SPARTA News March 2009

March 2009

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

Welcome to a very soggy March in North Carolina. I just glad that all this rain didn’t come down as snow. Wouldn’t want go through another 20+ inches of that here again like we did in early 2000. Last month we had a visit from Martin Wills of MVS Solutions to talk to us about their ThruPut Manager Automation Edition product. We here at LabCorp were part of the beta test for this. We’ve been ThruPut Manager users for a number of years and use the product to keep our batch queues in order to make sure all the production work gets done. We handle about 275,000 jobs a month on our production LPAR alone. All in all, a great product from a company that puts out nice clean, easy to maintain code.

During March we performed our first DR test using replicated DASD in our Burlington data center. Everything went very well, but we still have some small adjustments to make with our procedures.  There was a lot of up front editing and modifying various PARMLIB members that can be streamlined. We also had to wait about 55 minutes while ZFS validated its files before mounting them. This is something we’ll be changing for our next little DR test in April.  It was great not having to cold start JES2 and TWS was able to tell us where all the production batch work was at.  So we are going to doing a few more of these mini DR tests to get all of our documentation updated before the big test in September.

On our z/VM front, we’ve managed to setup our own z/VM volumes and now IPL off of those instead of the "as delivered" volumes.  Had a lot of “fun” getting DIRMAINT up and running. Compared to using DIRMAINT year ago, it seems to me that IBM is trying to get the setup and configuration as messed up as Omegamon is on z/OS.  Definitely room for improvement with both the process and documentation. We are looking to begin the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for system/z in the next few weeks.

This month Ed Webb of SAS Institute and Duane Reaugh of DTS Software will be giving their SHARE trip reports from Austin. I look forward to seeing you all at LabCorp on the 31st.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Mar. 31 SHARE Reports by SPARTA members
Apr. 28 Mainview by BMC
May 19 (Special Date) Omegamon for Storage by IBM


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 February 24, 2009 Meeting

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

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

•Nineteen (19) people were present; twelve (12) were members.

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

•The minutes of January 2009 meeting were accepted as published in the February 2009 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer gave the Treasurer's Report. As of February 16, 2009, the balance is $1127.85; motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the February 2009 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)

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 March SPARTA meeting will be March 31 at LabCorp in RTP.

•Food for the March meeting will be BarBQ.

•Brad reminded everyone to keep the conference room clean.

•Reminder to pay your 2009 SPARTA dues.

NEW BUSINESS

•It's time for the Nominations Committee to form; if you are interested in being on the committee or being on the SPARTA Board of Directors, let Brad Carson know.

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

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:35 p.m.

•Martin Wills, Principal Architect from MVS Solutions, gave a presentation on ThroughPut Manager.

Topics covered:

Modernizing Your z/OS Batch ...
...and saving money

MVS Solutions Inc.
2009 Issues
Where Does Batch Fit?
Current Trends
Service Perspective Lacking for Batch
z/OS and JES2 Inefficiencies
Unnecessary Delays
Queue Delays
Initiation Delays
Execution Delays
Batch Job Lifecycle
ThruPut Manager Standard Edition
ThruPut Manager Automation Edition
Batch Service Lifecycle
Policy-driven batch
Automating Batch
Analysis
Automating Job Selection and Initiation
Ordering the queue
Prepare Jobs to Run
If an airport ran like JES2 ...
Aircraft would wait on the runway while .
• passengers were loaded,
• baggage was loaded,
• fuel was loaded, and
• refreshments were loaded, .one at a time
But an airport doesn’t run like JES2 ...
The aircraft park at gates while ...
• passengers are loaded
• baggage is loaded
• fuel is loaded
• refreshments are loaded,.all at the same time
The runways are kept free until the aircraft are ready to take off
ThruPut Manager implements this approach in z/OS
Select Based on Goals
ThruPut Manager Dynamic Initiators
Automating Execution
Provide Feedback for Stakeholders
A Single Batch metric
Monitoring
"How are we doing?"
Status by Service Group
User SDSF Information
TMUSER (UDF) Details
Job Summary Report
Management Reports
Murphy Strikes - A Bad Day
Management Reports
Sources of Savings
Software licensing
ThruPut Manager’s Software Access Control
Delay CPU upgrades
Managing subManaging sub-capacity pricing thresholds
ThruPut Manager's Contribution
Delay resource upgrades

ThruPut Manager’s Contribution
Organizational Savings
ThruPut Manager Delivers


•Meeting ended at 8:40 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for March 2009

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $1492.86 as of March 22, 2009.

Financial Report
3/01/2009 through 3/22/2009

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2009

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

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


Ten Business Lessons from “Battlestar Galactica”

contributed by Ed Webb

Apparently we’ll take business advice from anywhere and any one. Here’s lessons someone learned while watching the just concluded “Battlestar Galactica” TV Series: http://www.macworld.com/article/139561/2009/03/bsg.html


SHARE Austin 2009 Conference Press Coverage

contributed by Ed Webb

Here’s one press organization’s view of SHARE in Austin in early March 2009:

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid80_gci1349403,00.html?track=NL-576&ad=692507&asrc=EM_NLN_6087728&uid=567195


Mainframe Staffing: Truth or Consequences

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Here’s an interesting mainframe staffing article including mentions of Share and its zNextGen project:

http://www.mainframe-exec.com/articles/?p=103

Also check out this related article about educating recent graduates in the ways of the mainframe:

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid80_gci1349776_mem1,00.html?track=NL-576&ad=692507&asrc=EM_NLN_6087719&uid=567195


Do You Know About This z/OS System Automation Group?

contributed by Ed Webb

If IBM System Automation for z/OS is of interest to you, here’s a Yahoo! group that might help you:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SAUsers/


Storage and Energy: The Heat is On!

contributed by Ed Webb

This article is a helpful look at Energy consumption in the Data Center

http://www.zjournal.com/index.cfm?section=article&aid=857

Pass it on to your Data Center or Facilities management.


Distributed Computing Disaster - Time to Roll It Back!

contributed by Ed Webb

“Live servers jumped more than fivefold from 6 million in 1996 to a stunning 32 million globally in 2007. They were mostly distributed servers. This sprawling flood of servers had dire effects. Blame the RISC-UNIX and x86/x64 cartel vendors for hyping and pushing these distributed servers to users. This last decade of wild proliferation in scale-out distributed computing drove the huge increases in IT operating costs detailed below.”

Read this rest of this article here:

http://www.mainframe-exec.com/articles/?p=102


Humor


New SHARE Song

contributed by Duane Reaugh

Here’s Duane’s latest SHARE song sung to the tune of Home on the Range:


Oh give me a “Z” , or at least series P

Where the OS is stable and safe

Where zIIPs are so fast

You wont need any zAAPs

And performance is always top rate



Home, Home on the frame

Where the fortune 500 do play

Where seldom is heard

That dinosaur word

Cause mainframes don?t crash twice a day



Oh give me SMP/E for the fixes PEed

Where the chains are all simple and clear

For my shot is today and the boss is away

If it fails, I?ll be looking for more then just beer


Home, Home on the frame

Where the fortune 500 do play

Where seldom is heard

That dinosaur word

Cause mainframes don?t crash twice a day


Happy St. Patrick’s Day

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Six retired Irishmen were playing poker in O'Leary's apartment when Paddy Murphy loses £500 on a single hand, clutches his chest, and drops dead at the table. Showing respect for their fallen brother, the other five continue playing standing up.

Michael O'Conner looks around and asks, 'Oh, me boys, someone got's to tell Paddy's wife. Who will it be?'

They draw straws. Paul Gallagher picks the short one. They tell him to be discreet, be gentle, don't make a bad situation any worse.

'Discreet??? I'm the most discreet Irishmen you'll ever meet. Discretion is me middle name. Leave it to me.'

Gallagher goes over to Murphy's house and knocks on the door. Mrs. Murphy answers, and asks what he wants. Gallagher declares, 'Your husband just lost $500, and is afraid to come home.'
'
Tell him to drop dead!', says Murphy's wife.

'I'll go tell him.' says Gallagher.

*****************************************

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut, and bruised, and he's walking with a limp.

'What happened to you?' asks Sean, the bartender.

'Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight,' says Paddy.

'That little O'Conner,' says Sean, 'He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand.'

'That he did,' says Paddy, 'a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it.'

'Well,' says Sean, 'you should have defended yourself. Didn't you have something in your hand?'

That I did,' said Paddy, 'Mrs. O'Conner's breast, and a thing of beauty it was; but useless in a fight.'

*****************************************

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road.

A cop pulls him over. 'So,' says the cop to the driver, 'where have ya been?'

'Why, I've been to the pub of course,' slurs the drunk.

'Well,' says the cop, 'it looks like you've had quite a few to drink this evening.'

'I did all right,' the drunk says with a smile.

'Did you know,' says the cop, standing straight, and folding his arms across his chest, 'that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?'

'Oh, thank heavens,' sighs the drunk. 'for a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf.'

*****************************************

Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

'Brenda, may I come in?' he asks. 'I've somethin' to tell ya'.

'Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim.. But where's my husband?'

'That's what I'm here to be telling ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery'

'Oh, God no!' cries Brenda. 'Please don't tell me.'

'I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry.

Finally, she looked up at Tim. 'How did it happen, Tim?'

'It was terrible, Brenda.. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout, and drowned.'

'Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim, did he at least go quickly?'

'Well, Brenda, no. In fact, he got out three times to pee.'

*****************************************

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

He says, 'So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?'

She says, 'Oh, Father,I've got terrible news.. My husband passed away last night.'

The priest says, 'Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?'

She says, 'That he did, Father.'

The priest says, 'What did he ask, Mary?'

'She says, 'He said, 'Please Mary, put down that damn gun..' '

*****************************************

AND THE BEST FOR LAST

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down, but says nothing.

The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention, but the drunk continues to sit there.

Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall.

The drunk mumbles, 'Ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either.'

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Date: Tuesday, March 31, 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: BarBQ, Drink, Dessert

Program:

SHARE Conference Reports

Speaker:

Duane Reaugh, DTS Software, and Ed Webb, SAS Institute

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



First Class Postage