Seminar Abstract
UNIX for the Mainframer
The seminar is designed to introduce the mainframe professional
to UNIX. It assumes a solid understanding on using the
mainframe and little or no UNIX knowledge. It presents the
terminology and usage of the UNIX operating system by comparing
and contrasting with mainframe operating systems.
This seminar should move fairly quickly and will be based on my
book, "UNIX for the Mainframer". It would be great if the book
was provided as part of the seminar fee, as an alternative,
having it available for purchase by attendees.
This seminar would move fairly quickly and would make
frequent reference to "UNIX for the Mainframer". In the one-day format,
it will not provide everything the attendees need to know (even taking
a copy of the book with them). As such, a full-week expanded seminar
might be useful. Either way, after the seminar, UNIX will be much less
foreign and more interesting.
Learning a new technology is difficult enough without having to
learn it independently of prior experience and existing knowledge
base. By building on the current Mainframe knowledge, this seminar
differentiates itself from other UNIX seminars.
Topics to be covered include:
- General Terminology
- Major Differences Between UNIX and the Mainframe
- Philosophy (many small tools put together to do larger job)
- Interactive (vs. Mainframe batch orientation)
- Handling Files (datasets), Devices, and Locations (filesystems)
- Partitioned Data Sets and UNIX Directories
- Naming Standards
- Connecting to UNIX and Terminal Behavior
- Utilities and Commands
- Getting Help
- General Problem Determination (what does this error message mean)
- Transitional Tools (uni-SPF and SPF-UX: ISPF replacements for UNIX)
- ISPF Dataset List Utility becomes ls and find
- ISPF Browse and Edit becomes vi, view, ex, and ed
- Special attention paid to mimicking ISPF commands in UNIX editors
- ISPF Move/Copy Utility and IEBGENER becomes cp, mv, ln
- ISPF Library and Dataset Utility and IEFBR14 becomes rm,
touch, mkdir, rmdir, and mv
- ISPF Hardcopy Utility and /*ROUTE PRINT becomes lp and lpr
- Also simple redirection of output to files
- ISPF SDSF or IOF becomes ps, who, finger, lpstat
- Batch jobs and scheduling
- Using &, nohup, nice, time, jobs, bg, fg, cron
- Simple Shell Scripting
- Showing Mainframe JCL converted to UNIX shell scripts
- Additional Topics based on available time and attendee interest.
Many of these topics may come up through attendee questions during
the other sections:
- IDCAMS replacement (GDG and VSAM datasets)
- Comparing files
- Searching
- Concatenated Datasets
- Embedded SYSIN
- JOBLIB/STEPLIB replacements - path, which, where, whence, alias
- File Security
- Account Configuration
- Third-party tools (software under UNIX to do things that were
available on the mainframe)
- Data Conversion - ASCII and EBCDIC
- Hardware Comparisons
- Introduction to Networking with TCP/IP
- Advanced Shell Concepts
- Other Sources of Information
- Other UNIX Seminars
- UNIX courses at local colleges
- Other Books
- Magazines
- Internet
The goal of this seminar is to allow the attendee to
understand how to use UNIX.
Prerequisites of Attendees:
Attendees should be familiar with Mainframe operating
systems.
Focus:
Introductory to Intermediate level, technical.
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