Frequent Deniers Club
by Hesh Wiener

Lots of people join clubs. They join social clubs whose members work together for their individual and collective benefit. They join professional clubs that make it easy for members to exchange information or address mutual concerns associated with a particular metier. They join special interest clubs for camaraderie and to further their avocations. Clubs and other affiliate groups are particularly important to computer folk, who can benefit from sharing and comparing experiences. But just as a person can grab the wrong end of a club, a club can grab the wrong end of people. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories and Vendor Announcements

(SearchSecurity) Your mainframe security is a couple of feathers short of being the full duck if you aren't taking care of configuring and maintaining your network and supporting best practices. To prove this point, a security researcher has demonstrated how to hack into a mainframe system at a recent conference. READ MORE >

(Baseline) This isn't the first report about the demand for IT professionals with system programming skills on the mainframe. It, for sure, won't be the last. Based on comments coming out of the SHARE conference last month, we hear more industry insiders making note of this trend and predicting it will increase in the years ahead. READ MORE >

(IBM) The latest DFSMS environment for z/OS adds new functions and capabilities to storage management, data access, device support, program management, and distributed data access for the z/OS platform in a system-managed storage environment. This IBM Redbook provides a technical overview along with practical implementation hints and tips. READ MORE >

(Softek) Customers of Sun Microsystems who are considering data migration projects have a new storage software component that can be used with z/OS as well as with several other operating system platforms. Softek TDMF is being promoted as a way to improve the capability to keep data online, mitigate risk of data loss or corruption, reduce costs, manage data across mixed environments, and optimize storage while still meeting all business continuity of operations requirements. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

September 11-14 -- Baltimore, Maryland - The WebSphere Portal Technical Conference is set up to provide IBM's technically oriented product details and hands-on training, along with presentations of customer case studies and best practices from Big Blue's product architects and developers, IBM Business Partners, and customers. Sessions will be organized according to the following tracks: new features in WebSphere Portal, Portal basics, Portal development, and Portal administration. LEARN MORE >

September 12 -- Ottawa, Canada - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 14 -- Columbus, Ohio - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 19 -- Dallas - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 21 -- Chicago - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

September 25-29 -- Markham, Canada - A series of one-day System z workshops covering the operating system, hardware updates, security, and networking technologies. Additional workshop dates in October include locations such as Australia, Singapore, Germany, Netherlands, China, and Taiwan. LEARN MORE >

September 26 -- Atlanta - IBM is hosting a WebSphere seminar designed for System z technical professionals, including application development management, application developers, and application architects. These seminars provide in-depth knowledge of WebSphere and the tools to implement a service oriented architecture. Topics include defining business models that reduce inefficiencies, integrating core application assets for reuse, running mixed application types and workload patterns, and generating advanced user interfaces for core applications. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Webinar - Putting CICS in the heart of your SOA implementation means assessing applications and optimizing performance. This session will cover CICS TS 3.1 migration considerations and tools featuring products such as CICS Configuration Manager, CICS Interdependency Analyzer , CICS Performance Analyzer and CICS VSAM Transparency. The presentation begins at 11 a.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

October 20 & 21 -- Chicago, Illinois - The Network and Systems Professionals Association annual conference, NaSTEC, features educational tracks on large systems/mainframes, distributed systems, and professional development and includes 24 total sessions. Topics include IT compliance, TCP/IP network health checks, and security, as well as others. LEARN MORE >