussing ending SPARTA given lack of participation, the attendees decided to keep trying for another six months.

• We will continue meeting virtually for now with a future in-person meeting date TBD. Stay tuned.
• The Business portion and the meeting ended about 4:30 P.M.

• The Presentation started at 3:05 PM after attendee introductions.

• Presentation Topic: SHARE 2024 Kansas City, KS (144), August 4-8, 2024

by Ed Webb of SPARTA (retired from SAS Institute Inc.)

• Agenda
• Why Go to SHARE?
• Odds and Ends
• Best Sessions
• Other Sessions of Interest
• SHARE Status

• Presentation Access - See Below for a full outline of the presentation.

See the SPARTA webpage for all recent presentations including this September one with the Ed's notes.

• Contact Info:
Speaker: Ed Webb
Retired z/OS Senior Systems Programmer
Email: edwistuo@aol.com

• The presentation and questions/answers ended about 4:00 P.M.
• The September 10, 2024 monthly meeting ended about 4:12 P.M. after a short business meeting.

Treasurer’s Report for August 2024

contributed by Randy Springs

The balance in the account is $805.46 as of August 31, 2024.

SPARTA Financial Report
08/01/2024 through 08/31/2024

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2024

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Oct 1, 2024 Chicken
Nov 5, 2024 Subs
Dec 3, 2024 BarBQ

SHARE Members Can Now View Kansas City Proceedings

contributed By Ed Webb

"SHARE Kansas City event proceedings are now available for SHARE members to download. Explore session handouts with information on all the hottest topics from SHARE Kansas City. Use your SHARE.org website credentials to log in and access the proceedings.

Reminder! SHARE Kansas City recordings are not included with the proceedings. Session recordings are available on SHARE'd Knowledge for individual SHARE members only."

IBM Announces the Telum II Processor and Spyre Accelerator

Contributed by Ed Webb

"When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), keeping up means scaling up, and IBM recently announced new hardware advances to help mainframe clients do just that.

IBM Telum II Chip and Spyre Accelerator

The IBM Telum II processor and complementary Spyre accelerator promise to enhance the use of AI directly on the mainframe as organizations increasingly apply the technology to transactions. Announced at the Hot Chips 2024 conference in Palo Alto, California, last month, the unveiling marked “a big, big milestone in a very large project,” says Christian Jacobi, IBM Fellow and CTO of IBM Systems Development. “We have 800 or so engineers working on a chip like this.”

In product literature, IBM says the Telum II brings a “40% increase in cache and a coherently attached data processing unit (DPU), potentially improving performance by up to 70% across key system components.” The Spyre accelerator, for its part, was designed to provide additional AI compute when paired with the Telum II, which will be incorporated into a new, yet-to-be-announced system set for release next year, Jacobi explains.

He adds that bringing AI directly onto the mainframe increases efficiency by eliminating the data movement that would be required if bits had to be sent to a separate computer for AI tasks. “And that is just incredibly energy efficient compared to taking that data, sending it across a network to a separate computer that has a bunch of GPUs that then perform that work,” Jacobi says. “Worldwide, we're seeing a strong push for energy efficiency and a big concern around energy efficiency of AI.”

With the Spyre accelerator, large language models (LLMs) can now be used directly on the mainframe. “We did not have that before,” Jacobi says.

Read the entire Tech Channel article for additional details.

xAI Supercomputer Goes Online With 100,000 Nvidia GPUs

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

"Musk's xAI Supercomputer Goes Online With 100,000 Nvidia GPUs

Harnessing Nvidia's H100 GPUs, Musk's startup was able to assemble the supercomputer for AI training in a mere four months.

In the rush to develop next-generation AI, Elon Musk has assembled a new supercomputer running 100,000 Nvidia GPUs in four months.

On Monday [September 2, 2024], Musk tweeted that the supercomputer, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is now online after the city initially announced the project back in June.

“From start to finish, it was done in 122 days,” Musk tweeted, which also claims that “Colossus is the most powerful AI training system in the world.”

The supercomputer was built using 100,000 Nvidia H100s, a GPU that tech companies worldwide have been scrambling to buy to train new AI models. The GPU usually costs around $30,000, suggesting that Musk spent at least $3 billion to build the new supercomputer, a facility that will also require significant electricity and cooling.

The Colossus supercomputer will expand over time. In his tweet, Musk said the facility will “double in size to 200k” GPUs in a few months when an additional 50,000 Nvidia H200 GPUs, which feature upgraded memory, are added to the fold.

Musk built the facility for xAI, his latest startup, which is focused on creating generative AI technologies, including the controversial pro-free speech chatbot Grok. By assembling hundreds of thousands of GPUs together, xAI is aiming to accelerate training for Grok and other AI projects to unlock new capabilities and improvements.

It’s doubtful Musk’s supercomputer is the most powerful AI training system in the world since companies including Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI are also buying hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs for their own AI training projects. Still, Colossus highlights how fast the industry is building new facilities to train AI. In another tweet, Musk indicated that xAI had received other projections that expected it would take 12 to 18 months to bring the supercomputer online.

Despite the achievement, the arrival of Colossus is also raising concerns that the supercomputer will take a toll on Memphis’s environment, water supplies, and the electricity grid. One local group has also called on the city to investigate whether the facility’s turbines risk generating air pollution. However, city officials say xAI has pledged to help improve the local infrastructure to support the supercomputer."

Humor

Wit and Wisdom continued

contributed by Ed Webb

Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.
Man cannot discover new oceans until he first loses sight of the shore.
Don’t worry about avoiding temptation — as you grow older it will avoid you.

Whatever advice you give, be brief.
Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.
Being stubborn is a virtue when you’re right - it’s only a character flaw when you’re wrong.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Time: 3 p.m.

Location: Online

Information about access to our online meeting will be sent to our e-mail list by Tuesday, October 1.

Free Food before meeting: Your Food at Your Home

Program:

[unknown at publication time]

Speaker:

[unknown at publication time]

SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:

September 2024 Presentation outline

• Presentation Topic: SHARE 2024 Kansas City, KS (144), August 4-8, 2024

by Ed Webb of SPARTA (retired from SAS Institute Inc.)

• Agenda
• Why Go to SHARE?
• Odds and Ends
• Best Sessions
• Other Sessions of Interest
• SHARE Status

• WHY GO TO SHARE?
- Mainframe Skills Council - customers and vendors and IBM
- - https://newsroom.ibm.com/IBM-Mainframe-Skills
- - Mainframe Skills Council - IBM, SHARE, other key organizations
- z/OS 3.1 Announcement Review and Upgrade Planning
- Late-breaking z/OS 3.1 News - 2Q2024 Continuous Delivery Functions
- Networking with peers and IBM developers and executives
- SHARE Requirements Carry More Weight with IBM than Ideas (were RFEs)
- - On SHARE site, use Vote for Submission to more easily view text of requirement
- - https://www.share.org/Connect/Advocacy-Requirements-System
- www.ibm.com/ideas z/OS direct link
- Submit tactical rather than strategic Ideas

• WHY (DO I STILL) GO TO SHARE?
- Because I’m a Z Person who has attended these conferences since 1979;
- - first at GUIDE starting in 1979, then at SHARE in 1999
- Networking with Friends and Vendors
- Staying Current and Being Re-energized about z/OS
- SHARE Emeritus Membership eliminates Membership Cost
- - Dramatically Reduces Registration expenses
- Walt Disney Experience at KC Museum!

• SHARE 2024 Kansas City
5 Days In-Person and Some Recordings!
- Four Days Full of Content with some sessions recorded
- SHARE Tech Exchange Monday and Tuesday evenings with food
- SHARE Tech Exchange Wednesday lunch with food
- Lunch (free) and Learn Sessions on Monday and Thursday
- Broadcom-sponsored Lunch (free) on Tuesday
- Recorded sessions are available soon (Ends December 31, 2024)
- - 45-50 minute sessions - video and audio with handouts in most cases
- SHARE Partners with dedicated sessions on Tuesday

• ODDS AND ENDS
- Curious about some new z/OS function? Then locate details here:
- - https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/new-function-apars-zosplatform
- - https://www.ibm.com/support/z-content-solutions/managementservices
- New to Z Community - IBM Training for Z jobs

• BEST SESSIONS

• Core Tech z/OS Track Welcome
By Art Gutowski of Huntington Bank and others

- Core Tech Track includes z/OS Systems programming, hardware, storage, communication server
- Art G. is retiring from Core Tech to become President of SHARE!
- Becky Parchman of BMC and another person are taking over Core Tech leadership
- Critical z/OS Service APARs by John Shebey of IBM
- - OA66647 z/OS Unix with Shared File System sysplex
- - - Fixes New Function PTF (UJ94645/6) Error
- - OA66785 z/OS Unix with Shared File System sysplex
- - - Fixes another error in UJ94645/6
- - OA66439 RSM HIPER Pervasive
- - - Base z/OS 3.1 and with certain PTF in 2.5
- Red Alert
- - 20240621 Db2 V12 and V13 for z/OS users: undetected data loss
- PSP buckets (preventive service buckets)
- - No longer published on the web
- - Not being created for new IBM Z products
- - Existing PSP buckets still available via https://www.ibm.com/ibmlink
- z/OS Simplification Over The Years
- - by John Petreshock, z/OS principal product manager and Shelley Brand, IBM
- - - z/OSMF and other work over past 20 years
- - - z/OS 2.5
- - - z/OS 3.1
- - - Other efforts
- - - Pain points from new System Programmers
- - - IBM’s efforts to reduce Pain points
- - - Developed specific projects design
- - - Ideas - user-friendly console
- - - z/OS Client Engagement
- - - - Contact shelley.brand@ibm.com to participate

• What’s New in z/OS 3.1: The Kansas City Edition
By Dave Surmon, Steve Warren, and Marna Walle of IBM

• Latest Compiler Offerings on z/OS

• z/OS 3.1: Release Overview - z/OS Support Summary

1 - All statements regarding IBM's plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.
2 - Extended support dates are projected and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.
3 - WdfM - Server has been withdrawn from Marketing
4 - Defect support provided with IBM Software Support Services for z/OS

• z/OS Software Package Signing (CD)
- IBM Portable Software Instances being signed with intro of 3.1 (optional use)
- Python AI Toolkit for IBM z/OS 1.1
- AI Toolkit for IBM Z and LinuxOne

• z/OS Management Services Catalog (CD) has been deprecated
- Use Ansible Scripts instead

• Java releases determined by Oracle
- z/OS 3.1 required Semeru 11 (support extended to Nov2025)
- z/OS 3.1 now requires S17 with recent set of PTFs

• z/OS Anomaly Mitigation - PFA, RTD, SLIP/PER
- z/OSMF PARMLIB App
-- 38 members supported
-- Syntax Validation REST APIs
- z/OS Unix Skulker enhancements
- z/OS Change Tracker (priced feature) includes new Compare Resources

• Helpful Links
- z/OS Education Assistant for z/OS 3.1 materials at z/OS github.
- z/OS Requirements (RFEs) are now IBM Ideas
- Here’s the Link to User Requirements satisfied by z/OS 2.5 (any in 3.1?):
- Use SHARE requirements to submit requirements

• Upgrading to 3.1: Planning (1 of 2)
By Aaron Kippins and Marna Walle of IBM
- JES2 is only subsystem on z/OS 3.1
- see Marne’s Musings Blog
- Ordering a deliverable
- - z/OS 3.1 - Ordering started Sept. 19, 2023
- - IBM Semeru Runtime Certified Edition [Java] for z/OS V1.11
- - Java on z/OS release lifecycle
- - Run Health Checks early and they will be run by z/OS 3.1 upgrade workflows
- - z/OS Support policies
- - Target System DASD sizing
- - Driving System
- - Upgrade workflows (WF)
- Upgrading to z/OS V3.1: Planning Summary

• Upgrading to 3.1: Technical Actions (2 of 2)
By Marna Walle of IBM
- What is an upgrade action? Not exploitation, just getting current stuff running on 3.1
- Upgrade actions
- - Overview to 3.1 from 2.5 or 2.4
- Upgrade actions at V2.5 you should not overlook (“Big Migs”)
- Upgrade actions at 3.1 you should not overlook

• z/OS 3.1 User Experience
By Ed Jaffe of Phoenix Software International
- z/OS RFA 223-012 Announcement
- - Phoenix was first vendor in the world to deliver a z/OSMF PSI-based product set
- SPEs have new name:
- - Continuous Delivery New Function APARs
- - IBM averaging 7.5 SPEs a week up from 6.5 at previous SHARE in March 2024
- z/OSMF Security Configuration Assistant (SCA)
- z/OSMF WLM Policy Advisor
- z/OSMF Explorer with Python
- z/OSMF File and Data Set Upload and Download
- z/OSMF Swagger Interface
- Knowledge Center for z/OS to be replaced by IBM Docs for z/OS
- - Still Missing, use 2.5 KC4z version as a band-aid

• Bit Bucket x’44’

Frustrated TSO/E Command Line
by Ed Jaffe of Phoenix Software International
- Using RACDCERT from TSO Ready
- - Hard to read Red-colored text on screen
- - No log of what you did
- - commands from Ready don’t use wide screen, wraps at 80 columns
- - Unless wide screen on other displayed panel
- Using Zowe CLI
- - Now Ed J uses z/OS UNIX prompt via SSH
- - Set alias for TSOCMD as T
- - Uses Rocket’s terminfo from AppDev for Z
- - use DSFS to access output on JES SPOOL

Fully Wired System Programmer REBOOT
By Donna Hudi of Phoenix Software International
- Originally by Sam Knutson starting at SHARE 20 years ago
- LISTSERVs like IBMMain, MVS-OE, ISPF-L (died years ago but link goes to new site)
- IBM Tech Xchange Community
- Open Mainframe Project (OMP) Slack Channels
- Redbooks, z/Arch Principles of Operations
- Blogs and Webinars - IBM Community and Open Mainframe
- Interskill Learning - individual pricing available
- IBM Z Xplorer Learning Platform (was Master the Mainframe)

Java Jive
By Tom Conley
- Customer app needed Java17 but running V2R4
- IBM intends to support Java for all supported releases
It’s a Small zFS, After All
By Tom Conley
- challenges with zfsadm shrink
- See Tom’s Ideas in IBM Ideas zOS-I-3390 thru 3393

CBT USERMOD Collection for ISPF (CUCI)
By Tom Conley
- File 967 on www.cbttape.org
- Several enhancements for ISPF in CUCI V1R8 for 20230704
- - Fix issues and add capability to HIGHLITE
- - Now PYTHON and JAVA supports ASCII as well as EBCDIC
- - fixed problems
- - Added /* REXX */ to some execs that were missing them so HIGHLITE worked
- CUCI V1R9 coming soon
- - YAML Highlighting
- - Make all highlighting ASCII-aware

• SESSIONS OF INTEREST

• JES2 Product Updates
By Tom Wasik, IBM JES Architect
- JES2 3.1 Enforces Limits on TGs [Track Groups] and JOEs [Job Output Entries]
- - Environment for each option
- - Any job will be waited
- - Control via JOBCLASS or Policy or Exit

• What’s New for z/OSMF 3.1
- Don’t Despair, There is help for z/OSMF
- - One Stop Hub
- - Join IBM Z Communities to communicate with kindred spirits or lost souls
- - - z/OSMF Guild home page
- - - - Archived presentations back into 2021

• STATUS OF SHARE
- SHARE 2023 New Orleans highlighted 2 Changes:
- SHARE Individual Membership (New in 2023!)
- - $199 starting January 2024
- - Affiliate Membership at $99 may still be available
- SHARE Changes for Program and Projects
- - They are now called Focus Areas and Tracks
- - Some ongoing impact at Future SHAREs
- SHARE 2025 Washington, D.C. will be a full four-day conference February 23-27, 2025
- Call for Presentations Ends on Sunday, September 15, 2024
- Registration opens in a few weeks
- Visit SHARE's Event Calendar for more details soon.

• QUESTIONS?
• Next SHARE is in Washington, DC on February 23-27, 2025

The presentation and questions ended about 4:25 PM and the meeting ended at 4:30 PM after a short business meeting.