Post-ASAP 2023 Edition
I had to leave early the last day of ASAP (plane scheduling issues) or I would have found out earlier of the honorary title bestowed on me by the ASAP Board of Directors (L2 Liaison Emeritus). I hope to take advantage of this new ASAP relationship for many more years (even past “retirement” ) and will also plan on staying until the very end of the conference next year. This year’s conference was great and I expect next year will be even better.
In my tech talk on the last day of the conference I covered things from the previous April 15 edition (Cy’s Corner 106) until the day of the tech talk, so this newsletter will cover everything from the April 15 on including what was covered in the tech talk. (You can skip the review section if you already heard the talk at the conference).
One new note before going through the usual technotes/FLASHES/HIPER/Blogs/Ideas (RFEs) is that HCL is starting a new direction of creating far more video (i.e. YouTube) content to supplement or replace many of the written technotes that you are used to. Keep an eye out for more announcements and content in this area and probably by Cy’s Corner 108 there will be a section on VIDEO content.
One other important update is that IBM is going with z/OS 3.1 in September 2023 instead of z/OS 2.6.
There will be no maintenance required to run any release of zWS on z/OS 3.1.
Review of items from the ASAP TechTalk:
Enhanced HOLDDATA web site has moved!
New: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/enhanced-holddata-zos
Old: http://service.software.ibm.com/holdata/390holddata.html
Many technotes and PROGRAM DIRECTORY manuals still have the old URL
New SPE for 10.1 SPE10102 Coming this summer! (APAR PH52702)
10.1 FP3 for DWC and Workload Scheduler:
README for DWC:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6981045
README for Workload Scheduler
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6981047
DWC 10.1 FP2 news
JAVA V11 required for installation (including on z/OS)
There are issues with predefined reports for DWC 10.1 FP2 or higher
Bypass is to run predefined report as a custom report
After running predefined report, SQL is written to messages.log – cut/paste into a customer report and it will run
Help your support team!
Respond to posts in cases so that cases don’t have to be closed because of lack of contact (very time consuming)
Send documentation in an easily useable format:
Tersed (.trs) text (.txt) PDF (.pdf)
Apply HIPER PTFs in a timely manner (missing HIPER maintenance is still the leading cause of severity 1 cases)
Stay reasonably close to current RSU level (6 months?) There are no PE PTFs to avoid by staying way behind on maintenance
Current issues:
JTARC file (EQQJTARC) fills up (SB37)
Mentioned in Tech Talk in 2019
Be careful – do NOT submit a CP batch job if the JTARC has become full-the job will hang forever
Make JTARC large – it can be DSNTYPE=LARGE but cannot be multi-volume
Operations when added to current plan that have successors at higher priority level inherit that priority
Example: Operation in AD database has priority 5 but a successor has priority 9 gets added to CP as priority 9
Can cause occurrences to run in an unexpected order
Avoid by having successor operations at same priority
Avoid common issues with release migrations:
Be sure the files for new release are equal in size (or larger) to the previous release
Use the correct input files to EQQICNVS job (did you run a REPLAN before?)
Start controller with CURRPLAN(NEW) and JOBSUBMIT(NO
Firewall issues with HTTP (zcentric and dynamic agents, remote agents)
OUTGOING: Open ROUTOPTS port from z/OS to agent
INCOMING: Open HTTPPORTNUMBER from agent to z/OS
If firewall blocked get “Not added to JES QUEUE” indication
Ongoing issues – parameter settings
Default parameter values are often the ones you do NOT want to use
As new parameters are added, the DEFAULT value is what was in effect BEFORE the parameter was added
In rare instances, the default value of a parameter is changed:
Examples:
DYNAMICDEL changed to YES (10.1 release)
GDGNONSTD change to YES (long ago)
End Review of items from the ASAP TechTalk
Flashes
If you don’t receive notification for flashes, check your settings at www.ibm.com/support/mynotifications
One new FLASH:
Need fix for IJ45719 if installing zWS 10.1 PTFs for PH45777 (UI83377 and UI83378) and using DWC 10.1 FP1 or higher
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6995555
Affects zosengine connections from DWC (note IJ45719 is available in 10.1 DWC FP3)
Hipers
The technotes listing HIPERS were all updated March 14, 2023 and will be updated again soon:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6619651
(Need all HIPER maintenance for z Workload Scheduler 10.1.0 ( COMPID 5697WSZ01 ))
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/5694705
(Need all HIPER maintenance for z Workload Scheduler 9.5.0 ( COMPID 5697WSZ01))
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/556629
(Need all HIPER maintenance for IWS z/OS 9.3.0 ( COMPID 5697WSZ01 ))
These are the new HIPERs since March 2023: :
This APAR will be set HIPER once it has closed however it is still OPEN :
PH52871 HTTP TASK ENDED WITH MESSAGE EQQZ045E CORRELATED TO ABEND U4039
OR U4042
This APAR for 10.1 only will be set HIPER when PTFs have closed :
PH55458 MESSAGES: EQQZ373W EQQZ377W CAN BE IMPROPERLY ISSUED AT THE STARTUP OF CONTROLLER/TRACKER –
Already flagged as HIPER:
PH53158 A SUDDEN SYSTEM IPL MAY CAUSE THE CURRENT JT TO CLOSE INCORRECTLY
9.5 PTFs : UI92055 UI92056
10.1 PTFs: UI92058 UI92057
Technotes
Some new technotes which you may find useful:
CP EXTEND batch job gets message: EQQ3088E THE SYMPHONY FILE HAS NOT BEEN CREATED
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7008015
API USER ROLE in DWC and RESTAPI
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7007881
Errors running predefined reports from DWC 10.1 FP2 or FP3. Personalized reports run correctly
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6996111
Also these technotes (which are referred to by PTF ACTION ITEMS) have been recently revised:
Additional ACTION HOLD items for PH45777 ( SPE10101 ) for z Workload Scheduler 10.1
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6840355
Additional ACTION HOLD items for PH52702 ( SPE10102 ) for z Workload Scheduler 10.1
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6957712
Ideas (formerly RFE)
Please vote for any ideas you would like to see included in the product at ideas.ibm.com.
Here are some ideas submitted since May 2023 for IBM Z Workload Scheduler and Workload Automation.
Have DWC role “API USER” control who can access a RESTAPI that runs against a zWS controller [WAO-I-446]
When an operation is restarted, nothing currently in the EQQAUDIT report or in the EQQMLOG documents what TYPE of restart command was used (RERUN, RC, SJR, FSR, FJR, etc) and what type of restart [ZWS-I-186]
Simplify verification of occurrence/operation status after performing a CP REFRESH (dialog option 9.5) by having an available copy of the pre-refresh files on a separate controller [ZWS-I-184]
Allow current plan to be automatically rebuilt with correct status information after a refresh of the plan (dialog option 9.5) [ZWS-I-183]
Allow an occurrence to be rerun without setting all successors to READY (causing them to run again) [ZWS-I-182]
Completing occurrences via batch (WAPL, BCIT, etc ) should not delete predecessors without a warning or a special parameter to indicate that it is OK to delete predecessors [ZWS-I-181]
Restore the CP at the moment just before an human error [ZWS-I-178]
The possibility in DWC (Dynamic Workload Console) to filter on codes; error code, return code, condition code. [ZWS-I-176]
Add an 80% warning message before zWS reaches 100% limit for adding applications of the same name. (EQQM952E & EQQM952I) [ZWS-I-175]
Prevent errors during migration to a new zWS release by allocating files via EQQPCSxx jobs to have the same sizes and other characteristics as in the previous release [ZWS-I-174]
Reduce CLNO errors by adding a parameter to cause the retries to be done over a reasonable time interval, instead of all within one second [ZWS-I-170]
These ideas were submitted prior to the ASAP conference:
WAO-I-428 Dynamic Workload Console (DWC) should use RACF EJBROLE to associated roles with a userid when the DWC running under z/OS (zliberty)
WAO-I-424 Events add – ability to add the joblog from a batch job Event Rule in the Event Email that is sent out to individuals
ZWS-I-169 Correct the handling of an EQQJTARC file full (SB37 abend) to ensure that job tracking records are not lost, and jobs are not submitted twice
ZWS-I-168 The zWS DB2 historical database function (EQQDBENC EQQDBARC EQQRXARC) must be updated to work with JAVA release higher than V8 on z/OS (Java V11, Java V17)
ZWS-I-167 EQQAUDIT should include records if operation is manually hold
ZWS-I-166 Possibility to define WS that are able to submit even with JOBSUBMIT(NO)
BLOGs
You can see all the BLOGS related to workload automation (distributed workload scheduler, DWC and zWS) at http://www.workloadautomation-community.com/blogs
No new BLOGS since April 2023.
Wrap Up
In the next few months there may be new SPE PTFs for zWS and new fix packs for the distributed products. 9.3 zWS will FINALLY go out of support (Also 9.4 for workload scheduler). Keep submitting new ideas – they could be considered for the next release of zWS, which is not announced yet but should be some time next year. Enjoy your vacation time and when the next newsletter is published it will be in time for the usual flurry of maintenance/upgrade utility that occur prior to the end of year change freeze period.
