Mainframe News

Once a month (or so) we like to pick blog articles from other sources that we feel are interesting enough to talk about on the Planet Mainframe blog. Here are this month’s picks:

IBM Telum Processor

An interesting article on the DancingDinosaur blog (Hi Telum) about IBM’s new Telum Processor slated to be launched on the IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE mainframe systems. As Planet Mainframe friend Alan Radding puts it, the microprocessor contains 8 processor cores, clocked at over 5GHz, with each core supported by a redesigned 32MB private level-2 cache. The level-2 caches interact to form a 256MB virtual Level-3 and 2GB Level-4 cache…

Read more about the Telum processor here: dancingdinosaur.wordpress.com

Beyond Manual Testing

Interesting article on SHARE’d Intelligence, summarizing a recent session at the SHARE Virtual Experience 2021, Beyond Manual Testing, presented by some experts at Broadcom. They say that while DevOps is maturing in mainframe shops, generally about only 10% of all mainframe testing is being automated in some fashion. Definitely worth a read.

See more here: SHARE’d Intelligenace.

IBM storage – data resiliency, pay-as-you-go and mainframe hardware in its Q3 2021 announcement

ITcandor reports on IBM’s new offerings announced in their Q3 2021 announcement. And part of that is enhancements to the DS8980 array and TS7770 tape library.

See more at itcandor.com.

Reg Harbeck chats with Elizabeth K. Joseph

Planet Mainframe friend Reg Harbeck recently chatted with IBM mainframe developer and Linux expert Elizabeth K. Joseph on his TechChannel podcast about the future of mainframe technology. Worth checking out.

See more at techchannel.com

The IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS (COBOL) Migration Portal

As stated in this announcement, IBM® Enterprise COBOL for z/OS® 4 will hit “End of Service” on April 30, 2022, which means that COBOL users can no longer open Cases or get APAR fixes for the COBOL compiler after the end of service date becomes effective. Code compiled with these compilers will continue to run. In addition, the COBOL runtime, which is part of the IBM z/OS Language Environment, will continue to be supported. Users who are currently still on COBOL 4 or earlier versions are encouraged to plan and start their migration to COBOL 6 as soon as possible.

To assist COBOL users who are migrating from Enterprise COBOL 4 or earlier versions to COBOL 6, a one-stop COBOL Migration Portal was launched in Feb. 2020, aggregating all the COBOL migration-related information including case studies, COBOL experts interview videos, the cloud-based COBOL Migration Assistant, COBOL Migration and Performance Tuning Webinars, FAQs, and many other content assets. Since then, the portal has been a key and popular resource among COBOL migration users.

In responding to the needs of our users and improve their experiences, now, we’re excited to announce that a new COBOL Migration Portal is live! Major changes in the new portal are as follows:

Design improvements:

  • The portal landing page and the webinar register page now have a new modern look that provides you with a consistent experience in IBM Documentation (previously known as IBM Knowledge Center).
  • The overall migration workflow for “Why” – “How” – “After” is optimized.

Content updates:

  • Along with the new design, content assets are reorganized and streamlined accordingly.
  • Hot topics, such as user stories, EOS dates, manual download links, etc., are shown directly on the landing page to make it more comprehensive and informative, and you will not need to go further.
  • Spotlight resources such as the webinars and the COBOL Migration Assistant are highlighted, and you can get started quickly.
  • Core ideas of videos are summarized so you can easily capture what the videos are about or if you prefer plain texts.
  • IBM DevOps tool sets are introduced that can speed up your migration process. In addition, using IBM Z VTP for an efficient regression testing is further clarified.

So why not take a tour around the new COBOL Migration Portal right now?

If you have any comments or would like to see other topics in the COBOL Migration Portal, please send them to compinfo@cn.ibm.com. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Article submitted by Dan Zhang.

Where else to go

While the PlanetMainframe blog is the best place to learn about the latest in mainframe talk, there are several other places worth looking in at:

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