Customer Reviews

Murach's OS/390 and z/OS JCL

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Several years ago, i had to deal with a mainframe system. My attitude
then was to minimize my exposure as much as possible, as if it were a
disease. I figured that mainframes were obsolete and any time i spent
learning about them would be time wasted. Well, they are still around,
and i recently found myself having to advise some mainframe
testers. Mainframes are still around. It was time for me to learn more
about them.

I picked up Murach's OS/390 and z/OS JCL, and it does an excellent job
of describing the architecture and nomenclature of mainframe
systems. It presumes that you nothing about mainframe systems. To get
started, you should know that MVS, OS/390 and z/OS are all basically
interchangeable terms for the mainframe operating system (quibbling
over these terms would be like quibbling over whether Linux were a
Unix operating system). JCL is "job control language" and is the
original front end for mainframe systems when punch cards were their
primary external interface. There are now a number of easier
interfaces that allow you submit JCL to a mainframe.

Anyhow, this book has been a very valuable guide to me for
understanding the basics of mainframe systems and giving me the
information i need in order to analogies between it and other systems
that i know better. For example, i now know that a data set is kind of
like a file, a directory, or a filesystem, depending on how you look
at 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 that
i'm prone to consider dated. It's a large format with the text running
on the left hand pages and examples, diagrams and summaries on the
right. The main ideas of each spread are covered three times: in the
narrative on the left, and in the examples and summary ("description")
on the right. On many pages, i found myself not turning the page until
i understood the material before me. It's a great format, and on the
strength of it alone, i've already picked up Murach's book on Java for
my technical library.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My job requires me to write scripts on Windows and Unix platforms. I have no problem writing Windows batch files or Unix shell scripts to copy or move files, change permissions, create and delete directories, write results to log files, etc.

Recently, I was asked to write a mainframe script. I was told to write this script in Rexx. When I looked into Rexx, it was just another scripting language. It was not hard to understand how it worked. However, unlike Windows batch files or Unix shell scripts, there was more to writing a Rexx program than just knowing the Rexx language - I needed JCL to run it!! I had seen JCL before. I knew each job started with a JOB card and that it executed PROCs and PGMs. I also knew that I did not know nearly enough about JCL to write JCL to do what I wanted it to do. That's when I went to Amazon and found this book.

Not only did this book confirm what little I did know and correct some misundertandings I had, it went far more deeply into JCL to describe how to use many features that I did not know existed. One of the best features of this book is that it provides some background information on how mainframes work and the naming conventions used. This information is useful when JCL coding is introduced because the reader has a better idea of what the JCL is used for and what it happening with the various statements. JCL coding is not even introduced until Chapter 4!!

After the background information, this book then goes through the various aspects of JCL coding. The basics of what I needed to know to run my Rexx program were addressed as were many concepts that I can now put in my "bag of tricks" for future projects. I am sure most of our mainframe programmers do not know most of this material.

This book is not limited to JCL. It also describes how to compile Cobol programs, how to copy, move, sort, delete and print datasets using common mainframe utilities. It even has a chapter on Unix System Services. Prior to reading these chapters, I had no idea how to copy a dataset to a new dataset on the mainframe using a batch program. For me, this was a trivial issue on a Windows or Unix platform. I now know how to do it on the mainframe. This book clearly explains the process. It also provides coding examples for all concepts described throughout the book.

If you are new to computing, I don't think you want to start with the mainframe as the first platform you learn. However, if you have some computing background from working with Windows and Unix, then I highly recommend this book to get a solid foundation on how to run batch programs on the mainframe.

In the past, I had to ask a coworker to help me when I needed to work with JCL. I purchased this book so that I could code some JCL for myself to run my Rexx program. Now, not only does my Rexx program execute flawlessly, I also have a thorough understanding of how to write mainframe batch programs for future projects. Who knows, maybe my coworkers will start coming to me with their complex JCL coding problems!!

This book is a tremendous reference resource for anyone who works in the IBM mainframe environment, especially for those who don't work with JCL on a daily basis or for those seldom-used tasks for which you may not have any "canned" JCL readily available. I strongly recommend this book as an invaluable JCL reference document.

I am a mainframe programmer for 8 years and never had a good book like this one. I wanted to have a good book that will give me all the information I need so I selected this book after reading the review comments of this book.When I received this book and checked the contents I was disappointed so I thought I should return this book.But after started reading this book I was so surprised to see a book that was so organized and well explained.It was like when we study we make important notes of the concept which will be useful to refresh for interviews.
But we don't need to do this if we have this book as after a detailed explanation , there is a picture and description .

So I recommend this book who wants to train/learn/refer in their job and I couldn't wait to write this comment after reading for 3 days.

We still use Mainframes where I work, and are always trying to find a new way to "skin a cat". This book has helped me a number of times to do just that. Murach is always informative, though at times wordy, but the examples are good, and you can't beat it when you need to pick up the pace. I wish they put out more of those mini desk references,like they used to, as they were even more help, but this is a great book on JCL.

I am at chp. 13-15 and have found mistakes. I have taken and currently work with most of the items taught in this book. I am doing this to get to the DB2 courses. Mistakes aside, this is a great book for beginners.