SMPWKDIR – What, Me Worry?

(Repost from August 25, 2020)

z/OSMF Software Management helps more with rightsizing temporary work space.

What could be more fun than running out of room during an installation operation, often when we've been making a good amount of progress? And isn't it frustrating to know the cause is not enough temporary space? I hate when that happens.

That's why I was happy to see z/OSMF Software Management APAR PH26509 (V2.3 PTF UI70900 and V2.4 PTFUI70901 ) to help with just that.

Before you think that it will save all space problems (it won't), but it does help with the temporary work space problem you might have seen during the Software Instance export (when you are creating a Portable Software Instance), and deploy (when you are copying software from one location to another) with SMPWKDIR.

What I like about this function, is it doesn't just give you a lot of space and hope it will be enough. z/OSMF Software Management calculates how much you will need, creates a temporary mountpoint, allocates a zFS to be used for work, mounts it, **installation happens without a SMPWKDIR problem**, unmounts it, deletes it, removes the mountpoint. Like the temporary work data set never existed. Very clean.

If you haven't tried the z/OSMF Software Management deploy operation, you really should! This is how future IBM and ISV software is being offered, and is the future installation process for our platform. But enough of that, let's talk about this function: you'll see the new work information for you to specify when deploying on "Define Job Settings". You give your desired work data set prefix and where you want that temporary work data set allocated (volume or storage class).

To create a Portable Software Instance from a Software Instance, you'll see both those questions for this new function via Actions -> Export as Portable Software Instance.

Really, though, don't worry about where they are. z/OSMF will guide you through them, give you defaults, and the handy help will tell you what they are if you want a longer explanation.

What's a good type of Portable Software Instance to deploy, once you know you won't have an SMPWKDIR problem anymore? CICS, Db2, or IMS with their program products! The next time you order any of these products, check out the new "Installation Method" choice on Shopz: z/OSMF SW Management or the older traditional CustomPac installation dialog.

I, for one, am happy that the SMPWKDIR size is something I won't have to worry about anymore.