Design consideration for SYSPLEX/LPAR/MQ

rakesh_mishra18 · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:27 am

We are migrating to Mainframe on a PARALLEL SYSPLEX/LPAR/CICSPLEX/MQ. I have some question on the same.

1. How to decide no of LPAR. I guess we as a application designer need to provide this to operation people to setup for us. I also want to know if all the parameter generic or based on our input configuration will differ. same question for CICSPLEX.

2. MQ - how and when we decide no of Q manager. what are the info operation people need from architecture team on setting up of MQ environment.

Regards,
Rakesh

Bill O'Boyle · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:06 am

Although this may be a combined effort involving many parties within the organization, in my opinion, the System Architects associated with your company are the primary responsible parties for designing and defining the needed resources. Their knowledge needs to be broad, which should include (but not limited to) CICS, z/OS and DB2.

There may be a need for the Applications Group to give them some ideas with which they can use as part of the foundation for a PLEX environment.

If multiple LPAR's are chosen, then the Architects need to consider the z/OS (MVS) Coupling Facility used together with VSAM RLS as the best means of allowing the LPAR's to communicate with VSAM via a single entry point. However, this stuff is NOT cheap.

Please also consider DB2 across multiple LPAR's as well as possibly looking into enabling Threadsafe DB2 programming compliance, using the "L8" TCB option. It's definitely worth your while.

There are IBM Redbooks which should be reviewed for CICSPLEX implementation as well as Threadsafe compliance Redbooks, for both DB2 and "Open API" (L9 TCB's).

Your IBM Technical representative (System Engineer as they used to be called) should also be a major part of this and will be able to shed light on best practices, based upon other installations with which they were involved.

If a single LPAR is chosen, then basically, this will be an MRO environment and the extra cost associated with the Coupling Facility and VSAM RLS won't be needed.

In CICS/TS 3.2 (as a PTF), IBM has enabled CICS/VSAM requests as Threadsafe, but only for local files. If you decide to forego multiple LPAR's (IE: MRO) and use FOR's/DOR's, the Threadsafe PTF will not be applicable, due to the files being remote.

There should be sufficient time for discovery given to the Architect's before they submit a proposal to management.

Just my .02 cents....

Regards,

dick scherrer · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:03 am

Hello,

Robert Sample · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:20 am

In addition to what Bill and Dick said, the number of LPARs partially depends on the physical configuration of the machine -- coupling facility (if used), channel path connections, and so forth. I've never been at a site where the applications people did more than suggest another LPAR was needed -- and their request had to be backed up with solid performance and capacity planning data before it went any further.

System design and configuration can be very complex, and IBM (for one) has tools available that help determine the number of processors, amount of memory, number of LPARs, amount of DASD, number of tape drives, and so forth -- based on the historical (or anticipated) load.

rakesh_mishra18 · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:26 am

We need details on below.

1. LPAR - configuration setup parameters. Like application group need to tell operation on how many LPAR and how we decide.
2. SYSPLEX/CICSPLEX/MQ - what are the parameters which are project specific and need to be provided by application team.
3. CFDT/XCF/RACF/TCP-IP/DB2/JES - similar infor as required in step2.

Basically we are moving from UNISYS to IBM on a new machine. They already have IBM and datacenter team for some existing application.

Thanks,
Rakesh

rakesh_mishra18 · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:35 am

I just want to make sure that we should not miss anything which need to be provided by us. Basically we need to clearly tell if some setup need input fro us or it will be just a standard setup. Like, I heard for xpeditor they need to do some configuration for MQ. Just need overview on this.

Robert Sample · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:56 am

I'm not really sure you're listening to what we're telling you. Have you talked to the datacenter team to find out their recommendations for your application?

LPAR -- ask for two or three (testing, qa, production) to keep everything as clean as possible. The site parameters for the LPARs will be determined by the hardware and software installed, so you will have very little to say about them; if you're asked specific questions about configuration come back to this forum.
SYSPLEX/CICSPLEX/MQ -- determined by what is already running on site; you need to provide transaction volumes (estimated) and MQ volumes (estimated) but the rest will be pretty much given.
CFDT/XCF/RACF/TCP-IP/DB2/JES -- determined by site standards. You may get to tell the systems group how many High Level Qualifiers (HLQs) for datasets you need, but otherwise plan on following the site requirements already in place. TCP-IP parameters may allow you to determine the IP address for your LPAR(s) but not much else should be application specified.

dick scherrer · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:44 am

Hello,

rakesh_mishra18 · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:41 pm

Thanks for all the replies.

We are getting a new Z10 machine and they have to do all the setup. These question is more from Unisys side people (client). They want some details eventhough we mention that these are more of a datacenter work and for any specific setup from application perspective datacenter will get the details from us. But Unisys people (client) need the approach for these setups as some of these will not be standard and will depend on transaction volume..etc. However, we will get back later when they need any specific details.