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Introduction

The Load Balancing Option extends ChangeMan ZMF by providing TCP/IP connectivity to ChangeMan ZMF servers. The Load Balancing Option allows you to distribute TSO users and batch processing on multiple MVS™ images to take better advantage of existing resources.

You can manually direct ChangeMan ZMF users where to logon depending on resource availability, or this choice can be made for them automatically by Parallel Sysplex Workload Management.

Load Balancing Option Applications

The Load Balancing Option allows you to fully exploit Parallel Sysplex® with Workload Management to manage the resources used by ChangeMan ZMF users and batch jobs.

You can eliminate customization that makes batch jobs submit other batch jobs that are routed to the MVS image where ChangeMan ZMF runs to post transactions to the package master file. With the Load Balancing Option, ChangeMan ZMF batch jobs can run on any MVS image and still communicate with the ChangeMan ZMF server.

If you are distributing TSO sessions by running multiple ChangeMan ZMF servers on multiple MVS images, the Load Balancing Option may allow you to consolidate all ChangeMan ZMF applications on one ChangeMan ZMF instance. Consolidation can provide centralized change control administration, improved communication between developers, and better coordination of large projects.

The Load Balancing Option may allow you to move your ChangeMan ZMF server to a production image that is more stable and secure than your development environment. You may have installed ChangeMan ZMF on a development LPAR because programmers are not allowed to logon to a production LPAR. The Load Balancing Option allows you to restrict developer's TSO sessions to a development LPAR while granting them access to a ChangeMan ZMF server running in production.

Nomenclature

Mainframe components of SERNET Common Services run as a started task under MVS or OS/390. Each SERNET started task is assigned a unique one-character subsystem ID.

ChangeMan ZMF runs as an application under SERNET technology. ChangeMan ZMF uses the subsystem ID assigned to the SERNET started task, but SERNET requires the subsystem ID even when there is no ChangeMan ZMF application.

One occurrence of SERNET is referred to as a SERNET instance. One occurrence of ChangeMan ZMF is referred to as a ChangeMan ZMF instance.

The ChangeMan ZMF programs that run under SERNET are called ChangeMan ZMF server programs. ChangeMan ZMF programs that run in the user’s address space, such as the ChangeMan ZMF ISPF interface, are referred to as ChangeMan ZMF client programs.

New Features

Starting with ChangeMan ZMF 5.5, the version numbers for selectable options track the version number of the base product. The version number of the Load Balancing Option may be incremented even though no functions have changed.

There are no changes to the Load Balancing Option for Version 8.2.