Opportunities represented by e-business also represent a new business trend -- the increasing importance of capacities to retain and utilize data. The emerging mission-critical focus today is data storage, where once the chief concern may have been connectivity or processing power.
As storage management technologies at every enterprise grow in number, variety, and location, management of these resources through their individual utilities and disconnected interfaces rapidly becomes infeasible. Supporting corporate operations now means advanced support for z/OS™ storage management -- the job of Storage Administration Workbench for z/OS and OS/390®.
Knowledge and Action - All In One Place
Coupling data gathering, built-in reporting, and storage resource control in a single interactive structured programming facility (ISPF) environment makes Storage Administration Workbench a powerful focal point for a broad array of storage management tasks, including:
- Managing storage on different systems and locations
- Establishing pool organization
- Maintaining and controlling storage administration inventory, batch jobs, and application hierarchy
- Controlling hardware and software configuration
- Reporting and analysis of storage consumption
- Managing volumes, catalogs, caches, DFHSM, and RACF®
Storage Administration Workbench for z/OS and OS/390 functions are categorized in four areas, and include:
- Storage Workbench
- Dataplex management
- Main storage administration commands for IDCAMS, ICKDSF, DFDSS
- DFHSM management
- RACF storage administration fields
- Catalog management and housekeeping
- Storage Administration Inventory
- Reports, Exceptions, and Alerts
- Stored Reports (applications, catalogs, DS, pool, SG, DFHSM)
- Exceptions that trigger alerts to deviations from set norms / thresholds
- Central Storage Database
- Relational storage of statistics gathered by Storage Administration Workbench, providing analysis through Query Management Facility (QMF™) and other enterprise tools
Extensive Information, Overviews, and Easy Management
Storage Administration Workbench is easy to implement and use, provides concise or detailed reports by pool, storage groups, or applications, and contains capacity planning analysis tools. Reports may be accessed locally or sent to a desired address, assisting multiple administrators in multiple locations from a single interface. Storage Administration Workbench may also be used to provide management access locally at any of the systems assisted by its control.
The reporting of Storage Administration Workbench allows you to view detailed and summarized information about all the z/OS systems across the enterprise, including DASD, HSM, and catalogs from a single logon. Capacity planning and trend analysis track DFSMS storage groups as well as administrator-defined application groups. Reports focusing on daily activity helps pinpoint unsuccessful operations for attention.
Management functions available within Storage Administration Workbench include:
- Tape and DASD (including ATL, VTS, and RVA)
- Cache management aid
- Pool management and catalogs
- High level panel interfaces for ABARs, HSM, DSS, ICKDSF, RMM, IDCAMS, RACF, and JES without needing to know respective specific commands
- Dataplex management
- HSM log post processing and redo
- Repair functions (PDS, catalog)
- Automatic detection and backup of new catalogs
- Query, and add / delete volumes from pools
- Housekeeping functions such as on- or off-site volume dumps, defragmentation, or deletion of old data
Storage Administration Workbench functions are applicable to any z/OS environment. It is designed for ease of use even by inexperienced storage administrators and does not require systems programmer expertise. For example, when DASD storage or device management is required, the user simply enters values in the appropriate ISPF panels. The Storage Administration Workbench then automatically generates and executes the required JCL.
Storage Administration Workbench brings advanced z/OS storage management from multiple systems and locations to one or more administrative focal points, anywhere you wish to place them in the enterprise.
