SPARTA News May 2003
May 2003
SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner
- by Brad Carson
May is here and we at LabCorp have survived a two day DR test at Sungard in Philadelphia. This was the first time we've used a STK VSM at DR as well as 9840s for all restores. We learned quite a bit at this DR (I put in a 38+ hour weekend), but was unable to get to a Phillies' game. We had our own z900-1C6 system to use and brought back a good amount of SMF data to review. I hope we can use this to prod our management on replacing our HDS Skyline system.
We will finally be placing OS/390 2.10 in production on May 17th, what a long wait this has been. Of course OS/390 will be blamed for every little problem on the system, because everyone knows that our developers write clean code ;-). Our next project is to create a CMC LPAR on each system. Oh well, more joys of parallel sysplexes.
For those of you who use IBM's Debug Tool (Compuware Xpediter replacement) in CICS, watch out for problems with V3.1 of this product. We installed this on our QAAD system and haven't been able to use it due to consistent 0C1 abends in a Debug module. IBM is still doing a lot of head scratching on this one. We've backed off this release for CICS right now, but the TSO/Batch portion works fine. I'll let you all know how this works out in the future.
This month we will have a presentation on "Easing DR Testing By Using VSM's CVDT" by Ken Reed of StorageTek. See http://www.storagetek.com/prodserv/products/tape/vsm/ for a preview.
I look forward to seeing you all on the 20th at LabCorp RTP. BarBQ, drinks, and dessert will be provided.
Notice: Meeting date changed for May only. We meet on Tuesday, May 20.
Future Speakers
(subject to change)
May 20 - DR Testing Using VSM’s CVDT by Ken Reed of StorageTek
June 24 - Recent Announcements by Dan Myers of IBM
July 29 - MVS Limitations by Jim Horne
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 919-361-7270
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. 919-361-7267
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.
Apr. 2003 CBT Tape Online
The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V459 (dated April 21, 2003) 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 29th, 2003 Meeting
•Meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.
•Thirteen (13) people were present; twelve (12) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.
•Minutes of the March 2003 meeting were accepted as published in the April 2003 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer’s report. As of April 29, 2003, the balance is $1082.46.
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.
•You can access the SPARTA Web site, just point your Web browser to this URL: www.netpath.net/~mlockey/sparta.html. Please send any comments or suggestions about the SPARTA website to Mike Lockey (mlockey@netpath.net). Be sure to check our website every once in a while to see any new or changed information.
•Mike Lockey will contact GoDaddy.com to register a domain name for the SPARTA web site and have them host the SPARTA web site. It costs $8.95 per year to register a domain name. The cost of hosting the SPARTA web site is $5.95 per month.
•Annual dues of $20 are to be paid now.
•Brad Carson reminded everyone to continue to make sure the conference room is clean before we leave the meeting.
NEW BUSINESS
•Future Speakers and Topics:
May 2003 - STK Virtual Storage Manager and Disaster Recovery
June 2003 - Dan Myers - IBM
July 2003 - Jim Horne - Limitations in MVS
Other ideas:
- New release of IOF - Triangle Systems
- CMG Conference - Jim Horne of Lowes
If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Duane Reaugh.
•A motion to move the May 2003 meeting from May 27 to May 20 was approved.
•The list of nominees for the 2003-2004 SPARTA Board of Directors is:
Brad Carson President
Duane Reaugh Vice President
Tommy Thomas Treasurer
Mike Lockey Secretary
Ed Webb Communications
A motion was made to accept the nominees as the 2003-2004 SPARTA Board of Directors. Motion was accepted and approved.
•Food for the May 2003 meeting will be BBQ, 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 7:40 p.m.
•Ed Scott of Circle Computer was the speaker for the evening. He talked to us about Mainframe Industry Futures.
Ed gave a brief history of the used mainframe market.
He discussed how the demand for used mainframes was down because of IBM's pricing structure. IBM has priced new hardware cheaper than used hardware. IBM bundles hardware, software and maintenance costs on new processors in such a way that is is not cost-effective to run current Operating System software on used processors.
•The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 PM.
Treasurer’s Report for May 2003
contributed by Tommy Thomas
The balance in the account is $ 1233.90 as of May 12, 2003.
Financial Report
2/01/2003 through 05/12/2003
INCOME
Opening Balance 672.90
Dues 620.00
Misc. 0.00
TOTAL INCOME $1292.90
EXPENSES
Food 126.58
Petty Cash 0.00
Bank Service Fees 0.00
P.O. Box 0.00
TOTAL EXPENSE $126.58
BANK BALANCE 1166.32
PETTY CASH($160) 67.58
TOTAL CASH $1233.90
Items of Interest
IBM to Ship z990 Known as T-Rex
contributed by Ed Webb
You can view the press release covering The May 2003 announcement of the zSeries 990 at : http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/announce/z990/
Frequently Asked Questions about the z990 can be viewed at: http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/faq/pdf/z990_faq_May03.pdf
And check out the z/OS 1.4 updates planned for the remainder of this year: http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/overview/zosnew.html
And there’s a major summary of what’s coming in September 2004 in z/OS 1.6: runs only on z/Architecture machines. See the Architecture Level Set statement in the z/OS 1.4 Announcement letter from May 13, 2003: http://www.ibmlink.ibm.com/usalets&parms=H_203-131#div41
After you read the Architecture statement for z/OS 1.6, wander through the rest of the announcement for details of z/OS 1.5 due in March 2004.
SHARE Proceedings from February 2003 Now Available to Members Only
contributed by Ed Webb
Dallas Proceedings of SHARE are now available Online, but only to registered Members. You can access the session presentations from SHARE in Dallas at http://www.share.org.
SPARTA Food Menu for 2003
contributed by Chris Blackshire
May- BarBQ,
June -Pizza
July - Chicken
Humor
Tech Support Guru - What a Life!
contributed by Chris Blackshire
Monday
8:05 am
User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?
8:12 am
Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, "Well, it works for me." Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer...
8:14 am
User from 8:05 call said they received error message "Error accessing Drive C." Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to microsupport.
11:00 am
Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The "Myst" and "Doom" nationals are this weekend!
11:34 am
Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */ALL.
12:00 pm
Lunch
3:30 pm
Return from lunch.
3:55 pm
Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason. Return to napping.
4:23 pm
Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask them what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when they find out.
4:55 pm
Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next shift has something to do.
Tuesday
8:30 am
Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.
9:00 am
Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes SmartIcon. "Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the calendar database!" I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.
9:35 am
Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.
10:00 am
Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's "Reengineering for Customer Partnership," I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment.
10:07 am
Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a smoke.
1:00 pm
Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.
1:05 pm
Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in computer room, even if I do yell "Omigod -- Fire!"
1:15 pm
Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.
1:20 pm
Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for "Notice Loads" or "NoLoad Goats," she's not sure, couldn't hear over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably "Lettuce Nodes." Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks about it and hangs up.
2:00 pm
Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the air vents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she does that.
2:49 pm
Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.
Wednesday
8:30 am
Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form. Tell them Of course, they should have been checking "Bitset," not "chipset." Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.
9:10 am
Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material...
10:00 am
Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.
10:30 am
Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX system sometime.
11:00 am
Lunch.
4:55 pm
Return from lunch.
5:00 pm
Shift change; Going home.
Thursday
8:00 am
New guy ("Marvin") started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome and color.
8:45 am
New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.
9:30 am
Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. "Nice plaids" Louie comments. Is this guy great or what?!
11:00 am
Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of sleeves ("Always have backups"). User calls, says Accounting server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another happy customer!
11:55 am
Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01: "Whereas all new employee beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all proper aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to provide sustenance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift." Marvin doubts. I point to "Corporate Policy" database (a fine piece of work, if I say so myself!). "Remember, that's DOUBLE pepperoni and NO peppers!" I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile to get to exit door.
1:00 pm
Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy...
4:30 pm
Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.
5:00 pm
Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just testing the On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.
Friday
8:00 am
Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them it worked fine before I left.
9:00 am
Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.
9:02 am
Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the Oiuji board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call Telecommunications.
9:30 am
Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego and can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two hours.
10:17 am
Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell them to set server ahead three hours.
11:00 am
E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.
11:20 am
Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.
11:23 am
Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.
11:25 am
Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. "So hard to get good help..." I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. "No problem!"
11:30 am
Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a meeting this afternoon. "Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff" I tell him.
12:00 am
Lunch.
1:00 pm
Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make them fast.
1:03 pm
Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!
2:30 pm
Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel 2:45 pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know.
2:39 pm
New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.
2:50 pm
Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means appointment cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him if he's seen corporate Web page lately.
3:00 pm
Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.
4:00 pm
Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point size to "2" in help databases.
4:30 pm
User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them to go to view, do a "Edit -- Select All", hit delete key, and then refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.
4:45 pm
Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them I'll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.
4:58 pm
Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much.
5:00 pm
Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a good weekend.
****************************************************************************
How to help your Tech Support staff.........
01. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
02. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
03. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when we need your password. It's nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.
04. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.
05. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing.
06. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
07. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
08. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
09. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
10. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
11. When an I.T. person tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That motivates us.
12. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
13. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.
14. Don't learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "My thingy blew up".
15. Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.
Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting
Special Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2003
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: BarBQ, Drinks, Dessert
Program:
Easing DR Testing Using VSM’s CVDT
Speakers:
Ken Reed of StorageTek
SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
First Class Postage
Phillips Software
