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In order to keep the contest as fair as possible, contestants' questions
will be answered here in the Master the Mainframe Contest FAQ. If you get
stuck during the contest or need other contest-related assistance, please
email Mike Todd at todd@us.ibm.com. Questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
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- Q: I entered my password incorrectly too many times and now I'm locked out.
What do I do?
A: Email Mike Todd at todd@us.ibm.com. He'll get you set back up as quickly as possible. Be sure to include
your user ID in your email. Otherwise, we'll run a script daily to unlock
accounts that have been locked due to incorrect password attempts. If you
try again in 24 hours, you should find that your account has been unlocked.
- Q: The contest already started, but I haven't registered yet. Am I too late?
A: Absolutely not! Registration for the contest remains open until December 3, 2007.
- Q: The contest system is moving slowly. What's going on?
A: This is the first year we've hosted the contest in a Parallel Sysplex
environment, and we had to tweak a couple of things when the flood gates
opened at the beginning of the contest. Also, many contestants were accessing
data sets that resided on the same storage volume, creating a bit of an
I/O bottleneck. (If the previous sentence didn't make sense to you, going
through Part 2 of the contest should help clear things up!) The system
should be humming along nicely for you now - please send us an email if you're still experiencing any problems.
- Q: I can't connect to the contest system. Am I doing something wrong?
A: Probably not. The contest system is taken down for maintenance about once
a month on Sunday mornings between 11am and 4pm Eastern time (the contest
is hosted on a system that is being shared by thousands of users for many
other purposes). If you're trying to logon early on a Sunday and you can't
even get to the welcome screen, try again in a couple of hours.
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- Part 1 general question
Q: I'm getting a "Data Set Not Catalogued" error message when I
search for my COMPLETE.PARTONE data set. Why can't I find it?
A: The data set is called COMPETE.PARTONE, not COMPLETE.PARTONE. Once you
remove the offending letter L, you'll be back on track!
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- Part 2 general question
Q: I turned in my Part 2 a couple of days ago. When will I find out if I
won?
A: We're going through the submissions as fast as we can! We look at each
submission manually to make sure everything is 100% correct -- some of
the tasks can be accomplished several different ways. The rules and regulations
for the contest give us fifteen business days to inform Part 2 contestants
whether or not they are winners. We're doing our best to get it done faster
than that. Right now, we expect to notify Part 2 contestants who turned
in their work on October 5 (or earlier) by October 12. And depending on
how the rest of the submissions turn out, it still might not be too late
to turn in a winning Part 2 submission!
Update: As of Thursday, October 11, it looks like we're going to need the weekend
to sort through the rest of the Part 2 submissions. We know you're on the
edge of your seat to find out how you did, and we're plowing through the
submissions as fast as we can. We now expect to let all current Part 2
finishers know whether or not they were a Part 2 winner sometime on Monday, October 15. This year's Part 2 is very tough -- any new submissions coming in may
still have a shot at being in the first sixty to complete Part 2 100% correctly.
Update #2: All sixty Part 2 winners were notified on Monday, October 15. Successful
completion of Part 2 can still earn you a spot in Part 3, and all students
to complete Part 2, regardless of whether or not they finish in the first
sixty, are eligible to put their resumes in IBM's Student Opportunity System. Keep those Part 2 submissions coming!
- Part 2, Challenge #2
Q: After submitting the JCL towards the beginning of the challenge, I'm supposed
to writeout JESMSGLG, JESJCL, JESYSMSG, SYSTSPRT, and OUTDD to a member.
For some reason there is no OUTDD. Is this an issue on IBM's part or do
I need to solve it on my own?
A: Right after the contest opened, our systems programmer had to make some
dynamic changes that could have affected your original output. Submit the
job again and you should see OUTDD show up as expected.
- Part 2, Challenge #2
Q: On Part 2, Number 2 it's asking to access a group of data sets on the
system named ZOS.CONTEST. But I'm not finding the data set called ZOS.CONTEST.JCL.
in my option 3.4 of the partitioned data set. Where would this file be
located or do we need to create it?
A: It's there, we promise! Go to =3.4, then specify ZOS.CONTEST on the Dsname
Level field. Does that help?
- Part 2, Challenge #2
Q: After submitting the job numerous times I keep getting an internal error. I checked the sdsf logs and the error seems to be that it is not recognizing the text characters in the name of the files like zos.contest.rexx nor in my name.
the error received at submittal is:
"10.48.52 JOB01881 $HASP165 REXX#### ENDED AT SVSCJES2 - JCL ERROR
CN(INTERNAL) "
A: The good news is that it's a simple fix. The "z" in "z9#####"
inside your REXXRUN member needs to be uppercase.
- Part 2, Challenge #4
Q: The Syscmds file suggests looking at the LookAT URL and using the code
IEE2541 but when that code is entered into the Message ID it doesn't return
any results. Maybe I'm just doing this wrong?
A: Try IEE254I instead of 1EE2541. That's a the letter "I" on the
end, not the number "1". That should get you back on track.
- Part 2, Challenge #6
Q: In part two question 6.10 is looking for the storage group that zos.contest.sms.big2
is in. In the ismf facility there it doesn't look like there is a storage
group assigned. Am I just looking at the wrong field on that panel?
A: It looks like you're missing the * in the Storage Group Name field before
you select the volumes. That should do it!
- Part 2, Challenge #7
Q: I just want to make sure if I am on track. After fixing JCL errors and
SUMBITting the job, it gives me no error. So I go back to SDSF - enter
OWNERZ9#### - enter ST and come across jobname (BAD####). But it has only
2 members in it : JESMSGLG and JESJCL.
Since I see no errors while submitting - I wonder if there should be more
members in BAD#### or is this okay?
A: What you're seeing is part of the challenge -- you don't see your output
because your JCL job is not specifying a valid (or "drained")
initiator. Does that help?
- Part 2, Challenge #9
Q: I've been banging my head on the 9th part of Part 2. I can't seem to find the IP address of the "other mainframe", or the central processing memory.
A: You might be making this more complicated than it needs to be. You might
also want to review the route command from previous challenges. Your question really gets to the heart
of what we're trying to show you here, so that's the only hint we can give
for now.
- Part 2, Challenge #9
Q: I don't know if you'll be able to answer this but does real storage have
the same meaning as central processing memory?
I have tested all /d commands from exercise 4 already, don't know where else to look... :( should I keep on trying them again?
A: Yes, real storage is equivalent to central storage. We call it "real
storage" because z/OS processing storage is broken up into virtual
storage, auxiliary storage and real storage -- a running program can have
its source and data scattered. Running programs are broken up into virtual
storage, which is really an illusion. The actual pieces are located in
auxiliary storage and "real storage," a.k.a. central processing
storage. What, you stopped reading at "Yes"?
- Part 2, Challenge #10
Q: I don't think there is a problem with my typing (I even tried copy/paste)
but the telnet part simply doesn't work. When I first tried, the system
respond with an error creating file and after a couple of retry, I now
got this error:
Z9008##:/u/z9008##: >cp uss "//z9008##.compete.parttwo(uss)"
cp: FSUMF143 //z008## exceeds the maximum data set length
A: A couple of contestants have reported this error. They have been able
to get around it by changing to single quotes, rather than double quotes,
in the cp command. The command should work either way. It's possible that
some contestants are encountering a problem with the Ctrl key putting an
unprintable character in their command. In any event, try single quotes
and let us know if that doesn't get you on your way.
Update: One contestant reported the following: "I noticed that if you make
a typo, and delete or backspace it, it can effect the input going into
the telnet session (I was using putty)." If you're still encountering
errors, try re-issuing the command without deleting or backspacing.
Update #2: From another contestant: "I ran into something similar. What I'd found was that I was viewing the z9###.z9###.compete.parttwo dataset in an open 3270 session while trying the command in telnet. Once I backed out from the 3270 session, the cp via telnet worked fine. "
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- Part 3, Step 2
Q: I am working on step 2 currently of Part 3. My question is in this part,
and I assume some others along the way, the step asks some questions.
Ex: What data set name is on the ACCTREC DD statement?
Do we need to answer these questions and if so, where do place the answer.
A: The question does not need to be officially answered, however, understanding
it will help you create the JCL. In Part 3, if a question is asked without
directing you to put the answer in a particular place, then you'll probably
need to know the answer to proceed, but you don't have to formally answer
the question to get credit for completing the task.
- Part 3, Step 4
Q: When outputting the result from the java execution to JAVALOOP, do you
want us to include the 'potential' errors as well, or just the desired
output? Thanks.
A: Just the desired output is all that is needed.
- Part 3, Step 4
Q: When asked to odify the java source code to write your school name on
each line written by the java program,Does this include the OOP COMPLETED
statements?
A: No, the school name is not required on LOOP COMPLETED statements.
- Part 3, Step 6
Q: In Step 6, the example of the output we should produce does not look like
generic SQL output. Are we supposed to format our SQL to match, or just
produce appropriate results?
A: Two separate SQL statements can be used to create the result set. First SQL only requires surname to be in first position and amount to be in second position. Second SQL statement is produce only the total amount.
- Part 3, Step 8
Q: For step 8, I changed the java code so that I include in it my user id
and password. Is this okay? Or is there some other way you want this done
without my password visible in the java file.
A: You have a couple of options here. Blank out your password in the source
code after successful execution or change permissions
of your /u/userid subdirectory using CHMOD so that only the owner can read the subdirectory .... CHMOD 700 /u/userid
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