Parallel Sysplex Fundamentals

This course should be considered the technical “foundation stone” for anyone who needs to know how the parallel sysplex actually works. It provides a detailed examination of the fundamental mechanics of IBM’s parallel sysplex architecture. It will provide the student with a full and comprehensive understanding of all those functions that make the sysplex what it is today, an environment that can provide continuous availability for a huge variety of workloads.

This class is designed for system programmers and support staff who wish to gain a clear technical insight into the workings of the parallel sysplex environment. It would also be suitable for anyone else with similar needs.

It is strongly recommended that students first attend the Parallel Sysplex Technical Overview class as that class introduces the mechanics of the environment, the rationale for its introduction, the management components and the details of the exploitation of the sysplex.

The course describes in detail the three sets of services involved:

• The XCF services, comprising the basic signalling services, group and monitoring services, and restart and recovery services.
• XCF’s Extension Services, which manage the coupling facility data sharing environment. This is where you can see how all the structure types are managed and data integrity issues addressed.
• The Workload Manager services, which are constantly being enhanced over the various OS/390 and z/OS releases to provide an ever more automated environment for workload management. This section includes such features as enclave management, Application Environments and Sysplex Routing Services as well as those services designed for the traditional transaction managers like CICS and IMS.

At the end of this class students will be able to:

• Describe the facilities provided by XCF, explain the purpose of these facilities and so understand how the sysplex itself is maintained.
• Describe how the data sharing facilities in the parallel sysplex are invoked via the various XES services, and so understand how the various data sharing application environments function.
• Understand how the workload manager controls all the different types of work in the parallel sysplex, and differentiate between the different techniques involved.

Introduction.
XCF services.
Data Sharing.
Connection Services.
Cache Services.
Lock Services.
List Services.
Workload Manager Services.