IBM Knowledge Center

[Vernooij, Kees - KLM , ITOPT1]

Recurring frustration: when will I be able to reliably find something in the IBM Knowlegde Center.
Grrr: @$%#$@#!
"The requested resource is not found: /support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.2.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r2.ieag100/d3xcf.htm"

Kees.

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[Allan Staller]

Canned refrain:

The new tools are neither as reliable, available or functional as the tools that are being replaced!

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[Vernooij, Kees - KLM , ITOPT1]

In the past we had to make the decision to use the IBM site for docs in case of problem handling or download and store local and personal copies of the documents. A point in the decision was, that if we had some kind of internet problems, local/personal copies provided constant access to manuals.
How could we ever have guessed that the IBM site itself would cause most of the problems.

Sad times, when reliability goes downhill.

Kees.

[Steve Thompson]

So how's that modernization working out for their customers?

Oh wait, was this part of that cognitive computing initiative?
Perhaps the system needs time for the equivalent of a human's
brain to refresh? As in, down time or sleep.

Must have worked out wonderfully for someone's bonus.

Just say'n'

Steve Thompson

On 07/04/2017 09:21 AM, Allan Staller wrote:
> Canned refrain:
>
> The new tools are neither as reliable, available or functional as the tools that are being replaced!
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Vernooij, Kees (ITOPT1) - KLM
> Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2017 8:18 AM
> To: IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: IBM Knowledge Center
>
> Recurring frustration: when will I be able to reliably find something in the IBM Knowlegde Center.
> Grrr: @$%#$@#!
> "The requested resource is not found: /support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.2.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r2.ieag100/d3xcf.htm"
>
> Kees.
>

<snippage>

[Peter Hunkeler]

>Recurring frustration: when will I be able to reliably find something in the IBM Knowlegde Center.

Finding something on the Internet reliably? ROTFLOL. That is a contradiction in terms.


--
Peter Hunkeler

[Jack J. Woehr]

Peter Hunkeler wrote:
> Finding something on the Internet reliably? ROTFLOL. That is a contradiction in terms.

Three thoughts:

1. It is true that the quality of the IBM Knowledge Center seems to have taken a hit in their push to make it more
mobile-friendly.
2. Nonetheless, IBM's documentation always has been and remains to this day a paradigm for the world of tech.
3. I'm less expert than most of you who are complaining and I still can find whatever I want in the billion or so pages
of IBM documentation on the web via a Google search.

--
Jack J. Woehr # Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of
www.well.com/~jax # thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe
www.softwoehr.com # with a fine understanding of human fallibility. - Carl Sagan

[Elardus Engelbrecht]

Jack J. Woehr wrote:

> 3. I'm less expert than most of you who are complaining and I still can find whatever I want in the billion or so pages
> of IBM documentation on the web via a Google search.

Or start at www.ibm.com [0] and do your searches. Then bookmark pages containing successful hits.

For example, I have folders containing several IBM pages - group of pages for licensed materials, group of bookshelves (PDF, KC, Redbooks, Hot Topics, etc.), topic pages (RACF and all relevant things, Assembler and their things, and so on for other products and topics).

And yes, I test now and then each pages to see which are still working, say I have a page starting with www-1, but instead discover only www-3 works, then I replace/delete the book mark(s).

So, it is up to you what tools you use to do your searches and lookup. Good luck.

Groete / Greetings
Elardus Engelbrecht

[0] - I cannot prove it, but I find (at least for myself) when I start my searches on ibm.com, I get 'better' and 'relevant' hits, while on Google, I get more useless hits including ads. I also find, but cannot prove it, that Google sometimes tries to translate an exotic IBM term into something Google thinks it is a better match.

[Peter Hunkeler]

> And yes, I test now and then each pages to see which are still working, say I have a page starting with www-1, but instead discover only www-3 works, then I replace/delete the book mark(s).

I usually edit any www-1..., www-3..., etc and save it as www... when bookmarking. I never have had the case where the www... did not bring me back to whatever www-n... was due.


--
Peter Hunkeler

[Peter Hunkeler]

>1. It is true that the quality of the IBM Knowledge Center seems to have taken a hit in their push to make it more mobile-friendly.

IMHO, this is two-fold: The push towards mobile simplified what is shown on the pages, and this is positive. I think many pages are slimmer today and thus easier to read. On the other hand, redesign the layout to best fit the mobile phone (not tablets) screen sizes does not always help. The most serious case for me at this time is the new PMR support site. It is just pure crap, IMHO.


But all this redesign does not mandate lack of availability per se.

> 3. I'm less expert than most of you who are complaining and I still can find whatever I want in the billion or so pages of IBM documentation on the web via a Google search.

I do use Google and KC, but it is just because of the unreliablilty that I want easily downloadable PDFs.


--
Peter Hunkeler





--
Peter Hunkeler

[Vernooij, Kees - KLM , ITOPT1]

Since the problem still exists after 24 hours, I reported it via the "Contact Us" button. I received an answer that the z/OS groups needs to repair this and they will be notified.
Ahum...

Kees.

From: Vernooij, Kees (ITOPT1) - KLM
Sent: 04 July, 2017 15:18
To: 'IBM-...@listserv.ua.edu' <IBM-...@listserv.ua.edu>
Subject: IBM Knowledge Center

Recurring frustration: when will I be able to reliably find something in the IBM Knowlegde Center.

Grrr: @$%#$@#!
"The requested resource is not found: /support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.2.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r2.ieag100/d3xcf.htm"

Kees.

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********************************************************

[Susan Shumway]

Hmmmm... it looks like the whole "MVS System Commands" plug-in is
broken. I'll talk with the build team and get it resolved ASAP. In the
meantime, here's the latest (December 2016) PDF:
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/iea3g114.pdf

-Sue Shumway

--
Sue Shumway
z/OS Product Documentation Lead
IBM Poughkeepsie
chal...@us.ibm.com

[Jack J. Woehr]

Peter Hunkeler wrote:
> it is just because of the unreliablilty that I want easily downloadable PDFs.

I keep huge collections of PDF's anyway, because it's ALWAYS more reliable to have them on the huge and cheap PC disk
than to go fetch on demand from the Internet.

--
Jack J. Woehr # Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of
www.well.com/~jax # thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe
www.softwoehr.com # with a fine understanding of human fallibility. - Carl Sagan

[Vernooij, Kees - KLM , ITOPT1]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On

> Behalf Of Jack J. Woehr
> Sent: 05 July, 2017 19:36
> To: IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: AW: IBM Knowledge Center
>
> Peter Hunkeler wrote:
> > it is just because of the unreliablilty that I want easily
> downloadable PDFs.
>
> I keep huge collections of PDF's anyway, because it's ALWAYS more
> reliable to have them on the huge and cheap PC disk
> than to go fetch on demand from the Internet.
>
> --
> Jack J. Woehr

Well, in this case the IBM site is much less reliable than the internet. Just when I expected the IBM site to show some of the quality that we mainframers have been taking for granted in our work.

Kees.
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[Edward Gould]

> On Jul 6, 2017, at 2:02 AM, Vernooij, Kees (ITOPT1) - KLM <Kees.V...@KLM.COM> wrote:
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Jack J. Woehr
>> Sent: 05 July, 2017 19:36
>> To: IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: AW: IBM Knowledge Center
>>
>> Peter Hunkeler wrote:
>>> it is just because of the unreliablilty that I want easily
>> downloadable PDFs.
>>
>> I keep huge collections of PDF's anyway, because it's ALWAYS more
>> reliable to have them on the huge and cheap PC disk
>> than to go fetch on demand from the Internet.
>>
>> --
>> Jack J. Woehr
>
> Well, in this case the IBM site is much less reliable than the internet. Just when I expected the IBM site to show some of the quality that we mainframers have been taking for granted in our work.
>
> Kees.

Kees:

Sigh…. it is not only IBM .. APPLE and their ICLOUD absolutely stinks in reliability. I can’t tell you the number of times I have gotten a message from APPLE telling me there is a problem.
Yes it is fixed in an hour or two.
On the other hand GOOGLE has *NEVER* been down for me. IBM should try for Google’s up time, IMO. Look, they said don’t worry you don’t need paper books anymore. We do, just because IBM can’t get their act together on availability (which IBM has claimed they are KING). The KING no longer has any clothes.
Stay with paper. Especially during a blackout.

Ed

[Vernooij, Kees - KLM , ITOPT1]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On

> Behalf Of Edward Gould
> Sent: 06 July, 2017 12:03
> To: IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: IBM Knowledge Center
>

I tried to say: IBM should try for what they claim for z/OS' uptime. Let z/OS be their goal.

Kees.
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[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 05:03:24 -0500, Edward Gould wrote:
>
>On the other hand GOOGLE has *NEVER* been down for me. IBM should try for Google’s up time, IMO.
>

IBM Knowledge Center should have Google's depth of redundancy?

But Phil Payne (IIRC) once sneered here that he couldn't issue the
same Google query twice consecutively and get the same number
of hits. There are two possible reasons for that.

-- gil

[Elardus Engelbrecht]

Paul Gilmartin wrote:

>IBM Knowledge Center should have Google's depth of redundancy?

It would be nice... ;-)

>But Phil Payne (IIRC) once sneered here that he couldn't issue the same Google query twice consecutively and get the same number of hits. There are two possible reasons for that.

I have also experienced that.

I don't know what your two reasons are, but what I know, Google employs [1] several 'spiders' / 'robots' sniffing out all and every webpages and indexing contents. These results are collected and send over to the various Google Data Centres.

Depending on your timing and _where_ your query is handled by what machine in what Google data centre, you may or may not get the same / latest results.

Oh, well ... ;-)

PS: I can't remember where I see that explanation [2], but I will search for it later...

Groete / Greetings
Elardus Engelbrecht

[1] - much like a super chess playing machine, each CPU gets a certain workload and they cascade their workload to yet another idle CPUs.

[2] - I think it was in an article about specific, but scaled-up Unix/Linux operating system used by Google.

[Allan Staller]

<snip>

I tried to say: IBM should try for what they claim for z/OS' uptime. Let z/OS be their goal.
Kees.

</snip>

Exactly what I have been saying for about the last 5 years or so.
The brain-dead weenies in charge just don't seem to get this.

Before Tim Sipples jumps in and says this is not possible, I understand IBM has no control over the "internet".
However, they do have control over KC, SR,.....

At least the back end should match the reliability/availability claimed for the platform being supported.
Or, put another way. The service should be available, even if external factors prevent accessing the service.

In the case of z/OS Parallel Sysplex, it is "5 nines" 99.99999%
This equates to about 3 seconds of non-availability per year.

Tools/techniques exist in the *nix world to provide this availability (or at least something much better that we currently receiving). It is a matter of "IBM's will" to implement or not.
I do not know if similar capabilities exist in Windoze, but I certainly hope IBM is avoiding that platform for this purpose.

An then there is the data quality. Links that worked yesterday are broken today. Maybe IBM should do some peer review before changing URLs to meet someone's "convention of the day".




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[Edward Gould]

> On Jul 6, 2017, at 6:49 AM, Paul Gilmartin <0000000433f0781...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 05:03:24 -0500, Edward Gould wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand GOOGLE has *NEVER* been down for me. IBM should try for Google’s up time, IMO.
>>
> IBM Knowledge Center should have Google's depth of redundancy?
>
> But Phil Payne (IIRC) once sneered here that he couldn't issue the
> same Google query twice consecutively and get the same number
> of hits. There are two possible reasons for that.

Gil:

I have seen that as well. There is nothing to get excited about that as items are deleted changed all the time. Google is good.

Ed

[Tony Harminc]

On 6 July 2017 at 07:49, Paul Gilmartin

<0000000433f0781...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote:

> But Phil Payne (IIRC) once sneered here that he couldn't issue the
> same Google query twice consecutively and get the same number
> of hits. There are two possible reasons for that.

But that was in Google's days of innocence, no? Before they routinely
provided results that they think are what you want to see. Let's hope
KC doesn't follow that path...

Tony H.

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 14:25:21 -0300, Clark Morris wrote:
>>
>>In the case of z/OS Parallel Sysplex, it is "5 nines" 99.99999%
>>

Errr... I count seven nines there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#.22Nines.22

>>This equates to about 3 seconds of non-availability per year.
>>

Five nines would be about 5 minutes of non-availability per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability#Percentage_calculation

>>Tools/techniques exist in the *nix world to provide this availability (or at least something much better that we currently receiving). It is a matter of "IBM's will" to implement or not.
>>

Not "will", but economics. End-to-end reliability would be improved only negligibly
by improving server reliability multiple orders of magnitude above the limiting
factor, the Internet. However, I agree with the consensus that KC isn't even close.

-- gil

[Allan Staller]

In that case, "6 nines" 99.999999%

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Thursday, July 6, 2017 12:45 PM
To: IBM-...@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: IBM Knowledge Center

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[Paul Gilmartin]

On 2017-07-06, at 11:47, Allan Staller wrote:

> In that case, "6 nines" 99.999999%
>

That's "8 nines".

[Susan Shumway]

The "MVS System Commands" KC plug-in is back up:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.2.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r2.ieag100/toc.htm

Thanks again for the notice!

-Sue Shumway

[zMan]

"Eight nines? I can give you ten eights!"

--
zMan -- "I've got a mainframe and I'm not afraid to use it"

[Timothy Sipples]

1. As a reminder, IBM Knowledge Center for z/OS is a standard, included
feature of the z/OS base operating system (Version 2.2 and above). Please
take advantage of it. If your mainframe is not already "self-documenting,"
please make it so.

2. A "local" IBM Knowledge Center is also available for the Linux, AIX, and
Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is available at no additional
charge if you have a license for practically any IBM software product. Yes,
you can even install the IBM Knowledge Center on your Linux or Windows PC,
download and install desired documentation, and read/search documentation
offline. To obtain the IBM Knowledge Center for these other operating
systems, please log onto your IBM Passport Advantage Online account and
search for CN9WDML. Here's the link to PPA Online:

https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/pacustomers.html

3. Yes, in my view IBM needs to improve the availability of the
Internet-accessible IBM Knowledge Center. Let's hope that happens, soon.
But that won't be sufficient and never can be. If you manage
mission-critical services -- and most people do in this forum -- see above.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Sipples
IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA
E-Mail: sip...@sg.ibm.com