Objectives

This and the associated z/OS-MVS system fundamentals - part 1 form the core course of the MVS curriculum. Students obtain a solid foundation in the fundamentals of z/OS enabling further study in areas such as debugging, performance, installation, and customisation of the z/OS operating system.

In this second part, students learn the functions of the major z/OS components in some considerable detail and learn how the interaction of job, task, storage, and data management provides service to the end user. This is done by following the sequence of events as a unit of work passes through the z/OS system from initial submission to final completion.

Main topics

• Functions of JES and the MVS initiator during job processing;
• Need for resource serialization;
• Search sequence used by the program manager;
• Description of the different units of work in a MVS system and the techniques used by the MVS Dispatcher;
• Identification of the methods used for interaddress space communications, including hiperspaces • data spaces • cross memory services • service request blocks (SRBs) • ....
• Installation of own SVC routines in a MVS system;
• Different recovery routines;
• Allocation of dispatching priorities by the MVS System Resource Manager;
• Role of access methods • the EXCP driver • IOS and the Channel Subsystem in handling requests for DASD data.