For more than 40 years, IBM® mainframes have supported an extraordinary portion of the world's computing work, providing centralized corporate databases and mission-critical enterprise-wide applications. The IBM System z®, the latest generation of the IBM distinguished family of mainframe systems, has come a long way from its IBM System/360 heritage. Likewise, its IBM z/OS® operating system is far superior to its predecessors in providing, among many other capabilities, world class and state-of-the-art support for the TCP/IP Internet protocol suite.

TCP/IP is a large and evolving collection of communication protocols managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an open, volunteer organization. Because of its openness, the TCP/IP protocol suite has become the foundation for the set of technologies that form the basis of the Internet. The convergence of IBM mainframe capabilities with Internet technology, connectivity, and standards (particularly TCP/IP) is dramatically changing the face of information technology and driving requirements for even more secure, scalable, and highly available mainframe TCP/IP implementations.

The z/OS Communications Server TCP/IP Implementation series provides understandable, step-by-step guidance about how to enable the most commonly used and important functions of z/OS Communications Server TCP/IP.

In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we provide an introduction to z/OS Communications Server TCP/IP. We then discuss the System Resolver, showing the implementation of global and local settings for single and multi-stack environments. Next, we present implementation scenarios for TCP/IP Base functions, Connectivity, Routing, Virtual MAC support, and sysplex subplexing.

For more specific information about z/OS Communications Server standard applications, high availability, and security, refer to the other volumes in the series:

-- Communications Server for z/OS V1R9 TCP/IP Implementation Volume 2: Standard Applications, SG24-7533

-- Communications Server for z/OS V1R9 TCP/IP Implementation Volume 3: High Availability, Scalability, and Performance, SG24-7534

-- Communications Server for z/OS V1R9 TCP/IP Implementation Volume 4: Security and Policy-Based Networking, SG24-7535

For comprehensive descriptions of the individual parameters for setting up and using the functions described in this book, along with step-by-step checklists and supporting examples, refer to the following publications:

-- z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Guide, SC31-8775

-- z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Reference, SC31-8776

-- z/OS Communications Server: IP User's Guide and Commands, SC31-8780

This book does not duplicate the information in those publications. Instead, it complements them with practical implementation scenarios that can be useful in your environment. To determine at what level a specific function was introduced, refer to z/OS Communications Server: New Function Summary, GC31-8771. For complete details, we encourage you to review the documents referred to in the additional resources section at the end of each chapter.

Chapter 1. Introduction to z/OS Communications Server IP

Chapter 2. The Resolver

Chapter 3. Base functions

Chapter 4. Connectivity

Chapter 5. Routing

Chapter 6. VLAN and Virtual MAC support

Chapter 7. Sysplex subplexing

Chapter 8. Diagnosis

Appendix A. IPv6 support

Appendix B. Additional parameters and functions

Appendix C. Examples used in our environment