SPARTA News April 2008

April 2008

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

April is here and that means the everything is turning yellow from all the pine pollen out there. My GMC has gone from green to dull yellow until they lifted the water restrictions that allow me to wash it at home. Last month we had our second annual Hurricanes outing. Everyone was able to see a good hockey game but the Carolina Hurricanes let us down by losing to the Capitals in the shoot-out. I look forward to our third outing next year.

Here at LabCorp, we’ve managed to get all but one of our DB2 subsystems converted to DB2 V8 compatibility mode. We converted the production web app subsystem during our April outage on the 20^th. This just leaves us with the Billing/Lab Archive subsystem, and we hope to convert that during our May outage. Now we are beginning the next phase of the project by converting the subsystems to DB2 V8 new function mode. We’ve gotten one subsystem converted on our QAAD LPAR for the DBA’s and developers to play with.

Along with the DB2 V8 work, we’ve had to “Jump through the hoops” to make DFSort and SyncSort play nice with each other.  Dataset order in the LINKLIST is very important for this. Also since we haven’t used DFSort since 2001, there was no customization done to it when we installed z/OS 1.7. So DB2 V8 and DFSort defaults are not a good combination for optimum performance of the standard DB2 utilities.  We are working on setting DFSort defaults and reworking an old SMPE usermod to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future.

Now that we have DB2 V8 running on our production LPAR, we are beginning the work on ordering z/OS 1.9 for installation this summer/fall. This way we aren’t going to wait until the last months of support to get the OS order in. We’ve downloaded the z/OS migration utility that was mentioned at SHARE and that looks like a great addition to the system programmer’s toolkit!

This month our presentation will be by Ralph Armstrong and Mike Lynch of BusTech to discuss their virtual tape and disk solutions. I look forward to seeing you all at LabCorp on the 29^th.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


April 29 Virtual Tape on Disk by Bus-Tech
May 20 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 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 March 25, 2008 Meeting

•In place of a formal meeting on March 25th, we met at the RBC Center in west Raleigh to watch the Carolina Hurricanes NHL hockey team. A good time was had by all 13 members and 6 guests. Unfortunately the Hurricanes lost the game to the Washington Capitols in a shoot-out 2-3.

Treasurer’s Report for April 2008

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $ 1418.85 as of April 16, 2008.

Financial Report
3/01/2008 through 04/16/2008

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2008

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Apr 29 - BarBQ
May 20 - Pizza (May 27 = Memorial Day week)
June 24 - Chicken
July 29 - Subs
Aug. 26 - BarBQ
Sept. 30 - Pizza
Oct. 28 - Chicken
Nov. 18 - Subs (Nov. 25 = Thanksgiving week)


SCMG Meets in Raleigh May 2nd

contributed by Ed Webb

The Southern Computer Measurement Group (SCMG) will meet in Raleigh, NC, on Friday, May 2 at the Cardinal Club (150 Fayetteville Street, Suite 2800). For details see http://regions.cmg.org/regions/scmg/spring_08/raleigh/meeting_05_02_08.htm

Mainframe Security: Here We Go Again!

contributed by Ed Webb

Barry Schrager of SSK, Inc. (ACF2) fame (now at Vanguard Security) has a very interesting perspective on z/OS security in this Mainframe Executive article: http://www.mainframe-exec.com/articles/?p=7

SMP/E Users Require APAR to Install z/OS Service

contributed by Ed Webb

From IBMLink News dated 26Mar2008:

SMP/E 3.5 (previewed in z/OS 1.10 preview announcement letter 208-042) plans to help simplify tasks to verify required software fixes identified in the Preventive Service Planning (PSP) buckets. PSP buckets identify required software fixes for new hardware, toleration and coexistence of new software releases, and enabling new functions. IBM will consolidate the lists of required fixes from PSP buckets and produce SMP/E consumable metadata in the form of HOLDDATA to associate fixes to a particular category (Fix Category) and to identify missing fixes in a current software environment.

SMP/E will help simplify tasks for selecting and installing required fixes identified by the HOLDDATA. SMP/E will support a new FIXCAT type HOLDDATA which will be included with ERROR HOLDDATA and delivered in all existing IBM product and service delivery offerings.

Required Service
FIXCAT HOLDDATA is incompatible with prior releases of SMP/E. It can only be processed by SMP/E 3.5. Coexistence APAR IO07480 is provided for SMP/E 3.3 and SMP/E 3.4 to enable those releases to silently ignore the FIXCAT HOLDs when they are present in the SMPHOLD file. The PTF for APAR IO07480 (PTFs UO00700 or UO00701) must be installed on SMP/E 3.3 or SMP/E 3.4. Failure to install these PTFs will cause the RECEIVE command to fail with message GIM20311E and GIM56701E when processing SMP/E HOLDDATA, after the availability of z/OS 1.10. When installed, this fix will ignore FIXCAT ++HOLD statements during RECEIVE processing of HOLDDATA when using SMP/E 3.3 or SMP/E 3.4.

The PTFs for APAR IO07480 (UO00700 and UO00701) are available in RSU0803.

Note: Users running a SMP/E release prior to 3.3 will not be able to process ++HOLDs after the general availability of z/OS 1.10.


Humor


Science Reveals Heaviest Element Ever Discovered

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second, to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years. It does not decay, but undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes, not to mention multiple oxymorons.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. That hypothetical quantity might normally be called "critical mass" but, in this unique case it is known as "critical mess".

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (Am), another just-discovered element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Author unknown


Trivia Test

contributed by Chris Blackshire

You require only 4 correct answers to achieve a passing grade.

It is that easy!!!

1. How long did the 100 year war last?
2. Which country makes Panama hats?
3. From which animal do we get catgut?
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5. What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7. What was King George VI's first name?
8. What color is a purple finch?
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10. What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

All done?

Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass.

Check your answers below.

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ (Remember, passing requires 4 correct answers!!!!!)

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? .. 116 years
2) Which country makes Panama hats? ... Ecuador
3) From which animal do we get cat gut? .. Sheep and Horses
4) When do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? ...November
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? ... Squirrel fur
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? ..Dogs
7) What was King George VI's first name? ... Albert
8) What color is a purple finch? ... Crimson
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from? ... New Zealand
10) What color is the black box in a commercial airplane?...Orange of course.

Now add up your correct answers.

What do you mean, you failed?
Me too, and if you try to tell me you passed, you lie!
Advice --- Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they can feel rotten too.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2008
7 p.m.

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: BarBQ, Drink, Dessert

Program:

Virtual Tape on Disk

Speaker:

Ralph Armstrong and Mike Lynch of Bus-Tech

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

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