SPARTA News April 2001

April 2001

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Chris Blackshire

Thanks to Tommy Thomas for chairing the 2001 officer nomination committee. Here is the 2001-2002 slate of candidates:

President - Brad Carson
Vice President - John Bryant
Secretary - Mike Lockey
Treasurer - Duane Reaugh
Communications - Ed Webb

Elections will be at the April meeting and the new officers will take over in May. With the change in our leadership structure, this will be my last President’s Corner. I will continue to setup the meals for each meeting, so I will still be around.

Since I took over as your SPARTA President on May 21st, 1996, many things have changed. My yard has fewer trees thanks to Fran and North Carolina has fewer pigs thanks to Floyd. Raleigh has even had 21 inches of snow. We all made it through Y2K. I have gone from being a capacity planner to a business manager to the VM technical support staff manager at Nortel and now Perot Systems. IBM has gone from 32 bit to 64 bit CMOS processors running z/operating systems along with UNIX and Linux. Our membership has been pretty stable even with the permanent loss of one member while new members have replaced other members that moved out of the RTP area. Our meeting place has changed from the Dreyfus Auditorium to LabCorp. We have gone from paper publishing our newsletter to electronic publishing on our web page. I am sure that Brad will lead us in many new directions that will change along with the evolving data processing business. Change seems to be the only constant in the computing business. Thanks again for electing me as your president for the last 5 years.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday April 24th at LabCorp. Subs, drinks, and dessert will be provided.

Thanks again, Chris.

Future Speakers
(subject to change)

Apr. 24 IBM InfoPrint Server by Sally Adams of IBM
May 29 TBA

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact John Bryant by phone or e-mail as noted below.


SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:

Phillips Software

2000-2001 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Chris Blackshire - President
Perot Systems 919-992-4602
P.O. Box 13010
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Chris.Blackshire@nortelnetworks.com

John Bryant - Vice President
GlaxoSK 919-483-9548
M/S D111; 5 Moore Drive
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@GLAXOWELLCOME.COM

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401 MLOCKEY@netpath.net

Duane Reaugh - Treasurer
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841 Duane@DTSsoftware.com

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 EDWISTUO@aol.com

Meetings

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter Mailings

The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.

Latest CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V432 (dated Jan. 25, 2001) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need a complete tape, contact Brad at LabCorp (Brad_Carson@labcorp.com or 919-572-7504) or Ed Webb (see Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the March 27, 2001 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chris Blackshire, the Chapter President.

•Ten (10) people were present; all were members.

•Introductions were not done as the evening speakers, Duane Reaugh and Mike Lockey, knew everyone.

•The minutes of February 2001 meeting were accepted as published in the March 2001 newsletter.

•Duane Reaugh, the SPARTA treasurer, reported the balance was $571.79.

OLD BUSINESS

•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don’t really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

•The SPARTA Web page is now available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: www.netpath.net/~mlockey/sparta.html. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey (mlockey@netpath.net). Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:

April 2001 - InfoPrint Server for OS/390 by Sally Adams of IBM
May 2001 - TBA
Other ideas:
- TDMF - Ken Frump
- z900 - Jim Horne
- WLM Goal Mode - Jim Horne
- UNIX Services for OS/390
- IBM New Announcements
- CICS Web Bridge

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact John Bryant.

•The April 24th meeting will be at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the April 2001 meeting will be subs and sodas.

•Thanks to Brad Carson of LabCorp for hosting the March meeting.

•NaSPA now has a Chapter Coordinator and is starting chapters. Mike Lockey has contacted NaSPA and received information about becoming a local chapter of NaSPA. Mike will share this information through the LISTSERV.

•Tommy Thomas gave the nominating committee report. Brad Carson graciously agreed to run for President. Nominees for the 2001-2002 SPARTA Board of Directors are:

President Brad Carson
Vice President John Bryant
Treasurer Duane Reaugh
Secretary Mike Lockey
Communications Ed Webb

If you are interested in running for a SPARTA office, contact Tommy Thomas before the April meeting.

Voting for the 2001-2002 SPARTA Board of Directors will occur at the April meeting.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:20 PM.

•Duane Reaugh and Mike Lockey talked about the recent SHARE conference they attended.

Topics Duane talked about were:
z900
Architecture Modes
Intelligent Resource Director (IRD)
IBM Statement of Direction
OS/390 to z/OS
OS/390 V2R10
z/OS V1R1
z/OS V1R2
IBM Statement of Direction
64-bit world
IBM License Manager (ILM)
Why
How
ILM Server
Variable Capacity
WLM Capping
ILM Modes
Vendor Options

Topics Mike talked about were:
Service expirations for OS/390
R9 is March 2003
R10 is Sept. 2003 (may be extended)
OS/390 R10 is orderable until March 31, 2002
VS COBOL 2.4 service expires March 31, 2001
Z/OS and OS/390 Performance Hot Topics
Recommended OS/390 APARs
Language Environment Serviceability APARs
Cheryl’s Hot Flashes
OS/390 ServerPac: Recent Enhancements

Thanks to Duane and Mike for the well presented topics.

•The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for March 2001

contributed by Duane Reaugh

The treasurer’s report shows our balance as of the end of March 2001 is $ 571.79.

Items of Interest

Mission Critical Facilities

contributed by Tom Schwartz

(Ed. note: Here’s an excerpt from Mission Critical Facilities by Fred Moore. Read the entire article here).

“Even more interesting, the Internet is estimated to use 8% of the kWh output of the United States and another 5% of the kWh goes to support non-networked computers. This number projects to reach 50% of all electrical consumption in 2010 being used for information technology support. In summary, by the year 2010, electricity will account for half of the energy consumption in the US and half of all electrical consumption will go for information devices!”

ShopS390 is now ShopzSeries

contributed by Ed Webb

(Excerpts from a recent IBM e-mail):

ShopS390 (was) renamed to ShopzSeries on April 1. This is being done to correspond with IBM’s latest software offerings for the S/390 platform. The new web site URL, effective on April 1, is:
http://inetsd01.boulder.ibm.com/ShopzSeries/ShopzSeries.jsp

If you use the old name after March 31, you will be redirected to the new site automatically.

In addition to all of the S/390 products orderable through ShopzSeries (formerly ShopS390), you can also order the new z/OS Operating System:
z/OS V1 Base 5694-A01 V1 R1
z/OS V1 Alternate Base 5694-A01 V1 R1
z/OS V1R1-OS/390 R10 Upgrade 5694-A01 V1 R1 (The last one is the Product Upgrade Package, also called PUP, and is available in CBPDO only).

Another change included on April 1 is the addition of a Special Instructions section for each order. This allows you to provide a Purchase Order number, to request a different shipping address, to ask to be contacted for purchasing additional publications, and to put in any other “free form” instructions. Using this facility will result in your order being sent to the Order Center for processing.

You will now have the ability to request a Price Quotation for an open order you are preparing. Select Request a price quote and a copy of your order is sent to the Order Center and someone will contact you explaining what you would be charged if you placed the order.

Under Ask a question, there is now a selection for telling us the nature of your question. Please choose something appropriate to your question - this will help us route your question faster to a specific person and thus provide you with an answer sooner.

New links are being added, including links to the IBM zSeries Home Page, the IBM z/OS Home Page, and the IBM Publications Center.

Additional status information for your orders has been added. In addition to the existing categories of Open, Order Center, and Submitted, status now includes Manufacturing, Shipped, and Archived. For Submitted, Manufacturing, and Shipped, you can click on the order and be taken to an Order Status page where detailed status for your order is shown. For Submitted and Manufacturing, you will see the Planned Ship date; for Shipped, you will see the carrier and the carrier’s number and you can click on the carrier’s name to link directly to the carrier’s status page for your order.

SUF V3 Available

contributed by Ed Webb

Service Update Facility V3 from IBM became available to customers on March 23, 2001. SAS has implemented the new version which no longer requires WebSphere. The implementation is painless for an existing SUF user: download the new code, run the install dialog in OS/390 Unix to replace the old SUF CAS code, configure the new SUF to access IBM via an HTTP firewall (rather than the “direct connect” FTP method of V2), and voila! it works.

Humor

Once a Pun a Time

contributed by Chris Blackshire

1. Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”

2. Did you hear that NASA recently put a bunch of Holsteins into low earth orbit? They called it the herd shot ‘round the world.

3. Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. Naturally, the second one became known as the lesser of two weevils.

4. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.

5. A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West, slides up to the bar, and announces: “I’m looking for the man who shot my paw.”

6. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

7. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. “But why?” they asked, as they moved off. “Because,” he said, “I can’t stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

8. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Amal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Amal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal.”

9. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good friars to close down, but they would not. A week later, he went back to the friars store and again begged them to close; But, they ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” the friars to close their shop. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

10. And finally, there was a woman who sent ten different puns to friends, in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.