Quickload for IBM System z provides 3 major components to facilitate the installation upgrade and migration process of your z/OS operating system.
The OS Installer will dramatically reduce the time, effort, and level of expertise necessary to install upgrades to the IBM mainframe and System z operating systems. Now there is an alternative to the many tapes and hours it takes to load a new version of the operating system. The OS Installer will deliver your system on DVDs, which will allow you to load your new “migration-ready operating system” in one day.
The OS Installer includes many pre-customized options and can be used by team members who have less installation experience, conserving important time and resources. Using The OS Installer’s GUI interface, it is easy to install additional software (also provided on DVDs) such as CICS, Websphere MQ, PSF, compilers, DB2, etc. The existence of this product technology gives the mainframe a true “Install Wizard”.
Quickload makes use of our unique technology, called Discovery. Discovery will analyze various system components and provide an XML based window-view of the system configuration of your existing operating system. Easy drill-down views facilitate a quick understanding of interfacing system components and therefore expedite the discovery and planning process.
Discovery will populate the registry from multiple systems and can detect a sysplex system environment. This view is then displayed in a tree format for easy drill down analysis. Some of the information that is collected is: parmlib, catalog structure, iplparm information, available devices, security information, sysplex information and network information. This information – which is used with the OS Installer, the Discovery Browser and the Migration Utility – eliminates the need to memorize dataset & member names, and provides accurate information thereby eliminating errors due to hidden or misinformation.
Migration is one of the most difficult tasks during a system upgrade. Quickload provides the Installation tool that registers systems information and the Discovery Browser that easily searches through this information. The process of migrating the old system into the new system is now simplified by having Quickload present the differences.
Additionally, unique sets of utilities are continually being enhanced to guide you through the labor-intensive tasks involved in the migration. The Migration Utility will initiate different processes that provide the user options for a typical or a custom migration. The process will provide user prompting and will dramatically facilitate the speed of the migration process. Once this process is complete the Discovery Browser can then display the new system to ensure the accuracy of the migration.
Some specific functions of the Migration Utility include:
Catalog Merge
The OS/Installer component of Quickload will create your new release of the operating system. In that process, a basic new Master Catalog will be created.
As part of the post-installation tasks, the Migration Utility will then “discover” the old catalog, including all aliases, and replicate the complete master catalog to the new system. Prior to the merge, a Catalog Merge Report is prepared and presented for review and confirmation. Only upon confirmation will the merge begin. In addition, a Backout Catalog Merge function is provided to allow the user to back out changes that were made.
This function will therefore eliminate the manual tedious and time-consuming process, and will facilitate an accurate duplication of the original master catalog.
ISV Database
Another of the post-installation steps involves research of non-IBM products as well as IBM products that are not part of the normal system install, e.g., Websphere. One must determine the proper product release levels that are compatible with the new version of the operating system.
The process involves telephone calls to each vendor and/or researching the vendor’s web site. Frequently, a consulting organization is commissioned to perform this task and will typically charge 40 hours of their time for the service.
The Quickload Migration Utility now provides this information to you in our ISV Database. The information is centralized, concise and readily available, and provides a convenient and time/cost-saving service.
Cloning
It is frequently necessary to create a copy of an existing system, whether for another LPAR or for an additional system that will be used on the same LPAR. Sometimes this system will be utilized as is, while other times it will be used as a foundation upon which an alternate system will be built.
Quickload’s Migration Utility provides a Cloning Facility to perform this function. It will present the user with 10 system variables to be defined, e.g., LPAR number, TCP/IP address, UCB addresses, PAGE dataset volume, LAN type, etc., and will create a duplicate system based on these parameters.
Dataset Renaming
Although it is recommended that a site use the IBM default naming standards, the Migration Utility provides the ability to modify these names.
The Migration Utility will present a list of high-level qualifiers that are used as defaults and will provide you the flexibility to change these for your particular environment.
Too often, IT management must make decisions that will benefit either long-term goals or short-term goals. Long-term goals usually include improved practices and standards, improved reliability, and positioning for future benefits. Short-term goals frequently include cost cutting, time savings, and reduced application time-to-market. Generally, one goal must be sacrificed to attain the other. It is rare to discover a product that will, in fact, satisfy both these short-term and long-term goals. Quickload is such a product.
Below you will find a list of these benefits. Cost justification of Quickload can easily be made through the short-term benefits it provides, while its long-term benefits provide additional cost justifications and enable you to move in a direction that is prudent for your organization.
95% Time Savings – What would normally take 10-28 days for the operating system installation and customization will now take only 1 day. Besides the obvious savings of time and money, your expert systems staff will now be more available for other critical needs.
System Reliability – Since Quickload is an automated process, errors associated with the manual server pack functions are fully eliminated. The automated Quickload processes will fully replace the error-prone manual server pack processes.
Improved Application Development Time-to-Market – Corporate needs often require new application development, which in turn often require software and operating system upgrades. Time consuming operating system upgrades frequently force IT management to select other less desirable platforms, or worse, to declare it cannot meet the development schedule. Quickload can assist in eliminating this embarrassing (and all too frequent) response by ensuring the operating system upgrade is performed quickly and reliably.
Improved Utilization of the Mainframe – With the elimination of the Time-to-Market delays, IT management can now properly choose the platform which will best satisfy the corporate need – frequently the mainframe, with its power, reliability and scalability.
Expanded OS Functionality – Quickload will exploit the full capabilities of the operating system by enabling and configuring optional functions that would otherwise be an additional and difficult installation task, e.g., BookMgr, SMB Server, NFS Server, Web Server, Telnet Server, etc.
Improved Practices and Standards – The Quickload process will replace delivered defaults and inappropriate parameters with “Best Practices” customizations from the IBM redbook, and will incorporate over 20 years of system installation and migration expertise. The result – a customized operating system environment that is more useful and more powerful.
Positioned for Future Benefits – Quickload is positioned to extend its installation capability to include the installation of optional software to your system. The same advantages of time, reliability and functionality will then be expanded to a wider scope.
Flexibility AND Simplicity – The power of the mainframe has been understood since its inception. To harness this power required the flexibility to customize – in fact, flexible to the point of being complex. For example, the operating system has an entire manual devoted exclusively to the base parameters required for system efficiency. Hence, It is no wonder that it takes weeks to manually customize the operating system options. Quickload allows you to maintain the flexibility, and therefore the power, of the mainframe, while providing simplicity of upgrades which greatly facilitates the usefulness of the mainframe.
