SDS Support | Mainframe Industry
FAQs related to IBM® mainframe computers, operating systems, and networking protocols, along with links to journals, newsletters, and websites that are important to the mainframe industry.
Mainframe Industry Publications/Resources
- Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2020
- CMG, Computer Measurement Group
- Database Trends and Applications
- Dictionary of the Mainframe World
Find over 6,000 terms that relate to our business. - EBusinessServer.com
Home of the E-Business Server application for enterprise-wide data encryption, authentication, and security. - Enterprise Systems Media
- Eric Loriaux Services
Social network for System z (z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE, z/Linux, z/TPF professionals) - ESJ, Enterprise Systems Journal
- The Henderson Group
Computer Security Consulting and Training. - IBM Systems Magazine
- Mainframes.com
A central reference for mainframe tools. - Mainframe Security website
A central cache of useful mainframe security information for z/OS programmers, administrators, security officers. - NaSPA, Network and Systems Professionals Association
- The SDS Blog: News for Mainframers
Tips on mainframe management and using SDS software to full advantage. - SearchDataCenter
- SHARE
- US-CERT
Important Security Bulletins - ZDNet News
Mainframe FAQs
Q: Where can I find IBM’s manuals for z/OS?
A: IBM provides multiple on-line documentation libraries for z/OS.
- “Redbooks” are available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com.
- You can search z/OS messages at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/bkserv/lookat/
- z/OS manuals are available from http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/CASES/
- The “z/OS Internet Library” is at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/bkserv/
Q: What is an OMVS segment?
A: OMVS and other mainframe terminology is defined in the Dictionary of the Mainframe World
Q: What is Enterprise Extender?
A: Enterprise Extender (EE) integrates SNA applications into IP networks. It wraps SNA messages in IP packets and manages their transmission over IP networks, to and from SNA applications at either end of the EE connection. EE is significantly superior to its predecessors, Data Link Switching (DLSw) and AnyNet, for example. VitalSigns for IP™ has two dashboards dedicated to Enterprise Extender and HPR monitoring.
Q: What is IP version 6 or IPV6.
A: Internet protocol version 6 is the next generation of the internet protocol for packet-switched networks. Currently, the dominant version is IPV4. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) designated IPv6 as its successor in RFC2460, 1998.
Q: What is zIIP?
A: The IBM System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is a specialty mainframe processor designed to free-up general computing capacity. zIIP delivers increased computing capacity and throughput.
Q: What is zAAP?
A: The IBM System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP), previously known as the zSeries Application Assist Processor, is a mainframe processor introduced by IBM in 2004. zAAP engines are dedicated to running specific Java and XML workloads under z/OS, accelerating performance. zAAPs are available for zSeries 890 and 990 servers and all System z9 and System z10 servers.
Q: What is FTP and what types of FTP transfers are available to me?
A: The file transfer protocol (FTP) is used to transfer files among computers on a network. FTP is widely implemented, but does not provide the security of encrypted transmissions. Two common, more-secure variations of FTP are FTPS and SFTP.
- FTPS (FTP Secure or FTP-SSL) employs Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptography.
- SFTP (SSH FTP, Secure Shell FTP, or Secure FTP) provides file transfer and manipulation over any reliable data stream. It is typically used with version 2 of the SSH protocol.
For more information about FTP security, see VitalSigns for FTP™
Q: What is IPsec?
A: Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a suite of protocols for securing IP communications by authenticating and encrypting each packet of a data stream.
Q: How do we use the IP trace? Capture entire payload or abbreviate data?
A: Too broad a packet trace can easily gather too much information and use too much CPU overhead. Effective traces use abbreviation and filters to select specific subsets of the traffic through a stack.
To abbreviate trace data is to collect the first nnn bytes of each packet. Often, it is sufficient to collect only packet headers, without any of the data payloads. The headers, typically the first 256 bytes or fewer, provide all the addressing, protocol, and routing information.
Along with abbreviation, VitalSigns for IP’s packet trace tool provides for selecting packets by IP address, port, subnet, protocol, and/or link name.
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