IBM System z Hardware Management Console (HMC) Operations

Course Overview

This course teaches you navigation, operation, and recovery techniques for the Hardware Management Console (HMC) in the System z environment. Through lecture and hands-on exercises, you learn setup and operating procedures for the HMC, gain in-depth problem determination skills, practice HMC operations, and utilize recovery capabilities provided by the System z servers.

Target Audience

This course is for operations personnel and technical staff who are directly involved in the installation, operation, systems support, and software support of their System z mainframe environment.

Course Objectives

• Identify the zEnterprise 196, System z10, System z9, and zSeries servers
• Describe the major differences of the function and features between the System z servers
• Identify and explain the concept of logical partitioning, initialization, and the operational usage of the various types of channels on current servers
• Describe the functions provided by the HMC and SE
  • User interface styles, local and remote connectivity
• Identify HMC home page to log on HMC application
• Use the classic UI to:
• Log on and log off
• Open objects
• Navigate the HMC workplace using various selection techniques
• Exit a task on a window
• View the online books and use the Help functions
• Identify the different types of groups
  • CPC group, control hardware
  • Images group, control operating system
• Build new CPC and images groups
• Identify the contents of the Details window and determine object status
• Identify the various task lists
• Use the tree UI to:
• Log on and log off
• Open objects
• Navigate the HMC workplace using various selection techniques
• Exit a task on a panel
• View the online books and use the Help functions
• Identify the different types of groups
  • CPC group, control hardware
  • Images group, control operating system
• Build new CPC and images groups
• Identify the contents of the Details window and determine object status
• Identify the various task lists
• Identify recent HMC Tree style enhancements
• Monitor all defined CPCs
• Determine the cause of exceptions
• Use the Hardware Messages task
• Use the Operating Systems Messages task
• Use ACSADMIN tasks
• Describe the purpose, functions and use of the different types of activation profiles
• Use the HMC to build and assign profiles
• Provide operational recommendations for HMC user settings
• Use the HMC to perform operational tasks and problem determination
• Invoke the system activity display and describe its purpose
• Establish an HMC/SE session using the Single Object Operations task
• Identify the difference between the HMC and SE workplace
• Navigate using classic or tree UI to Identify CP, channel, and CHPID status for the physical CPC and all LPs
• Identify the entry point for I/O and Channel Problem Determination panels
• Log off from a CPC session

Course Content

Day 1

• Welcome
• Unit 1: IBM mainframe server hardware overview
• Unit 2: Using the HMC Classic style user interface
• Unit 3: Using the HMC Tree style user interface
• Unit 4: Using the HMC to monitor System z servers
• Supporting labs

Day 2

• Review
• Unit 5: Activation profiles and operational tasks
• Unit 6: Single Object Operations: CPC session
• Supporting labs

Course Prerequisites

You should have an understanding of:

• Basic data processing and I/O concepts and terminology
• z/OS console operation, including display of device, job, and console status