SPARTA News September 2005

September 2005

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

Duane Reaugh and Ed Webb gave another one of their excellent presentations on what they saw and did at SHARE in Boston. I always look forward to these presentations when I am unable to attend SHARE. It looks like z/OS 1.7 will have some nice changes, especially the addition of NJE over IP support to JES2. I know that there are a few sites where we could use this support to remove the need for having duplicate lines (IP vs. SNA).

Our z/OS 1.6 migration at DHTS is now complete. This time we had no problems with the cut over. So now we are beginning the cleanup process and working on other projects, which for me includes a PageCenter trial (for replacing Control-D), the next round of maintenance for our BMC MainView suite, and further implementation of automation on our production system. We have managed to get the first phase of automation active in production. Right now BMC AutoOperator is controlling all the system core tasks and the Control-M/D suite. Our ongoing LE project is just that, on going. We've made a lot of headway with the CICS regions but are still having some pain with PL/I and IMS batch. We have a September 30th target for switching our CICS regions to all LE, so I'll let you all know how this works out.

DDA's z/OS 1.6 migration is now completed and they are now working with z/OS 1.6, CICS/TS 2.3 and DB2 8.1. With DB2 they are building a DRDA aware application and I had some fun setting up all the needed support for running the workstation based DB2/UDB control center against the z/OS based DB2. You will definitely need to make sure that all the stored procedure support is configured properly to make control center happy. Next up is to get IMS 8.1 running with the DDA applications.

This month our speaker will be Mike Bledsoe from Computer Associates Technology Services to provide an overview of CA-7 release 11 and CA's Workload Control Center. I look forward to seeing you all at LabCorp on the 27th.

P.S. Be sure to ask for Tommy Thomas when you arrive at LabCorp. Chicken, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Sep. 27 - Job Management by Mike Bledsoe of Computer Associates
Oct. 25 - DumpMarvel by John Mycroft of Cobbs Mill Consulting
Nov. 29 - RACF Update by IBM
Dec. 27 - No meeting. Happy Holidays!

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 Ron Pimblett by phone as noted below.

2005-2006 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
Duke Health Technology Solutions 919-668-0545
2424 Ervin Road, Suite 9000
Durham, NC 27710

Ron Pimblett - Vice President
Dignus, LLC 919-676-0847
8354 Six Forks Road
Raleigh, NC 27615

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-641-6235
201 N. Eugene St.
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
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 usually 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 Tommy Thomas. Tommy 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.

July 2005 CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V469 (dated July 17, 2005) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Brad Carson at Duke Health or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the August 30th, 2005 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.

•Twelve (12) people were present; all were members.

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

•The minutes of July 2005 meeting were accepted as published in the August 2005 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's report. As of August 14, 2005, the balance is $1724.12. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report.

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 site is available. To access the SPARTA Web site, point your Web browser to this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web site to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the site every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

•Brad Carson reminded everyone to keep the conference room clean.


NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:
(subject to change)


September 2005 CA Job Management by Mike Bledsoe of CA Technology Services
October 2005 DumpMarvel by John Mycroft of Cobbs Mill Consulting
November 2005 RACF by IBM
December 2005 No Meeting

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Ron Pimblett.

•Thanks to Tommy Thomas of LabCorp for hosting the August meeting.

•The September 27th SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the September meeting will be chicken, drinks and dessert.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 8:10 p.m.

•Duane Reaugh of DTS Software and Ed Webb of SAS Institute spoke about the recent SHARE Conference.

Some of the topics Duane discussed were:

- Session 2835 "What To Do When You Are A CPU"

What is a CPU?
CPU
Cache
Microcode/Millicode

CPU
Bipolar
CMOS
Multithreading

Cache
Microcode
Millicode

Conclusion

Some of the topics Ed discussed were:

Highlights

Odds and Ends
PSP Tool
VSAM IMBED, REPLICATE, KEYRANGE tool

SHARE Organization Status
In Seattle March 5-10, 2006
In Baltimore mid-August, 2006
Controlling expenses by reduced food and beverages at receptions; no General Session

Migrating to z/OS 1.7 including JES2
z/OS 1.4 and z/OS 1.5 End of Service in March 2007
z/OS 1.6 can be ordered until October 2005
JES2 must be $ACTIVATED at Z2 before JES2 1.7

z/OS 1.7 Health Checker

SMP/E 3.4 Internet Service Retrieval

z/OS 1.7 New Sequential Data Sets
DSNTYPE=LARGE, BASIC, EXTREQ and EXTPREF
PDS/E Reliability, Availability and Serviceability

From the Bit Bucket and other sessions

Large screen up to 62x132 (not 3270 standard sizes)
Migrating from HFS to zFS

Z/OS Service and APARS

The meeting ended at 9:10 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for September 2005

contributed by Tommy Thomas

(Ed. Note: No update was available at press time. Here’s the August info.)

The balance in the account is $ 1724.12 as of August 14, 2005.

Financial Report
3/01/2004 through 08/14/2005

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2005

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Sep. 27 - Chicken
Oct. 25 - Subs
Nov. 29 - BarBQ


Triangle InfoSeCon presented by Raleigh ISSA Chapter

contributed by Ed Webb

SAS Institute is a yearly sponsor of the Raleigh Chapter of the Information Systems Security Association.

The chapter is putting on a one-day security conference at the Embassy Suites in Cary on November 1st and would love for you to attend if you're interested. This meeting is a great opportunity to learn more about security, network with other security professionals and see new security technology. The cost for individuals who register before October 15th is $55 for the entire day, which includes the keynote presentation, the sponsor area, four one-hour sessions broken into three tracks (General Security, Security Management/Regulatory, Technical Security) as well as breakfast, lunch and a birds-of-a-feather session.

Marcus J. Ranum is keynoting the event. Marcus has designed a number of security products and was founder and CEO of Network Flight Recorder.

There are further discounts if you're an ISSA member ($25 if registered by Oct. 15th) or if you're a member of another area IT professional association like ISACA, TriLUG, NC Sysadmins or Infragard ($35 if registered by Oct. 15th). There is more information available online at http://raleigh.issa.org/conference.html including information about how to register.


Redpieces (“Draft Redbooks”) of Interest

contributed by Ed Webb

OSA-Express Integrated Console Controller Implementation Guide
Published: September, 9, 2005 More details are available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg246364.html

ABCs of z/OS System Programming Volume 5 (Sysplex, Logger, RRS)
Revised: September, 12, 2005 More details are available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg246985.html

IBM System z9 109 Technical Guide
Published: September, 16, 2005 More details are available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247124.html


SHARE Boston Presentations from August 2005 Are Online Now

contributed by Ed Webb

Many of the presentations for SHARE in Boston next week have been posted to the SHARE website under Proceedings. You'll need your SHARE id and password for access.


Announcing z/VM V5.2

contributed by Ron Pimblett

IBM z/VM V5.2 enhances scalability for virtualization on System z9 and zSeries, including Linux guests.

IBM continues the evolution of its premier virtualization technology with a new release of z/VM, Version 5 Release 2 (V5.2). An infrastructure for on demand computing environments can be deployed with IBM System z9 or zSeries servers using the virtualization technology of z/VM. z/VM V5.2 extends the strength of the System z9 and zSeries environments as ideal platforms for integrating applications and data and for consolidating select UNIX, Windows, and Linux workloads on a single physical System z9 or zSeries server. This allows you to run tens to hundreds of virtual Linux servers with the potential to support new workloads, achieve productivity gains, and lower IT costs. z/VM supports Linux on the mainframe and enables Linux servers to share hardware resources and use internal high-speed communications within the System z9 and zSeries environments.

z/VM V5.2 is planned to be available on December 16, 2005.

For the additional information about z/VM V5.2, refer to

* The z/VM Web site: ibm.com/vm
* z/VM V5.2 resources: ibm.com/vm/zvm520/


Humor


Computer Humor

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Junior asks his dad, "Daddy, how was I born?"
His dad sighs and replies, "Ah, my son, I guess one day you would have to find out anyway! Well, you see, your Mum and I first got together on an internet sports forum. Then I set up a date via Private Message with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.

As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, but it was too late to hit the delete button. Six weeks later your mom sent me an instant message saying that her operating system was showing signs of unauthorized program activity from a self extracting file which had implanted itself in her BIOS. Then nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared and said: 'You've Got Male'!"

Dead Horses

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Dakota tribal wisdom says when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

Buying a stronger whip.
Changing riders.
Rename the horse.
Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
Appointing a committee to study the horse.
Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
Terminate all live horses to redefine productivity.
Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
Do a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
Declare the horse is "better, faster, and cheaper" dead.
Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
Declare this horse was procured with another department's budget.
Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Add more riders to the dead horse.
Provide status reports daily on the dead horse.
Provide an incentive bonus for the jockey.
Open a ticket to upgrade the dead horse.
"Reboot" the dead horse.
Schedule a meeting with the dead horse to discuss his productivity problems.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

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 Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.

Free Food: Chicken, Drinks, Dessert

Program:

Job Management Products Update

Speaker:

Mike Bledsoe of Computer Associates

SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194











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