z/OS Jump Start for Technical Support Staff

This course will be of interest to anyone working or interacting with IBM (or third party) products in the z/OS, CICS, Database, Network or related application areas.

This course will be of interest to anyone working or interacting with IBM (or third party) products in the z/OS, CICS, Database, Network or related application areas.

No previous z/OS experience is required. However, some exposure to the z/OS environment, or at least another IT platform, would be useful.

Key objectives include:

• Describe the system initialization processes of the z/OS operating system.
• State the differences between an address space, data space, and hiperspace.
• Describe the process of translating a virtual address to a real address.
• Explain the difference between paging and swapping.
• Describe the z/OS work units (TCB and SRB).
• Describe z/OS dispatching, interrupt processing, supervisor calls, cross memory services, and serialization.
• Describe the purpose of the Job Entry Subsystem (JES).
• Understand job flow through the z/OS environment.
• Describe the allocation process for the data sets in the z/OS environment.
• Understand how Input/Output (I/O) requests are processed in the z/OS environment.
• Describe how workload management is accomplished in a z/OS environment.
• Explain the z/OS recovery processes and list the available problem determination tools.
• Describe z/OS storage management concepts.
• Describe the UNIX System Services functions provided in the z/OS environment.
• Create a high-level plan for the installation and configuration of z/OS.

z/OS Overview
Explain the differences between z/OS base elements and optional features.
Describe the types of services that z/OS provides.
Identify the server solutions included in z/OS and describe some of the benefits of having these solutions integrated in z/OS.

Storage Management
Explain z/OS virtual storage concepts.
Describe the different common and private storage areas in an address space.
Describe the virtual to real address translation process (DAT).
Describe the differences between address spaces, data spaces, and hiperspaces.
Differentiate between paging and swapping.
Describe the purpose of a coupling facility.
Define the three types of coupling facility structures, LIST, LOCK and CACHE.
eEplain the purpose of Cross-system Extended Services (XES).

Managing Work
Describe how z/OS tasks and service requests are created.
List the program search order within z/OS.
Explain how and why z/OS dispatches a task.
Illustrate interrupt processing.
Identify supervisor calls.
Explain inter address space communication.
Describe how z/OS serializes the usage of critical resources.
Briefly describe UNIX System Services and file systems.

I/O Processing
Define the function of Central Storage, CPU, Channel Sub-System, Channel Path, Switch, Control Unit and I/O device.
Describe the HCD process for defining an I/O configuration.
Describe the flow of an I/O operation through the hardware and software components of a z/Series server.

Data Management
Describe the catalog process used to locate data sets.
Describe the roles and interactions of the Volume Table Of Contents (VTOC), index VTOC, and VSAM Volume Data Set (VVDS) in managing the datasets and free space on a DASD volume.
Understand the steps that z/OS uses to allocate data sets in both System Managed Storage (SMS) and non-SMS environments.
Understand the functions provided by the different DFSMS components.

Job Management and Flow
State the purpose of JES2.
State the purpose of the spool and checkpoint data sets.
Understand the multi-access spool environment.
Describe the methods used to establish a job in the system.
Define job output class and output processing priority.
Explain the purpose of the Subsystem Interface.

Initial Program Load (IPL) and System Initialization
Explain the purpose of the system initialization.
Define the role of the NUCLEUS, PARMLIB and other critical datasets in system initialization.
Describe the purpose of the SYSRES and IODF volumes.
Describe the purpose of some of the system address spaces created during the system initialisation process.

Recovery and Termination Management
Describe the purpose of the Recovery Termination Manager (RTM).
Describe the purpose of recovery management support.
Describe the various problem analysis dumps and traces produced by z/OS and use the available analysis tools.

Installation and Configuration
Differentiate between the ServerPac and CBPDO deliverables.
Describe a ServerPac installation of z/OS.
Describe a CBPDO installation of z/OS.
Describe z/OS Managed System Infrastructure for Set up (MSYS for set up).

Communication
Differentiate between VTAM/SNA and TCP/IP networking protocols.
List some of the possibilities for interconnecting different network structures.
Describe some of the characteristics of a VTAM/SNA network.
Describe some of the characteristics of a TCP/IP network.
Explain how Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are used.
Recognize the TCP/IP applications provided by the z/OS Communications Server.
Explain the purpose and function of the Open Systems Adapter (OSA).

Security in z/OS
Explain the authorized program facility APF.
Explain the difference between authorization and authentication.
Understand the role and structure of RACF.
Describe a digital certificate from a Certificate Authority (CA), and its purpose.
Describe the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).
Describe Network Authentication Services.