z/OS Foundation Skills Programme - Part 1

This four-day course is Part 1 of RSM's newly designed and built introduction to Z Systems - IBM's mainframe-based enterprise computing environments, and to IBM's flagship operating system, z/OS, which provides a firm foundation for anyone moving into the world of IBM Z Systems mainframe-based computing. Introducing the concepts and terminology that are encountered and used by mainframe IT personnel every day, this course explains them in an easily understandable manner.
This course then goes on to introduce the concepts, facilitiesand functions of TSO and IBM's Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF). The course focuses particularly on TSO/ISPF's functions for data editing and dataset management. Almost all users of IBM's z/OS systems use TSO/ISPF to carry out their daily duties, and this part of the course combines formal classroom teaching with a progressive series of comprehensive and challenging hands-on practical sessions. This course is available for exclusive, one-company presentations and for live presentation over the Internet, via the Virtual Classroom Environment service.

What you will learn

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

ist the principal components found in IBM Z Systems environments
describe how data is stored, the different data codes and types, and the devices used
explain the concepts of operating systems
describe the IBM mainframe operating systems and their associated software, as available in IBM Z Systems
describe the functions carried out in Z Systems based IS departments
understand the different numbering systems and representations used in Z Systems
use basic TSO commands
use ISPF
browse and edit datasets
customise ISPF edit profiles
use advanced edit functions
submit and manage batch jobs
use the ISPF utilities such as allocate and copy
use search facilities.

Who Should Attend

RSM's z/OS Foundation Skills programme is suitable for all new and trainee programmers, operators and technicians.

Prerequisites

Basic keyboard skills.

Duration

4 days

Fee (per attendee)

£2400 (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

ZFS1

The Mainframe Computer

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 mainframe computer room and its contents; The processor complex; Parallel sysplex; Logical partitions; 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; Why magnetic tape?; Tape cartridges; High performance tapes; Automated Tape Libraries; Virtual Tape Servers; Other Input/output peripherals.

Z Systems 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.

Z Enterprize Organisation

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

The Z Systems' Operating Systems

Z Systems operating systems; z/OS operating systems; zVM operating systems; z/VSE operating systems; Linux operating systems; z/TPF operating systems.

z/OS Operating System

The z/OS operating system; 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; JES2; Transaction Servers: CICS, IMS; Databases: Db2, IMS; UNIX System Services; WebSphere Application Server.

Numbering Systems

Numbering systems; Decimal arithmetic; Binary arithmetic; Binary subtraction; Negative binary numbers; 2's complement; Hexadecimal arithmetic; Hexadecimal / binary relationship; Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code; Packed decimal numbers; Memory addressing.

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.

Basic ISPF Utilities

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

ISPF Dataset 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.

Browsing Datasets in ISPF

Dataset naming rules and conventions; DASD dataset organisation; Partitioned Data Sets; Partitioned Data Set 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.

SuperC and Search-For

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