SPARTA News November 2001

November 2001

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Brad Carson

(Ed. Note: Brad was unable to submit a President’s Corner by the early pre-Thanksgiving deadline.)


Our next meeting is on Tuesday, November 27th, at LabCorp. Fried chicken, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Nov. 27 z/OS & OS/390 Tech Conference Report by John Bryant of GlaxoSmithKline
Dec. Happy Holidays! No meeting
Jan. 29 V960 Virtual Disk on S/390 Linux by Bob Eskenberry of StorageTek
Feb. 26 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.

2001-2002 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 919-572-7504
1912 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Brad_Carson@labcorp.com

John Bryant - Vice President
GlaxoSmithKline 919-483-9548
5 Moore Drive; D.111
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@gsk.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 V439 (dated October 30, 2001) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need a complete tape, contact Brad Carson at LabCorp or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the October 30th, 2001 Meeting

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

•Sixteen (16) people were present; fifteen (15) were members.

•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.

•The minutes of September 2001 meeting were accepted as published in the October 2001 newsletter.

•Duane Reaugh, the Chapter Treasurer, was unable to attend the meeting. As of August 28, 2001 the balance is $488.08.

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:

November 2001 - z/OS & OS/390 Tech Conference by John Bryant of GSK
Other ideas:
- Conversion to RMM - Tommy Thomas
- TDMF - Ken Frump
- 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.

•Food for the November 2001 meeting will be fried chicken, sodas, and dessert.

•The November SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in RTP.

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

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

•Jerry Paterson of Computer Associates talked about the CA BrightStor Storage Management product. The topics Jerry discussed were:

CA strategic directions
BrightStor Enterprise Storage Resource Management (formerly known as CA Vantage)
Storage issues
Storage Resource Management (SRM) solution
- What is it?
- Components of BrightStor SRM
What’s New in BrightStor Release 6.2?
BrightStor Product Overview
Summary
ROI (Return On Investment) Propositions and Benefits
Highlights for BrightStor Release 7.0
Highlights for BrightStor Release 7.1

•The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for November 2001

contributed by Duane Reaugh

As I have been on the road since forever, I suspect there are a few dinner bills queued up but the balance in the account is $ 488.08 The last dinner bill I paid was for July so there is Aug., Sep. & Oct. outstanding.

Items of Interest

Four Decades of E-Mail

contributed by Chris Blackshire

(Excerpted from SPECIAL REPORT E-MAIL - ComputerWorld, 12Nov2001 --http://www.computerworld.com/q?a1230)

1965 - Tom Van Vleck and Noel Morris create a Mail command for the Compatible Time-Sharing System at MIT.

Fall 1971 - Ray Tomlinson writes a program to send messages across a distributed network and chooses the @ sign to indicate an address outside the local network.

1973 - After just two years, e-mail comprises 75% of all Arpanet traffic among 23 universities and government research centers. Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn create TCP/IP, coin the term Internet.

1976 - The U.S. Department of Defense decides that TCP/IP will be the only protocol used on Arpanet.

February 1976 - “In a new kind of British Invasion, Queen Elizabeth II of England becomes the first head of state to send an e-mail message.” ( U.S. News & World Report, March 22, 1999 ).

Fall 1976 - Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale use e-mail every day during their campaign to coordinate itineraries. A single message cost $4. ( U.S. News & World Report, March 22, 1999 )

1979 - Usenet created at the University of North Carolina with three newsgroups.

April 12, 1979 - Kevin MacKenzie proposes adding some emotion to the dry, text-only medium of e-mail. Perhaps, he sad, we could expand punctuation used in e-mail messages. To indicate that a sentence is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, he suggests adding -) at the end of the sentence.

November 1983 - The Domain Name System ( DNS ) is created. Designed by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris and Craig Patridge to support the e-mail addressing space, DNS gave us the common address endings we use today, including .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net and .org.

November 1984 - Lotus Development Corp. announces Jazz for Macintosh. This all-in-one program incorporates spreadsheet, datasheet, database, graphics, word processing and communication tools for Mac users.

1985 - Quantum Computer Services is founded in May; in November its first online service, Q-Link, launches on Commodore Business Machines.

Nov. 11, 1987 - Microsoft Mail 1.0 for the Macintosh, formerly known as InterMail, ships. Mail lets workgroup members send and receive mail, phone messages, files and graphics electronically. ( Microsoft Museum ).

1988 - Steve Dormer writes Eudora. Named after the author Eudora Welty, this program offers the first graphical interface for e-mail management.

1989 - Lotus announces Lotus Notes.

October 1991 - Quantum Computer Services becomes America Online inc.

1992 - CERN creates World Wide Web.

Jan. 12, 1993 - Microsoft introduces the first e-mail client for Windows.

1995 - IBM purchases Lotus. Microsoft debuts its online service, MSN.
January 1996 - “Cleveland Browns fans deluge politicians, the media, and the NFL with nearly 2 million e-mail messages protesting the move of the team to Baltimore.” ( U.S. News & World Report )

1996 - More e-mail was sent than postal mail in the U.S. for the first time.

Jan. 16, 1997 - Microsoft release Outlook 97.

1998 - Microsoft acquires Hotmail.

1999 - AOL acquires Netscape Communications Corp.


Emerging Details about Consolidated Service Testing

contributed by Ed Webb

Here’s recent news about the new Consolidated Service Test process and Recommended Service Upgrade (RSU) process for your system:

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/servicetst/index.html#sourceid

As part of IBM’s commitment to quality and continuous improvement, we established the Consolidated Service Test (CST) team. This team consists of cross product test representatives working together to enhance the way IBM recommends service for z/OS and OS/390 software, including the major subsystems. Before CST, many of the key product families on OS/390 or z/OS had different recommended maintenance strategies, with little or no coordination between them. Now, the CST team tests all the current PTFs for these products together, so that we can recommended PTF service for z/OS or OS/390 and their key subsystems together in one package. That means that when you order the current service deliverable, you’ll receive and install tested service for all of the following products and service levels:

* OS/390 R9 and R10
* z/OS V1R1
* CICS TS 1.3/CPSM 1.4
* DB2 UDB for OS/390 V6 and V7
* MQSeries for OS/390 V2.1 and V5.2
* IMS V6 and V7
* IRLM 2.10

We test on a quarterly cycle, providing quarterly recommendations and monthly delta recommendations for customers needing more frequent maintenance updates. The table below shows a sample schedule for service updates for the coming year, with the currently available packages highlighted:

Month/Year Service Available RSU Sourceid
October ‘01 All service through the end of June ’01 not already marked RSU PEs and HIPERs through the end of August ‘01 RSU0109 New!
 
November ‘01 PEs and HIPERs through the end of September ‘01 RSU0110 New

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/PubAllNum/Flash10106

Deliverables:
The redefined RSU will be available 4Q2001 on ESO, CBPDO and ServerPac deliverables and orderable in SUF and ShopzSeries. With the transition to the redefined RSU, the availability of RSU0109 will be delayed until mid-November, and RSU0109 will be larger to include maintenance from prior PUT levels. Additional information will be provided with each of the deliverables, as well as on their corresponding web sites.

Humor


Letter of the Week

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Mr. Baker,

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of myself and my co-workers during the commission of our duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.

Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every little nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know about Unix, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of “cut and paste” for the hundredth time.

You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is.

Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will. You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.

Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation, however I have a few parting thoughts.

1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal to give me a bad recommendation. The most you can say to hurt me is “I prefer not to comment.” I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years to keep you honest, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.

2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your “favourites list”, which I conveniently saved when you made me “back up” your useless files. I do believe that terms like “Lolita” are not usually viewed favourably by the administration.

3. When you borrowed the digital camera to “take pictures of your mothers b-day”, you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself in the mirror nude. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are. I assure you that they have been copied and kept in safe places pending the authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (Try to use a spell check please, I hate having to correct your mistakes.)

Thank you for your time, and I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody, and all of your little twisted repugnant obsessions will be open to the public. Never mess with your systems administrators, because they know what you do with all your free time.

Sincerely,
Ted Brewer