Estote Parati #WorkloadWednesday

Hurricane Florence is in North Carolina today – hopefully far enough to the south and east that I will not lose power. I have a brand new 9000 watt generator handy just in case. About a year ago when I was writing Cy’s Corner 91, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma  were the major news items. Now, as back then, there has been a lot of focus on being prepared.

Speaking of being prepared …

For users of IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.3, PTF UI55005 requires a significant amount of preparation and a very unusual installation procedure. It’s all documented in FLASH 10729727, which was updated on October 25, 2018.

Note:  FLASH 2015154 is an older FLASH, which was updated on September 10, 2018 and now addresses only PI95782 (PTF UI56208). It is recommended that you read / reread both FLASH 10729727 and FLASH 2015154 to fully understand the issue addressed and the steps required.  It is important to note that the issue with UI55005 is related to the amount of activity performed against the current plan (CP) before a CP REPLAN or CP EXTEND is run. ANY updates to the CP prior to running the CP batch job – dialog updates, scheduled jobs, PIF jobs, ETT triggers – can cause severe problems. In a test environment with little activity you might not even notice that UI55005 was applied, but in a busy production environment it can cause very serious issues if you are not careful.

WAPL APAR

For those of you using or planning to use Workload Application Programming Language (WAPL, there is an open APAR PH00586 that pulls in some other recent WAPL maintenance. You can get the APAR fix by opening a PMR or you can wait for the PTF.

Note: The JCL procedure EQQYXJCL should be replaced by the simpler JCL procedure EQQYXJPX, as mentioned in the WAPL User’s Guide.

Beta Test for IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.5

The beta test for IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.5 is currently underway. If you are interested in participating in the beta test or in learning about the latest updates or seeing a demo, then contact Katiuscia Berretta (katiuscia.berretta@hcl.com). I found this new feature particularly interesting:

Alerts: you can set up ALERTS for operations not started or not completed or missing deadline – this generates new WTO messages EQQE15* which can then be used by your automated operations software to generate more specific alerts.

The Request for Enhancement (RFE) that initiated these new ALERTS features received 58 votes, which is a very strong showing. The next closest RFEs had 32 votes and 20 votes. Developers at HCL take RFEs from users and the total user votes seriously. To make your voice heard on enhancements or if you have a new enhancement in mind go to the RFE  site.  Learn how to add your voice to the requirements process.

In the next code drop of the beta a very popular RFE will be implemented, 36757: OPSTAT ENHANCEMENT – SET OPERATION TO FINISHED WITH CC . This will make it possible to set an operation to FINISHED with completion code NNNN (any possible completion code).

Important End-of-Service Dates

  • z/OS 2.1 – September 20, 2018
  • IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.1 – April 30, 2019

Migration from an earlier release to Release 9.3 containing UI55005 now can cause some problems. See FLASH 10729727 for details. I submitted an RFE to make it easier to install UI55005 as part of a migration or just as a normal maintenance upgrade.  Please review this RFE and add your vote if you would like to see this functionality:

Suggestion to make UI55005 PTF installation easier – ID: 125221

The following method can be attempted for migration to IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.3 from an earlier release:

  • Ensure that the IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 930 code level to be installed (if not the base) includes all of the PTFs listed in the flash technote and all of the HIPER APARS.
  • Run all the migration steps as normal.
  • After the migration, start the controller for the first time. As normal, keep the job (ALL types of jobs) submissions off (set JOBSUBMIT(NO)FTWJSUB(NO)….. in JTOPTS)
  • Verify the successful migration of the data, but do notperform any modify current plan action (and reduce the possibility to have MCP events like status changes or ETT processed in that time frame).
  • Then STOP the controller (check that it closes in a clean way)
  • Follow all the steps as indicated in the flash:
    • Run replan with CHECKSUBSY(NO) in BATCHOPT. NOTE: If you are running an end-to-end environment with fault-tolerant capabilities, comment out TPLGYPRM. If you are also using the DB2 archive history, comment out JRUNHISTORY. (See the PARM library of the EXTEND job for the plan).
    • Restart the controller with CURRPLAN(CURRENT) in JTOPTS.
    • Check all is ok and only then set all the SUBMITs back to YES.

Note for those running an end-to-end environment with fault-tolerant capabilities: If you modified TPLGYPRM and JRUNHISTORY, then set them to their original values and run a Symphony Renew.

  • Once restarted all should work. If IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS is getting any of the known problems (U3999, S0C4, S0C1…), then perform the recovery actions as indicated in the flash technote.

A few other general points:

  • Sometimes if using the fault tolerant E2E (FTAs), it becomes necessary to take some actions (clean up) in order to get the FTA to link. The technote entitled Batchman dies and jobman will not start on a DM or FTA may be useful.
  • PH01519 – FIRSTFDBK (ADRFLAG2) is incorrectly set to “on” by the migration tool. It is recommended that the fix for PH01519 be applied before migrating to IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.3
  • Latest Special Program Enhancement – SPE9310 – consists of:
  • PI98368 WLM SE AND VARIABLE SUBSTITUTION ENHANCEMENT. EXIT 7 NEW STATUSES: After applying PI98368 you need to have this additional APAR applied: PH01790  EQQUX007 (IWSZ EXIT 7) IS NOT CORRECTLY CALLED IN ALL CASES AFTER APPLICATION OF PI98368    — PTF UI58120
  • PI99066 PROXY FOR ZCENTRI

NEW HIPERS for IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.3       

There are new HIPER APARs for IBM Workload Scheduler for z/OS 9.3

  • Added August 29, 2018
    • PI98960 PTF UI56464
    • PH01229 PTF UI58124
    • PH01790 PTF UI58120
  • Added 6/4/2018
    • PI95644 – PTF UI56023
  • Added 5/1/2018
    • PI96940 – PTF UI55388

I’ve managed to avoid any power outages while writing this, but Hurricane Florence has brought a lot of damage to North Carolina and surrounding states. Watch for any additional or revised FLASH technotes!