19 Chapter 19. z/OS Hardware Configuration Definition and Hardware Configuration Manager With Hardware Configuration Definition (HCD), you perform the hardware and software I/O configuration processes through a single, interactive user interface. As you enter data, HCD performs validation checking to help avoid data entry errors before you attempt to use the I/O configuration. The output of HCD is an I/O definition file (IODF), which contains I/O configuration data. An IODF can define multiple hardware and software configurations to the z/OS operating system. When you activate an IODF, HCD defines the I/O configuration to the channel subsystem and the operating system, or both. Hardware Configuration Manager (HCM), an optional feature of z/OS, works with HCD to provide a set of graphical and text configuration reports. HCM complements HCD by adding information about the physical properties of the processors and I/O configurations to the logical information that HCD provides. For example, the physical information about processors and I/O configurations includes details about the IBM ESCON® and FICON infrastructure such as cables, distribution panels, and patch panels. This chapter describes the following enhancements provided with HCD and HCM in z/OS V1R13: Support for new hardware Support of z/VM V6R2 Support of Windows 7 Quality improvements © Copyright IBM Corp. 2012. All rights reserved. 419