June 2023

To:                   Broadcom Mainframe Software Customers

From:              Broadcom’s Mainframe Software Team

Subject:           Mainframe Essentials Software Toolkit Plugin for z/OSMF - Now Generally Available

On behalf of Broadcom, we appreciate your business and the opportunity to provide you with high-quality, innovative software and services.  Today, we are pleased to announce that a new feature of Mainframe Essentials is now available: Software Toolkit Plugin for z/OSMF.

Mainframe Essentials is a collaboration of Broadcom Mainframe Software capabilities available to currently licensed Broadcom Mainframe Software customers at no additional charge for the duration of their entitlement to at least one Broadcom Mainframe Software product. With Mainframe Essentials you get the following capabilities:

• Portfolio Management to help you manage your mainframe software installations, including software risk assessment, end of support, end of life and keyrings and certificates information.
• Expert Assessments, Broadcom experts analyze your environment and provide in-depth analysis.
• Insights to Broadcom Common Component Services, required components of your Broadcom Mainframe Software investment.
• Tools to streamline the process of working with Broadcom Support through collection of data and uploading to support site.
• View actively running work and held output all in one place, minimizing jumping around displays.

These capabilities are available to you through:

Software Toolkit Plugin for z/OSMF - Software Toolkit is a z/OSMF plug-in that simplifies the maintenance of mainframe software using z/OSMF. Use the Software Toolkit as an aid to ensure that your mainframe software has the necessary maintenance to avoid unnecessary risk to your environment.

• • Easily identify PTFs that were installed or not Received/Applied
  • Search for PTFs with easy-to-use filtering
  • Export PTF list in CSV format compatible with z/OSMF Software Update
  • Identify the risk that is posed by the PTFs that are not applied

SYSVIEW® Essentials* - a lightweight, no cost configuration of SYSVIEW Performance Management that performs no data collection.

• • Visualize the status of your applied maintenance and deployment, along with a risk assessment of not having maintenance applied.  Maintenance analysis works for mainframe products maintained with SMP/E.
  • Commands to see the Broadcom Common Component Services configuration information and status.
  • Displays to see actively running workloads and job output information, easily stay within SYSVIEW Essentials to run and monitor SMP/E, configuration and deployment jobs.
  • Support assistance to easily get your mainframe configuration data to Broadcom Support.
  • Install and Configuration worksheet to get you up and running quickly.

* Note: If you are using SYSVIEW Performance Management today and have the necessary maintenance applied, you have access to these capabilities with no additional configuration.

 Mainframe Resource Intelligence - a Broadcom Managed Service utilizing a small toolkit to gather data for analysis.

• • Broadcom Mainframe product assessments for your entitled products - see what you have installed where and industry best practices recommendations based on your configuration.
  • Capacity Optimization Assessment - let a Broadcom specialist determine if you can save money on your monthly license charges.
  • Hardware and Software assessments create a detailed list of the hardware and software assets within your mainframe environment.
  • Comprehensive documentation on each assessment type available.

Education offerings specific to these capabilities are available.  The product documentation contains more details about how to get started.

We also encourage you to visit the Educate YouTube channel for more product information.

You can download Mainframe Essentials at Support through the Additional Downloads tab of your licensed Mainframe Software products. To install these capabilities, follow the installation procedures at Tech Docs. If you have any questions or require assistance, contact support.

Should you need any assistance in understanding these new features, or implementing this latest release, our implementation services partners can help.  Please contact your local account representative for more information on how they can help. To connect, learn, and share with other customers, join and participate in our Mainframe Community.

For a list of Mainframe Education courses recommended by role, please visit the Learning Paths and select the desired product. We update courses based on functional impact as well as high-demand; therefore, courses created from previous releases may apply to the current release.

Please review our End of Service / End of Life Policy within the Broadcom Maintenance and Support Handbook.

Start utilizing these no charge offerings to maximize your mainframe software investment today.

Thank you again for your business.