z/OS Foundation Skills - FastTrack 1

This five-day FastTrack course is the essential introduction to the IBM Z Systems enterprise computing environment and its flagship operating system, z/OS. It forms the first part of RSM's intensive Foundation Boot Camp programme The course introduces the concepts and terminology encountered and used by IS personnel every day, and explains them in an easily understandable manner.

The concepts, facilities and use of TSO and IBM's Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) are taught during this week, with a focus on the functions for data editing and dataset management. The week concludes with an introduction to z/OS Job Control Language (JCL). Attendees will be introduced to the coding of job control statements to execute programs and access datasets in a z/OS environment. They will also learn how to write and test catalogued procedures.

Throughout the week the formal classroom teaching is combined with an engaging and progressive series of hands-on practical sessions using a variety of IBM utilities.

This course is available 'On Demand' (minimum 2 students) and is also available for exclusive, one-company presentations.

What you will learn

On successful completion of this course you will be able to:

identify the principal components of IBM z Systems
describe how data is stored, the different data codes and types, and the devices used
explain the concepts of operating systems
use basic TSO commands
use and customise ISPF panel structures
browse and edit datasets
customise ISPF edit profiles
use advanced edit functions
submit and manage batch jobs
use the ISPF utilities such as copy and list
use search facilities
state the purpose of each z/OS job control statement
code JCL statements to access disk and cartridge files
describe and use the commonly used parameters
correct syntax errors in JCL statements
code in-stream procedures and override, nullify and add parameters
appreciate the implications of SMS when using z/OS JCL.

Who Should Attend

Trainees and new joiners who will be working in a z/OS environment.

Prerequisites

Keyboard competency and a basic understanding of computing concepts.

Duration

5 days

Fee (per attendee)

£2520 (ex VAT)

This includes free online 24/7 access to course notes.

Hard copy course notes are available on request from rsmshop@rsm.co.uk

at £50.00 plus carriage per set.

Course Code

MFBC

The IBM Z Systems Technical Environment

Origins; Types of computers; General purpose; Scientific; Scientific AND general purpose?; The PC; The Graphical User Interface (GUI); The application development backlog; The Local Area Network (LAN); Who runs the distributed data centre?; Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); Today's real world; What is a mainframe?; What can it do?; Hardware and software; Types of computing; Batch; Batch processing today; Interactive; On-line; Real time.

Enterprise Computing Hardware

Enterprise computing hardware; An IBM Z Systems data centre and its contents; The processor complex; Parallel sysplex; Channels; Controllers; I/O units; Addressing; Local and remote; Disk storage; Old technology; Storing data on a traditional disk; The cylinder concept; Sectors; Cache storage; RAID - a newer technology; Disk Mirroring (RAID-1); Data Striping (RAID 5/6); Remote Disk copy; Virtual disks; Optical disks; Why magnetic tape?; Reel to reel tape; Cartridges; High performance tapes; Automated Tape Libraries; Virtual Tape Server; Other Input/output peripherals; Terminals, Laser printers, Line printers, Micro film and microfiche; Magnetic Ink Character Recognition; Optical Character Recognition; Bar codes; Communications equipment.

Z Systems Software and Programs

What is software?; Types of software; System software; Exits; Application software; What does a program comprise?; Main module; Subroutines and procedures; Functions; Data; EBCDIC; ASCII; Building a program; Programming languages; Executing a program.

Practical Operations

Who runs the IT environment?: Operators, Help Desk Operatives, Security Administrators, Systems Programmers, Storage Administrators, Network Analysts, Application Developers/Support' Database Administrators.

z/OS Operating System

The z/OS operating system - MVS; Some important definitions; Address spaces; Common area; Private area; Main components of MVS; MVS processing environments; On-line; TSO; z/OS communications server; VTAM; TCP/IP; JES: JES2, Transaction Servers: CICS, IMS; Databases: Db2, IMS; UNIX System Services; WebSphere Application Server.

Introduction to TSO

What is TSO; main uses of TSO; using TSO; when the TSO screen fills; logging on to TSO; logging off.

Basic TSO Commands

SEND, LISTBC, LISTALC, HELP and PROFILE commands; command prompting; aborting a TSO command.

Introduction to ISPF

What is ISPF?; the ISPF panels; the pull-down menus; the Primary Option Menu; changing ISPF settings, function settings and log/list defaults; identifying error messages, entering TSO commands from ISPF, exiting from ISPF.

Browsing datasets in ISPF

Dataset naming rules and conventions; DASD dataset organisation; Partitioned Datasets; Partitioned Dataset Extended; specifying dataset names, PDS member list panel and shortcuts; browsing the data; scrolling; FIND command; finding picture strings; the LOCATE command; splitting the screen.

Basic Edit via ISPF

The editing process; the edit entry panel; member or dataset edit panel; scrolling during edit; edit line commands; manipulating lines; ending an edit session.

The ISPF Edit profile

Function of the Edit profile; displaying the Edit profile; profile options; creating new members; the insert and delete keys; CHANGE command; UNDO command; when you get locked up.

Advanced Edit with ISPF

Excluding and re-displaying lines; RESET command; switching between upper and lower case; column boundaries; text entry facilities; tab settings; manipulating data; submitting a batch job; nested edit sessions; saving data; cancelling an edit session.

Basic ISPF utilities

Utility selection menu; library utility; data set utility; move/copy utility; hardcopy utility; outlist utility.

ISPF Data Set List Utility

Dataset list; wildcard characters; dataset list and member list line commands; using a TSO command; SHOWCMD command; VTOC list and information; freeing unused space; repeating commands.

SuperC and Search-For

SuperC utility; SuperCE utility; Search-For utility; Search-ForE utility.

z/OS: Structure and Components

MVS background and history; MVS main memory and virtual storage; MVS versions; Address space layout; Common area; Private area; Main components of MVS; MVS processing environments: On-line, TSO, ISPF, Batch; MVS spooling; Other program products and their functions.

Introduction to z/OS JCL

Basic job structure; Job stream processing; JCL output; JCL statement types; JCL statement format and coding rules; JES2 control statements; JES3 control statements; JCL error points.

The JOB Statement

The JOB statement overview; Accounting information - positional; Programmer's name - positional; Keyword parameters; Other keyword parameters; Example JOB statements.

The EXEC Statement

The EXEC statement; EXEC format - program; EXEC format - procedure; EXEC keyword parameters; Other EXEC keyword parameters; COND parameter; EVEN or ONLY; Example EXEC statements; EXEC statement summary.

Printing and In-stream Data

Print files & In-stream data; Printing: Examples, DEST, COPIES, DCB; Output statement; OUTPUT statement: Implicit, Explicit, Multiple output; Output statement parameters; Examples; OUTDISP parameter; In-stream data.

The DD Statement

The DD statement; DD parameters: DSN, DISP, UNIT and VOL; SMS considerations; DD statement summary: Existing catalogued data set, Existing non-catalogued data set.

The DD Statement - Working with Datasets

Dataset types; Sequential datasets; Partitioned Data Sets; VSAM datasets; BUFNO; Accessing existing datasets; Creating new non-VSAM datasets; Data Control Block parameters; SPACE parameter; Space allocation DSCBs; System Managed Storage: Disk datasets with SMS, Space allocation with SMS. DCB parameters with SMS; Creating VSAM datasets in JCL; Generation datasets; SMS GDG considerations; Stages in creating a generation dataset; Tape datasets; . LABEL parameter; DD statement summary; Creating a new dataset on disk - non-SMS; Creating a new tape dataset.

Further DD Considerations

Special ddnames; JOBLIB; STEPLIB; Dump datasets; Concatenated datasets; Temporary dataset names; Dummy datasets.

Catalogued Procedures

JCL procedures; In-stream procedures; What a catalogued procedure cannot contain; Cataloguing a procedure; INCLUDE statement; Calling a procedure; Symbolic parameters; Examples of symbolic translation; Default parameters; Resolving symbolic parameters; SET statement; Modifying EXEC statement parameters; Modifying DD parameters; Concatenated datasets; Adding DD statements; Substitution prefixes; Using a standard COBOL compile/link/go procedure.

Conditional JCL Statements

The general construct; Name field; Relational-expression field; Relational-expression keywords; Comparison operators; Logical operators; NOT operator; Order of priority of operators; Parentheses; THEN and ELSE clauses; Contents of THEN and ELSE clauses; IF/THEN/ELSE/ENDIF and COND.

Common MVS Abend Codes

Problem handling; Program abends; Common MVS completion codes.