Just Released – Latest Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter

Feb 25, 2025

Mark Wilson is a globally recognized thought leader and international speaker in mainframe security and technology, as well as a passionate advocate for all things Z. With more than 40 years of experience, Mark serves as the Editor of Cheryl Watson's Tuning Letter and as the Technical Director at Vertali. He is a multi-year IBM Champion and a Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframer.  

Hello from me, Mark Wilson, the incoming Editor and Producer for Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter. We’re proud to release the latest issue, 2024 No.4, on the publication’s website. If you’re not a subscriber yet, consider this your nudge. You can catch the complete Table of Contents here, available to the public. 

In this Tuning Letter issue, you will find the following practical articles and insights:

  • A ‘Fond Farewell’ from Frank Kyne to our subscribers after 11 years of excellent service and support as the editor for the Tuning Letter.
  • Two great articles from Frank
    • MIM to GRS Migration – Performance Experiences: Jan Tielemans and Luc Martens from KBC Group in Belgiumkindly involved us in the early stages of their planning for a migration from CA-MIM to GRS. Now that their migration has been completed successfully, they offered to work with us on this article describing their experiences with the relative performance and capacity consumption of those two products. As you can imagine, information like this is invaluable, so we jumped on the offer before they could change their minds!
    • Considerations for Long-Running Db2 DDF Transactions: In the ‘DDF Considerations for Migration to a Sub-cap CPC’ section of the User Experiences and Tips article in Tuning Letter 2024 No. 2, I mentioned that we might follow up with a short article about Db2 DDF considerations for sites evaluating a migration to a sub-capacity CPC. Well, guess what? This is that article.
  • My first attempt at an article, which was way more work than I anticipated. I  created the first of what I believe will become a regular theme in future Tuning Letter issues, ‘An Introduction to IBM APARs and PTFs, with a hint of an FMID”. With many organisations seeing a changing of the guard as experienced system programmers retire, it’s time to start handing over the baton to the next generation of mainframe technicians. Hopefully, those technicians will find this article useful.
  • Of course, we also have our regular helping of our ever-popular User Experiences and Tips. In this issue, we have:
    • Problems After Enabling VSAM RLS for a User Catalog
    • IMS TPIPE Flood Protection

To round things off, the News article provides a meaty list of recent New Function APARs and information about upcoming user conferences.

Finally, it’s with a heavy heart that we acknowledge the passing of Robert Catterall. His contributions to The Tuning Letter were numerous, including four mentions in this issue alone. 

We hope you find this edition informative and helpful in your daily work.. Please let us know if there are any specific topics you would like to see in a future Tuning Letter article.

If you are not a current Tuning Letter subscriber, see our website for information about subscription rates and the ordering process. Remember that we love hearing from our readers, so feel free to contact us at any time. 

All the best.

Mark Wilson
Incoming Editor and Producer, Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter

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