Murach's OS/390 and Z/OS JCL

by Doug Lowe and Raul Menendez

Book Overview

A thoroughly redesigned and updated version of Murach's best-selling book that makes it easier than ever to learn how to use JCL (Job Control Language) on IBM mainframes. After you learn how to use... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1890774146
• ISBN13: 9781890774141
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
• Length: 542 Pages
• Weight: 3.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.9" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

A great way to learn about mainframe systems

Several years ago, i had to deal with a mainframe system. My attitudethen was to minimize my exposure as much as possible, as if it were adisease. I figured that mainframes were obsolete and any time i spentlearning about them would be time wasted. Well, they are still around,and i recently found myself having to advise some mainframetesters. Mainframes are still around. It was time for me to learn moreabout them.I picked up Murach's OS/390 and z/OS JCL, and it does an excellent jobof describing the architecture and nomenclature of mainframesystems. It presumes that you nothing about mainframe systems. To getstarted, you should know that MVS, OS/390 and z/OS are all basicallyinterchangeable terms for the mainframe operating system (quibblingover these terms would be like quibbling over whether Linux were aUnix operating system). JCL is "job control language" and is theoriginal front end for mainframe systems when punch cards were theirprimary external interface. There are now a number of easierinterfaces that allow you submit JCL to a mainframe.Anyhow, this book has been a very valuable guide to me forunderstanding the basics of mainframe systems and giving me theinformation i need in order to analogies between it and other systemsthat i know better. For example, i now know that a data set is kind oflike a file, a directory, or a filesystem, depending on how you lookat it. And i have some sense of what CICS and VSAM are.I was also surprised to see such a modern book format on a topic thati'm prone to consider dated. It's a large format with the text runningon the left hand pages and examples, diagrams and summaries on theright. The main ideas of each spread are covered three times: in thenarrative on the left, and in the examples and summary ("description")on the right. On many pages, i found myself not turning the page untili understood the material before me. It's a great format, and on thestrength of it alone, i've already picked up Murach's book on Java formy technical library.

A highly recommended and reliable tutorial

Collaboratively written by experienced professional programmers Raul Menendez and Doug Lowe, Murach's OS/390 And z/OS JCL is a comprehensive, and exhaustive tutorial, reference, in the form and formate of a complete and effective guide to understanding the JCL used to run programs on an IBM system. From the basics of JCL operating system code, to writing code in JCL yourself, to mastering time-saving features, tape data sets, and much more, Murach's OS/390 And z/OS JCL is a thorough, step-by-step book that guides anyone with even the most cursory experience in operating systems down the most effortless path. Sample programs and meticulously presented ideas help clarify the solid computer science foundation of this essential, core reference for anyone who needs to concern themselves with the ins and outs of JCL. Murach's OS/390 And z/OS JCL is a highly recommended and reliable tutorial that will aptly serve the user as a continuing reference work.

Very practical and useful

I got more than I expected from "OS/390 and z/OS JCL". Not only were the chapters on JCL itself very clear and complete, but this was really a collection of small reference books. For example, there is a section on IDCAMS, which is going to be very useful, because it has all those parameters that I can never remember. There's another section on batch utilities, which shows you how to use them with HFS directories.I would very much recommend this book to anyone new to z/OS -- or anyone like myself who gets annoyed at how difficult it is to find out some detail that they have just forgotten.

Working in an OS/390 or z/OS environment, you gotta have ...

Murach's next entry in their upgraded OS/390 titles has arrived and you won't be disappointed. Raul Menendez updates the prior (1980) edition of their MVS JCL text. The result is a JCL training and reference book that should be the first book anyone aspiring to work on the OS/390 or z/OS platforms should acquire.The first two chapters give a very condensed, but extremely thorough introduction and overview of IBM's mainframe environment from a hardware and operating system perspective. Since we continue to see forecasts that there will be a growing shortage of programmers for this environment, this is exactly the type of "quick start" introduction that will help bring new programmers up to speed. Chapter three gives a very quick overview of ISPF, enough to get started using ISPF to accomplish basic editing, submit jobs, and review job output.Following the introductory section, Job Control Language is covered from the basics of statement format to how to accomplish more complex tasks - managing program execution, allocating disk and tape datasets, handling special circumstances of SYSOUT datasets, and using procedures. More advanced JCL skills, including conditional processing, job restart/recovery, creating and using generation data groups, and using the Storage Management Subsystem to allocate datasets is covered in the next section.But this is much more than a simple text on Job Control Language. It includes a section on the basics of Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM), along with JCL required to create and use VSAM datasets. The chapter covering Access Method Services (IDCAMS) includes just about everything an application programmer will need to know to create and manage VSAM objects. The most commonly used IBM utility programs, such as IEHMOVE, IEBCOPY, and IEBDG are explained with examples for their use. And the chapter devoted to the Sort/Merge utility covers both stand alone and internal sorts along with the most common sort control statements.The book concludes with a couple of chapters that will provide the reader with a working knowledge of CLISTS, REXX, and UNIX System Services. With the inclusion of the information about SMS and UNIX System Services, the text is desk ready for programmers working in a z/OS environment, IBM's current version of their flagship operating system. But this book will be equally usable by programmers working on earlier versions of OS/390 and MVS. Murach's "paired page" format is easy to read for those using the text in training mode and also makes this a great choice for use as a reference tool.

More than JCL -- a handy reference book, too

I was delighted to find a replacement for the dog-eared JCL manual on my bookshelf - and this one is much better than my old copy.I started off looking up some random JCL parameters to see how easy it was to find things quickly (the most important thing in a reference book) and ended up reading the whole book from beginning to end when I realized just how many useful little things I had missed learning since I first started using JCL fifteen years ago.According to the authors, "OS/390 and z/OS JCL" is intended for both mainframe trainees and experienced programmers. That must be why everything is clearly explained, rather than just giving the syntax and leaving it at that. In addition to the chapters on JCL, there are sections on ISPF, SMS, VSAM, IDCAMS, IBM utilities (IEBCOPY etc.), SORT, REXX and UNIX system services.In other words, this is a very handy general purpose mainframe reference book, that will earn its place on my bookshelf.