SPARTA News May 2002
May 2002
SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner
- by Brad Carson
Our April meeting brought us a visit from Brian Westerholt (and friends) of Compuware. They spoke to us about the software solutions that Compuware has for mainframe applications development and testing as well as data management tools.
As the date (6/15/02) for the relocation of our QA/AD LPAR from RTP to Burlington gets closer, more and more developers are beginning to worry about accessing production data (something that won’t happen from 45 miles away). We are still having fun getting all of our software licensing worked out for the 9672 in Burlington. It seems that management wants this move to happen but doesn’t want to pay for it. No one has ever said that setting up a second system would be cheaper than having one, yet I think some people may believe this particular myth. I’ll give some more information on this move next month.
This month Duane will have a topnotch presentation lined up for all of us. I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday, May 28th at LabCorp RTP. Pizza, drinks, and dessert will be provided.
Future Speakers
(subject to change)
May 28 ASG Product Overview by Dave Wright of Allen Systems Group
June 25 TBA by Duane Reaugh
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 Duane Reaugh by phone or e-mail as noted below.
2002-2003 SPARTA
Board of Directors
Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 919-572-7504
1912 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Duane Reaugh - Vice President
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841
Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401
Tommy Thomas - Treasurer
LabCorp 336-436-4178
231 Maple Ave, Koury Ctr 3rd Fl. 919-572-7507
Burlington, NC 27215
Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513
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.
May 2002 CBT Tape Online
The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V446 (dated May 14, 2002) 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 April 30th, 2002 Meeting
•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.
•Sixteen (16) people were present; nine (9) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.
•Minutes of February 2002 meeting were accepted as published in the revised March 2002 newsletter.
•Minutes of the March 2002 meeting were accepted as published in the April 2002 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer’s report. As of April 30, 2002, the balance is $663.36.
•Brad Carson reminded everyone that annual dues should be paid.
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:
May 2002 - TBA
June 2002 - TBA
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 Duane Reaugh.
•Duane Reaugh, the nominating committee, was not able to attend the meeting. Brad Carson opened the floor for nominations. There were no nominations from the floor. A motion was made to close nominations and was seconded. The following are nominations for the 2002-2003 SPARTA Board of Directors:
President Brad Carson
Vice President Duane Reaugh
Treasurer Tommy Thomas
Secretary Mike Lockey
Communications Ed Webb
Catering Chris Blackshire
A motion was made to accept the nominations and vote them as the 2002-2003 SPARTA Board of Directors; the motion was seconded and approved by all members in attendance.
•Food for the May 2002 meeting will be pizza, sodas, and dessert.
•The May SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in RTP.
•Thanks to Brad Carson of LabCorp for hosting the April meeting.
•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:30 p.m.
•Brian Westerholt and others of Compuware presented a discussion of tools offered for the Application Life Cycle. The topics presented were:
Application Life Cycle
Development
Test
Production
Development and Integration
Automated Software Quality
Production Readiness
Performance and Availability Management
•The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 PM.
Treasurer’s Report for March 2002
contributed by Tommy Thomas
The balance in the account is $ 663.66 as of April 30, 2002.
Financial Report
3/01/2002 through 4/30/2002
INCOME
Opening Balance 693.15
Total Deposits 20.00
TOTAL INCOME $713.15
EXPENSES
Food 49.49
Petty Cash 120.00
TOTAL EXPENSE $169.49
BANK BALANCE 543.66
PETTY CASH 120.00
TOTAL $663.66
Remember to renew your membership now! Dues are still only $20 for the year.
Items of Interest
Breaking the Mainframe Software Choke Hold
contributed by Ed Webb
(article from Information Week)
Mainframe owners are fed up with boilerplate mainframe-software pricing--enough, in fact, to act on their frustration. In growing numbers, big-iron owners are kissing off icons such as Computer Associates and Compuware Corp. in favor of those with flexible, use-based prices. With the exception of IBM, mainframe-software vendors have been all talk when it comes to changing price strategies. And IBM is only now preparing to reveal use pricing.
Ask Bruce Schmidt, IT manager at teacher-retirement fund TIAA-Cref. Schmidt swapped Compuware for the more diminutive Macro 4 for application development and debugging. Macro 4 negotiated an up-front price for product, support, and upgrades. Compuware had been charging Schmidt hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and was about to raise the price again, even though TIAA-Cref was using Compuware's AbendAID and Expediter less each year.
Hoping to head off defections of its own, IBM on Monday will offer customers the option of paying for the average capacity used per mainframe partition each month. “We'll measure how much they're really using,"”says Pete McCaffrey, director of zSeries product marketing at IBM. The new licensing will be available July 1. - Martin J. Garvey
Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Location: LabCorp in the RTP
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.
Free Food: Pizza, Drinks, Dessert
Program:
ASG Product Overview
Speakers:
Dave Wright of Allen Systems Group
SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
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