Maintenance after installation

After you have installed z/OS®, you should install preventive maintenance using Recommended Service Upgrades (RSUs). An RSU is an SMP/E SOURCEID (RSUyymm) used to identify the following:

All PTFs that completed CST testing during the prior quarter.
Certain types of PTFs that completed CST testing during the prior month. The types are high impact or pervasive (HIPER) PTFs, PTF-in-error (PE) PTFs, and other recommended PTFs (recommended because of new function, serviceability, installability, security, or integrity).

Note: While all CST-tested PTFs become RSU PTFs, not all RSU PTFs are tested in CST. Only the following products or product families are included in CST testing: z/OS, IMS™, DB2®, CICS®, and MQSeries®.

RSUs are available monthly. They are assigned an RSU SOURCEID that reflects when the PTFs in them completed the test cycle and became recommended, not when the PTFs closed. (The PUTyymm SOURCEID continues to be used to identify when a PTF closes.) Both the monthly and quarterly RSUs use the same RSUyymm SOURCEID notation. You can identify quarterly RSUs by their month values, which are RSUyy03, RSUyy06, RSUyy09, and RSUyy12. For a better understanding of RSU content and availability, see Table 1.

Recommendation: Install an RSU every three months if possible, with the RSU level being the most current month. Also, regularly (weekly if possible) review current HIPER and PE PTFs, and roll these fixes into production at least monthly. If you are unable to install RSU maintenance every three months, then it is more important to review the HIPER and PE fixes on a regular basis.

Table 1. RSU content and RSU SOURCEID for each month of 2013
Month	RSU content	SOURCEID
January 2013	All PTFs that exit CST through the end of September 2012 and are not already in an RSU, plus HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in November 2012	RSU1212
February 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in December 2012	RSU1301
March 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in January 2013	RSU1302
April 2013	All PTFs that exit CST through the end of December 2012 and are not already in an RSU, plus HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in February 2013	RSU1303
May 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in March 2013	RSU1304
June 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in April 2013	RSU1305
July 2013	All PTFs that exit CST through the end of March 2013 and are not already in an RSU, plus HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in May 2013	RSU1306
August 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in June 2013	RSU1307
September 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in July 2013	RSU1308
October 2013	All PTFs that exit CST through the end of June 2013 and are not already in an RSU, plus HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in August 2013	RSU1309
November 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in September 2013	RSU1310
December 2013	HIPER and PE-correcting PTFs that exit CST in October 2013	RSU1311

One way to review HIPER and PE PTFs is to use Enhanced HOLDDATA. Enhanced HOLDDATA is HOLDDATA with additional information to identify the reason for the hold and a fixing PTF. Enhanced HOLDDATA provides a hold against function SYSMODs (FMIDs) for HIPER and PE PTFs. (Non-Enhanced HOLDDATA provides a hold only against PE PTFs.)

To display the Enhanced HOLDDATA, use the SMP/E REPORT ERRSYSMODS command. The SMP/E report, when used with Enhanced HOLDDATA, identifies missing critical service that applies to your specific system. This allows you to identify any missing HIPER and PE fixes for any target zone. Additionally, the report identifies whether a corrective PTF is available, whether the corrective PTF is already in RECEIVE status, and the reason indicator for a HIPER.

Enhanced HOLDDATA is available through z/OS service orders, CBPDO orders, and from the Web. For more information, see Enhanced HOLDDATA website athttp://service.boulder.ibm.com/390holddata.html

To perform (or install) service on elements and features, you must minimally meet the driving system requirements for CBPDO Wave 1. For CBPDO Wave 1 driving system requirements, see Driving system Wave 1 requirements.