How to conduct a new environment on Z/OS system?

bruce wang · New User Joined: 04 Jan 2009 Posts: 7 Location: china

Hi All,

I am going to set up a new Z/OS environment. but it's very hard to conduct it. That's a new area i am searching now.
Can anyone give me the clear understanding of how to set up?

Thanks a lot.

expat · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:51 pm

A new environment - a test environment, a new system (LPAR)

You need to explain fully your requirement to get the correct answers.

bruce wang · New User Joined: 04 Jan 2009 Posts: 7 Location: china

Hi Expat,

Sorry for unclear requirements. I mean that our team had developed some small tools and needs to testing on several different environments.
We have no ideas on conduct testing environment. So i can not give you the detailed description about our requirement.

If you could send me uesful materials or references on Mainframe environment setting. I am looking forward to your feedback.

expat · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:12 pm

I guess that this can be quite site specific, the testing of tools / programs / whatever.

You should speak to people at your site to determine the accepted procedures for testing and implementation, along with refreshing the environment with production data.

One site I worked at, there were development, testing, acceptance and finally production for implementation. Another site had only development and production environments.

Also, when testing your own product, or that from another team member, try everything that you can to break the tool to see where possibly hidden errors lie.

bruce wang · New User Joined: 04 Jan 2009 Posts: 7 Location: china

I think that we need to break the tools so that get the designment and development completely. Testing is done for detecting the errors as completely as possible. i gained another way of consider the requirement from your points. thanks expat.

I wish you could send me materials that related to management of MF system or how to initial new environment. i am appreciate for your response coming soon.

Topic edited to remove email address

expat · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:51 pm

Unfortunately I do not have material to send.

When you talk of an environment what exactly do you mean ? A mirror image of production as was used for our acceptance test environment.

We used to take full application dumps of production and restore to acceptance over a weekend to ensure that the acceptance environment was as close as possible to production. Obviously these days you have SNAPSHOT / FLASHCOPY / TDMF / SRDF / PPRC ad infinitum to replicate DASD.

Robert Sample · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:58 pm

There is no such thing in general terms as "mainframe environment". There can be testing in batch, testing in online (CICS, IMS, or other), testing in TSO, testing in Unix System Services, but you cannot just state you want to test in a mainframe environment. Hence there is no way we can provide you with any assistance.

bruce wang · New User Joined: 04 Jan 2009 Posts: 7 Location: china

Strictly speaking, I just want a tesing environment used to testing small tools in batch. Due to lack of environment knowledges, I am still in learning of MVS, the site i worked is conducted for development. I am not sure the different between development environment and tesing evn, and so on. firstly, i need gain clear understanding of different environment.

Many thanks for your help. I am glad to exchange with you all.

dick scherrer · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:31 am

Hello,

MBabu · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 9:24 am

As mentioned, there is no generic environment.

It all depends on what your tools need to access and how you need that configured. For example, do you need a database? If so, there are many choices; DB2, Oracle, MySQL, a home grown system, a set of data sets, etc.

Do you need a transaction processing system? There is CICS, IMS, Application servers and several more IBM and non-IBM systems.

Do you need a runtime environment for the language you are using? There is Language Environment (LE), Java virtual machines, Unix services, TSO services, Rexx libraries, CICS libraries, etc

And there is Security: ACF/2, RACF, Top Secret...
And performance configuration: WLM
And communications: TCP/IP, Terminal emulation, etc

Resetting all of these in a test environment for reproducable results can be as simple as emptying some data sets or as difficult as reinitializing set of network attached load balanced application servers with predefined test data, configurations, security, tuning, error recovery, etc, etc, etc.

There are literally thousands of combinations of software that your tools might need. Or the tools may need only Rexx and a PDS or two.

I've made it sound much more complicated than it really is, but only to say that you need to understand specifically what the system you are testing need to run.