SPARTA News January 2009

January 2009

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

Welcome to 2009 and the big roller coaster ride we’ve all been having with the weather so far this year. Hope everyone had a good holiday season, it was a little difficult for my family and I with the loss of our Mom at the end of November. 2009 is getting to a tough start with the current economy and all the jitters that it has caused. I hope that everyone has some security with their positions.

We are finally z/OS 1.9 across the board now. It was a big task to get everything out there. To follow on we are now working on the migration to CICS/TS V3.2. It seems that CICS/TS V2.3 goes off support at the end of September. In our shop we’ve had some issues with CA Cool:Gen and CICS/TS. Our old version of C:G is using SAS/C and, when certain tracing functions are enabled, the transaction will go down with an ASRA in SAS/C. CA tells us that we need to migrate to a current version of C:G which uses IBM C (and therefore LE for runtime services). We installed a newer version of C:G in 2007 for our DB2 V8 migration. After testing showed that upgrade was not needed, the Development Technologies folks just let the C:G migration drop. Now they are scrambling to get this restarted.

While I’m sitting here writing this we are installing our LabCorp Christmas present. A pair of z10 machines! Our Burlington recover system was migrated to a z10-BC on the 17th and the RTP system is being migrated to a z10-EC today (the 18th). The icing on the cake is that these upgrades included IFL’s for z/VM and zLinux. I am looking forward to working with VM again. I guess old habits die hard.

Our company is also looking at a new setup for enterprise monitoring. I’ve been involved with some of the early meetings and have been educating people on how all platforms and OS’s are not created equal. This looks like it’s going to be a long drawn out process. We’ll see.

This month Thomas Meehan of Innovation Data Processing will be giving a presentation on the features of Innovation solutions for the z/Series systems. I look forward to seeing you all there on the 27th at LabCorp.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Jan. 27 Overview of FDR by Innovation DP
Feb. 24 ThroughPut Manager by MVS Solutions
Mar. 31 SHARE Reports by SPARTA members

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.

2008-2009 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 November 18, 2008 Meeting

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

•The meeting was held at LabCorp in RTP, N.C.

•Seventeen (17) people were present; fourteen (14) were members.

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

•The minutes of October 2008 meeting were accepted as published in the November 2008 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer gave the Treasurer's Report. As of November 10, 2008, the balance is $1134.86; motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the November 2008 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 page is available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

•Future Speakers and Topics:
(subject to change)

January Innovation DP - Overview of FDR
February MVS Solutions - ThroughPut Manager
March SHARE Conference Reports
April BMC Software - Mainview
May IBM - Omegamon for Storage

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

•The January SPARTA meeting will be January 27 at LabCorp in RTP.

•Food for the January meeting will be decided later.

Brad reminded everyone to keep the conference room clean.

NEW BUSINESS

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

•There was a brief discussion on the use of MVS and the size of /tmp filesystem.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:55 p.m.

•Brian Kithcart from EMC gave a presentation about the EMC DLM4080.
Topics covered:
EMC Disk Library for mainframe
DLM4080 - A Tape on Disk Solution
Mainframe Tape Challenges
Performance of Batch Processing
Reliability and availability of tape media
Management complexity
DR complexity
Risk associated with media management
Evolution of Mainframe Tape
Introducing the EMC DLM4080
EMC Disk Library for Mainframe Components
EMC Disk Library for Mainframe Family
Disk Library for Mainframe Specifics
Disk Library for Mainframe Scalability
How is DLM mapped to the mainframe host?
DLM Performance
Higher Capacity Plan
No Single Point of Failure (SPoF)
Remote Application
DR Testing Capabilities
Benefits of Tape on Disk with the DLM4080
HSM Recycle Today
DLM Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment
EMC Tape Assessment
Migration Analysis
Disk Library for Mainframe Benefits
Disk Library for Mainframe Tape Installations
Questions


- Meeting ended at 8:40 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for January 2009

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $1036.47 as of January 17, 2009.

Financial Report
3/01/2008 through 1/17/2009

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2009

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Jan 27 - Chicken
Feb. 24 - Subs
Mar 31 - BBQ
Apr 28 - Pizza
May 19 - Chicken (May 26 = Memorial week)
June 30 - Subs
July 28 - BBQ
Aug. 25 - Pizza
Sept. 29 - Chicken
Oct. 27 - Subs
Nov. 17 - BBQ (Nov. 24 = Thanksgiving week)
Dec. 29 - No meeting. Happy Holidays!


IBM Announces CICS Explorer, the New Face of CICS

contributed by Ed Webb

IBM CICS Explorer, the new face of CICS, is now generally available. CICS Explorer provides a dynamic tooling environment for the CICS runtime where users can create task-oriented views to provide integrated access to a broad range of CICS data and control capabilities. This allows experts to be more productive and those new to CICS more immediately effective. A CICS Explorer Software Development Kit is also available to allow ISVs, Systems Integrators, and customers to develop and deploy their own plug-ins to use and extend the perspectives, views, rich data, and methods provided by the CICS Explorer.

Further details, webcast replay, and SupportPac downloads of the CICS Explorer are now available. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/htp/cics/explorer/


Caution about z/OS V1R10 Memory Management

contributed by Ed Webb

In early December 2008, we were alerted to an interesting APAR for z/OS V1R10 by users on the IBM Main discussion group (IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu). IBM has now closed the APAR OA27291 titled “ABEND0C4 OR VARIOUS OTHER ABENDS, OVERLAYS, OR UNEXPLAINED PROBLEMS IN Z/OS R1.10 WHEN STORAGE NOT CLEARED ON GETMAIN”.

The gist of the problem is GETMAIN and STORAGE requests in z/OS V1R10, still meeting the long documented caution about no guarantee about memory contents, made changes that cause problems for programs that assume that GETMAINed storage always is filled with binary zeros. The APAR text provides a stopgap DIAG trap to restore pre-R10 behavior and, now via this APAR fix, will change the behavior to pre-V1R10 by default with a new DIAG option to control whether you want old (default) or new storage management behavior. The APAR text also provides good information about why the change was made and why IBM recommends V1R10 behavior.

FYI: SAS 9.2, SAS 9.1.3 and (as far as I know) SAS 8.2 are not bothered by the V1R10 GETMAIN change.

We are aware of a CA90s (Common Services) bug related to this problem but CA has a fix available.

It’s good practice as you know to contact all of your vendors before you install a new z/OS release to get fixes for problems like this one.


Too Important to Ignore (About GPS and Cell Phones)

contributed by Chris Blackshire

You may want to share this with your friends. Its too important to ignore!

GPS

A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football match.

Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.

The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean up the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.

MOBILE PHONE

A lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet...etc... was stolen.

20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our PIN number and I've replied a little while ago.'

When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.

Moral of the lesson:

Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list.
Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....
And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.

This gives us something to think about with all our new electronic technology. You may want to pass this on as I never thought about these!


Humor


Colonoscopy According to Dave Barry

contributed by Ed Webb

This is from news hound Dave Barry's colonoscopy journal:

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .
 
Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'
 
I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it t fall into the hands of America's enemies.
 
I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
 
The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.
 
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything.
 
And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
 
After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough
 
At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.
 
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this is, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.
 
When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.
 
I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.
 
 
ABOUT THE WRITER
 
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.  On the subject of Colonoscopies...Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous..... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:
 
 
1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
 
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
 
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
 
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
 
5. 'You know, in Arkansas , we're now legally married.'
 
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
 
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out....'
 
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
 
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
 
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
 
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
 
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.'

 
And the best one of all.
 
13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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: Chicken, Drink, Dessert

Program:

FDR and other Innovation Solutions

Speaker:

Thomas Meehan, VP, Advanced Technology, Innovation Data Processing

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



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