SPARTA News July 2007

July 2007

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

The heat of July is here and so are the air conditioning woes at home. At least it didn't cost me as much as last year did. I believe that my A/C unit had to have a root canal last summer.

Last month we had a visit from Jeffrey Wuchich of Macro 4 to talk about their DUMPMASTER, TRACEMASTER, and FREEZE FRAME products. These products are competitors to products from Compuware, CA, and IBM. Jeff had a very good understanding of these products and gave an in-depth presentation.

Our DR test last month didn't go quite as we had expected. We ended up canceling it due to a COBOL/LE issue with date processing. It seems that IBM had left some testing code in LE on z/OS 1.7 that would give an LE abend if the local code was more than 12 hours off of the hardware clock. During DR, once we restore the system, we IPL the recovered system back to the date that the backups were from to complete that night’s production batch. Once that is done, we IPL to current date/time before starting the next business day. We were off by 144 hours for this DR test so when we started batch, we got a number of COBOL/LE abends due to "invalid date". We found PTF UK24811 (z/OS 1.7, other PTFs for z/OS 1.6-1.9) that needed to be applied to correct this issue. Once we get that completed (August outage), we will have to schedule another DR test. Oh joy...

Well, it has happened again. LabCorp is looking for a Sr. DB2 Systems Programmer. Our last candidate was having health issues and passed away unexpectedly last week. A sad time for my group and I. So if any of you know of someone who would fit this position, please contact me at LabCorp.

I am happy to report that LabCorp management has approved my attending SHARE in San Diego. I started working on them when I was rehired last year. It took a bit of "lobbying" on my part but I finally won them over (or was that wore them down).

This month our presentation will be from our own Tom Schwartz of SUN-StorageTek on their current storage products. I look forward to seeing you all on the 31st at LabCorp RTP.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


July 31 - Latest Storage Products by Tom Schwartz of Sun (StorageTek)
Aug. 28 - BusTek
Sept. 25 - SHARE Conference Reports

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.

2007-2008 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 336-436-8294
3060 S. Church St.
Burlington, NC 27215

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 e-Mailings

The SPARTA policy is to e-mail a monthly notice to our SPARTA-L Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA-L Group is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 641-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Mike.

February 2006 CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V471 (dated February 28, 2006) are available from www.cbttape.org.

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

Minutes of the June 26, 2007 Meeting

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

•Fifteen (15) people were present; eleven (11) were members.

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

•The minutes of May 2007 meeting were accepted as published in the June 2007 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's report. As of June 13, 2007, the balance is $1506.36. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the June 2007 newsletter.

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 URL: 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)

July 2007 Update of products; Tom Schwartz from Sun Microsystems
August 2007 BusTek
September 2007 SHARE Conference Reports

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

•The July 31st SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the July meeting will be subs, drinks, and dessert.

•Brad asked who is going to SHARE; several members said that they were.

•Brad reminded everyone to invite others to the SPARTA meeting.

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

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:40 p.m.

•Jeff Wuchich and Joe Bromberg of Macro 4 talked about Testing and Debugging Tools. Joe gave a presentation on Business Application Optimization. Some of the topics/products that Jeff and Joe discussed:

InSync
Supported Listing Repositories
TraceMaster
DumpMaster
FreezeFrame
ExpeTune
Application Performance Portal (APP)

•The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for July 2007

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $ 1437.43 as of July 21, 2007.

Financial Report
3/01/2007 through 7/21/2007

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2007

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

July 31 - Subs
Aug. 28 - BarBQ
Sept. 25 - Pizza
Oct. 30 - Chicken
Nov. 27- Subs


Seven Steps to a Green Data Center

contributed by Ed Webb

Surging data center power usage is building to a potential crisis, but there are many steps that IT managers can take today to start reducing power consumption without making a huge investment -- or sacrificing performance or availability. http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/1699556/72619935/68943/2/

SCMG Fall Conference Date Set

contributed by Ed Webb

Friday, September 28
Capitol City Club
411 Fayetteville St Mall #2100
Raleigh, NC

Frank Bereznay will be presenting his Mullen Award winning paper "Using Statistical Techniques to Interpret Service and Resource Metrics" at this meeting. See details at http://regions.cmg.org/regions/scmg/index.html.


The System z9 BC Offering

contributed by Chris Blackshire

The new z9 BC extends the mainframe much lower in price than it has been. A 26-MIPS version is as low as $100K, with decreases as well in maintenance costs and specialty engine (zIIP, zAAP, IFL) costs.

The New TCO Story

IBM correctly breaks down costs of ownership into hardware license, software license, people (administration, implementation, and upgrade) and environmental (e.g., electricity and air conditioning) costs. Of these, environmental costs are often highly significant for data centers in major cities where space is at a premium, and often viewed as insignificant in other cases.

Instead of considering single-application TCO scenarios, IBM assesses cases where tens of applications are running, either on a single mainframe or on multiple distributed Linux/Unix or Wintel platforms. This, IBM notes, is a typical model in medium-sized to large enterprises, as well as where the new ISVs are providing their applications remotely as services. In these cases, the number of administrators required to run the operating systems, hardware, and networks of the distributed systems increases nearly linearly as the workload scales; while the mainframe's administrative costs barely increase at all (databases are a special case, but do not invalidate the overall trend). Thus, for the typical IT shop, mainframe people costs are often a fraction of the distributed systems' people costs.

Meanwhile, mainframe software license costs -- often cited as a concern in user surveys -- are now actually competitive with other platforms. A key reason for this is IBM's focus on driving these costs down. For example, IBM's database-administration tools have had the effect of driving the prices of competitors such as CA and Compuware down significantly; IBM software license costs decrease per unit of workload as the workload increases; and IBM has chosen to reduce both hardware and software-license costs for its specialty co-processors (zIIP for Java-related workloads, IFL to run Linux, and zAAP for WebSphere) -- so smart customers migrate transactional workloads to those co-processors.

While System z9 hardware prices may be still much larger than those of other platforms, hardware utilization can be decreased per MIP (millions of instructions per second) if savvy IT buyers buy (and place the new workloads on) the specialty processors. And lastly, IBM engineering means that the mainframe requires less electricity and air conditioning than many PCs running the same workload.

Moreover, IBM argues that the mainframe's TCO advantages should remain over time, as IBM aims to continue aggressive pricing that has driven down total costs by 50% over the last four years.

The outlook for System z in new markets

IBM notes 240 Linux ISV partners, more than 800 applications, and a 30 % growth rate. This indicates that IBM has at least begun to crack the vertical/functional ISV market.

There are two key remaining barriers to full System-z success in this market:

* Price concerns. While TCO may be highly attractive where ISVs are running applications for multiple customers, license price per customer remains high enough to affect ISV application prices significantly.

* Programming concerns. IBM's development tools are in general aimed at complex implementations of complex software, not at rapid business-level upgrade. Because the development platform is likely to be a favored
production platform, System z is therefore being ruled out for many applications for which it otherwise would be favored.

The rise of the vertical/functional ISV is good news for the ISV's customers, who now can find applications much more closely suited to their particular business's tasks and size, while retaining the enterprise application's ability to support corporate standards.

It also offers an opportunity to the new System z mainframe, as its new flexibility and low TCO, coupled with its long-time robustness, manageability, and scalability, make it in many ways ideal for ISVs seeking always-up platforms, platforms able to be maintained by untrained personnel, and flexibility to handle widely varying workloads.

Whether System z can take advantage of the opportunity presented by the changing face of ISVs by continuing to increase its low-end license-cost attractiveness and rapid-development capabilities remains to be seen; but certainly System z has made a promising start. As a result, many of these vertical/functional ISVs and their customers should take a new look at what the mainframe has to offer.

About the author: Kernochan is president of Infostructure Associates


Humor

Brit Humor on Terrorism

contributed by Ed Webb

From a British coworker (on July 2 after the Glasgow airport car-burning and London car-bomb scare):

Unfortunately with our history of the IRA bombings from 1960's to 1990's we tend to take it all in our stride - rightly or wrongly. The attacks do seem to be fraught with failure and not exactly the product of a well honed terrorist machine. Sticking some propane canisters and gas cans in the back of a car, lighting them and driving at a door (and missing)? Hmmm.

The government are taking things more seriously ;o)

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.


Once Again the Canadian Senators are Thrifty

contributed by Ron Pimblett

Ah, the salary cap. The great equalizer in the NHL. No more can teams buy their way to the top. Not that some teams were able to do that anyway (Hello, Toronto Maple Leafs and your 40 years of futility). But today's NHL team is just as much a function of salaries as it is players. Each team had roughly $44 million (all figures in $US) to spend in 2006. Some, such as the Maple Leafs, Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks, spent it unwisely. Others, especially the Penguins, Anaheim Ducks and Buffalo Sabres, were penny-pinching marvels.

Consider that the Penguins spent about $37 million to earn 105 points. That's $351,603 per point, making it the most cost-effective team in the NHL. (It should be pointed out that the salary figures contained on our charts reflect the current value of all player contracts on a team, not the actual amount paid under the cap, nor do they include performance bonuses.) At the other end of the spectrum, the Flyers spent $723,815 for each of its 56 points. The best-spending Canadian team was the Ottawa Senators at $430,201 a point, followed by the Vancouver Canucks, Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Flames, Leafs and Edmonton Oilers.


Family Tree Spin

contributed by Chris Blackshire

A genealogist discovered Remus Starr in his Family Tree. The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on a gallows. On the back of the picture is written: "Remus Starr; horse thief; sent to Montana Territorial
Prison 1885, escaped 1887; robbed the train "Montana Flyer" 6 times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives. Convicted and hanged 1889."

A biographical sketch was subsequently written in the Family History as follows: "Remus Starr, a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire included acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana Railroad. Beginning in 1885, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor, when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."

Best Out of Office Replies

contributed by Chris Blackshire

1. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.

3. I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless e-mails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4. Thank you for your e-mail. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5. The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

6. Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

7. I've run away to join a different circus.

8. I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as 'Margaret' instead of 'Steve'.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, July 31, 2007
7 p.m.

Location: LabCorp in the RTP

Free Food: Subs, Drink, Dessert

Program:

Latest Storage Products from Sun

Speaker:

Tom Schwartz of Sun (StorageTek)

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



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