SPARTA News January 2010

January 2010

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

Welcome to 2010! We’ve gotten off to a strange start with our local weather. First a very cold spell that reminded me why I moved down here from Pennsylvania, then a nice warm spell that reminds me why I love it here (there is my wife as well). 

For those of you that were here for our special November/December meeting, we all had a great time hearing Cheryl Watson talk to us about Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR). She talked to us about the residency that she participated in earlier in the year on MTTR. There were some very interesting ideas on the things we need to keep in mind so we can reduce the time for an outage on z/OS. This information will be published in a Redbook early this year; the draft is now available on the IBM Redbook site. I want to thank SAS and Ed Webb for being our host.

The first few months of this year will be keeping us busy here at LabCorp. We will be working with the Storage team to implement some DASD upgrades (and z/VM access to the SAN) and the first phase of a complete tape subsystem replacement including our old STK Powerhorn silos. We will also be ordering z/OS 1.11, and completing the migration from Omegamon to MainView.  I’m still wrangling with the other teams to get our DB2 V9 migration on the schedule for the year, but am getting a lot of push back since we haven’t completed the migration to package binds. So everybody on the team has plenty to do right now.

On the z/VM front we have a formal project for an application on zLinux! We’ve already setup the development, QA/staging environments and will build the production environment soon. The DBA’s have their database server and the web folks are setting up the application servers. So far they haven’t had any problems with Linux under z/VM.

I do have a request for all of you. One of my Unisys system programmers will be retiring at the end of April and we are looking to fill this position soon. If you know of someone with good Unisys OS/2200 experience, please feel free to let them contact me.

This month Phil Smith III of Voltage Security will be talking to us about Enterprise Encryption 101. I look forward to seeing you all on January 26th at LabCorp.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Jan. 26 All About Encryption by Phil Smith of Voltage Security
Feb. 23 JES3 Workflow by Greg Thompson of IBM
Mar. 31 SHARE Update by Conference attendees from SPARTA

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.

2009-2010 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.

Late 2009 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V478 (dated December 27, 2009) 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 December 1, 2009 Meeting

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

•The meeting was held at SAS in Cary, N.C.

•Fifty-two (52) people were present; nineteen (19) were members.

•The usual introductions, minutes, and finance approvals were omitted to leave more time for Cheryl Watson’s presentations.

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)

Jan 26, 2010: Phil Smith, Voltage Security, "All about encryption"
Feb 23, 2010: Greg Thompson, IBM, "JES3 Workflow"
Mar 30, 2010: Brad and Ed, "Share Update” from Seattle Mar 14-18
Apr 27, 2010: Robbin Lanning, LRS, z/Series Software
May 25, 2010: Robb Steiskal, CA, Update on CA automation & Performance
June 29, 2010: Mike Arnold, Softbase, DB2 Tuning
July 27, 2010: Serena Software, Security Compliance
Aug. 31, 2010: Durham Bulls at the DBAP
Sept. 28, 2010: Brad and Ed ,"Share Update" from Boston Aug.
Oct. 26, 2010: Craig Mullens, zPrime, What the ?
Nov. 30, 2010: Emmanuel Sauvion, Sysload Software, Performance Management Virtual Environment

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

•The January SPARTA meeting will be on the 26th at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the January meeting will be chicken.

•Brad reminded everyone to keep the conference room clean.

NEW BUSINESS

•Thanks to Ed Webb of SAS for hosting the meeting.

•Duane Reaugh was awarded a SPARTA Lifetime Achievement award.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:10 p.m.

•Cheryl Watson of Watson and Walker gave two presentations.

Some of the topics presented were:

Can You Teach a New Capacity & Performance Specialist Old Tricks?

Hindsight And Insight Topics Answered
• What does a traditional capacity planner do?
• What does a traditional performance analyst do?
• What do they have in common?
• How do they differ?
• What has changed lately?
• How to keep learning?

Mean-Time-To-Recovery for Z (59 page presentation)
Originally given at SHARE Summer 2009 - Session 2235
• Described IBM’s multiyear mission to improve System z Mean Time To Recover (MTTR)
• The project was staffed by representatives from CICS, DB2, IMS, WAS, the z/OS labs and Cheryl Watson
• The multiple objectives were explained
• The configurations tested were described
• The scope was MTTR was detailed
• First know what you have - measure and time all the phases - know your process
• Make changes and measure / time again
• Again and again until every phase has been analyzed
• Try to avoid contention
• Doing DASD I/O accounts for most of the time to IPL
• Exploit new technology
• Use the re-IPL parameter
• Look at the why as to “we have always done it this way” - things change
• Analyze the parts of your IPL that take the longest - every site is different
• The big hitters give the most potential
• Many big hitters are the operator interactions (replying to a WTOR - eliminate)
• Phases to analyze
   Phase 1 - Hardware IPL
   Phase 2 - IPL RIMS (most are I/O related)
   Phase 3 - NIP RIMS (more DASD related issues)
   Phase 4 - MSI Part 1 (already very fast - usually)
   Phase 5 - MSI Part 2 (SMF big hitter - last and usually a significant portion)
• Then start the infrastructure - analyze it
  Which to start first
  Which are the most important (have the highest visibility)
   JES2 considerations
   OMVS initialization
   TCP and VTAM (usually pretty short)
   LLA and VLF not usually fast, but required
• Hints on how to start your MTTR project
  How do you find the big hitters?
  IPLSTATS usage and hints

• See Redbook draft “System z Mean Time To Recovery Best Practices” SG24-7816

• Also see z/OS System Initialization Logic (IPL) Technote PRS3699 at http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/PRS3699

•Meeting ended at 9:15 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for January 2010

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $543.34 as of January 18, 2010.

Financial Report
3/01/2009 through 1/18/2010

Items of Interest


SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2010

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

Jan. 26 - Chicken
Feb. 23 - Subs
Mar. 30 - BarBQ
Apr. 27 - Pizza
May 25 - Chicken
Jun. 29 - Subs
July 27 - BarBQ
Aug. 31 - Pizza
Sept. 28 - Chicken
Oct. 26 - Subs
Nov. 30 - BarBQ
Dec. 28 - No meeting. Happy Holidays!


z/OS MTTR Redbook Draft Available, Other Redbooks of Interest

contributed by Ed Webb

The Redbook that Cheryl Watson discussed at our most recent SPARTA meeting (on Dec. 1, 2009 at SAS in Cary) is now available in Draft form.

System z Mean Time to Recovery Best Practices
Revised: January 11, 2010
More details are available at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247816.html?Open

These Redbooks are in final form:

System Programmer's Guide to: Workload Manager
Revised: January 16, 2010 ISBN: 073848993X 370 pages
Explore the book online at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246472.html?Open

IBM z/OS V1R11 Communications Server TCP/IP Implementation Volume 1: Base Functions, Connectivity, and Routing
Revised: January 13, 2010 ISBN: 0738433918 458 pages
Explore the book online at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247798.html?Open


Java 1.4.2 PTF Required for z/OS V1R11

contributed by Ed Webb

Going to z/OS V1R11 soon? Already there? Still have old applications that need Java 1.4.2? Much to our Systems Programming staff’s chagrin, we did.

Turns out that you must have the latest Service Refresh (SR13-FP2) if you want JDK 1.4.2 to run on z/OS V1R11. After letting our Java 1.4.2 service lapse (it’s not marketed any more, Java 5 and Java 6 are in the field and in production on our systems), we scrambled recently to APPLY PTF UK50752 (FMID HJVA140) for an older application that started running on z/OS V1R11.

The PTF not yet RSU (as of RSU0912) and is not marked with SOURCEID IBM.Coexistence.z/OS.V1R11.

Note: This product, officially named IBM SDK for z/OS, Java 2 Technology Edition, V1.4, is out of marketing as of September 30, 2008 and has been withdrawn from service, effective September 30, 2011.

For more about various Service Refreshes of different Java Releases for z/OS, see http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/software/java/.


Be Sure Your JES2 is Current But Watch for This Gotcha!

contributed by Ed Webb

A Systems Programmer for a Raleigh-based financial institution points out a little JES2 migration issue they ran into recently.

“This morning we took an outage to apply substantial maintenance to our z/OS 1.9 system, including z/OS 1.11 coexistence and fallback PTFs. One of the JES2 PTFs we applied was UA41837 (APAR OA24852). The following text  appears in the description portion of this APAR:

After applying this PTF, you may receive the following message. Please reply 'Y' to this message to rebuild the job queue.

*xx $HASP483 JES2 JOB QUEUE ERROR, RC=51 -- REPLY 'Y' TO REBUILD OR 'N' TO TERMINATE JES2

We had thoroughly reviewed the system HOLDs for the PTFs we applied, and there was no ACTION HOLD for this situation, so we thought we had a problem. We replied 'N' to the message, went back to our old SYSRES, offloaded everything out of the JES2 spool as a proactive measure, and prepared to re-IPL with the new SYSRES in an effort to go forward.

While all this was being done, one of our staff was researching the problem on the Internet, and found the comments within APAR OA24852. At that point, we felt more comfortable that we were on the right track.

On the second IPL with the new SYSRES, we answered 'Y' to the $HASP483 message. After waiting 5-10 minutes for something to happen, we tried $S. This command allowed the IPL to continue as usual.

I have two comments. First, this situation deserves more documentation  than a mention in the body of the APAR; it should be an ACTION HOLD for this PTF. Second, the ACTION HOLD should also state that a $S command may be (or is) necessary following the rebuilding of the JES2 queues.

Thankfully, we had one person here this morning that knew enough about JES2 to suggest trying that.

Had this information been properly documented as an ACTION HOLD, we could have avoided an extra hour of downtime this morning.”


Humor


Idle Thoughts

contributed by Chris Blackshire

...I had amnesia once -- or twice.

....Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.

....All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

....If the world was a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.

....What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?

....They told me I was gullible... and I believed them.

....Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.

....One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.

....My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies.

....I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

....The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.

....How can there be self-help "groups"?

....Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.

....Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?

....Hopefully I'll figure this out in 2010.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
7 p.m.

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:

Enterprise Encryption 101

Speakers:

Phil Smith III, CTO of Vantage Security

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

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