SPARTA News May 2011

May 2011

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

May is here and we welcome the longer days and warmer weather in the area. At least the humidity is not too bad yet. Lots of people around here are worrying about graduations and proms. My wife and I are trying to schedule our summer vacation out to visit my brother in the bay area.

Last month we had a visit from ASG to talk about the changes in their monitoring and enterprise automation management (EAMS) suite. From what I saw it does look like there have been a number of improvements to the TMON monitors and the new web interface looks pretty good. The product's footprint on the system isn't too large (like some other vendor I won't name here).

Our DB2 V10 migration is moving along; on the QAAD LPAR we've converted the "DBA sandbox" subsystem (DBT) to V10 and haven't seen any issues so far. We've also put QMF V10 in all subsystems on QAAD (6). Now we are working on updating all of the BMC utilities and tools. This has been fun with the cutbacks that have occurred at BMC, their support has taken a big hit and I have let our new sales rep know how I felt about it. We are working with the developers on scheduling the conversion of their DB2's to V10 over the next couple of months.

Well, on the PLAN to PACKAGE conversion front, we've been told that we will be modifying the SCLM environment to support package binds in DB2. Seems the ZMF project is moving a little too slow right now. I've identified 10 REXX execs and 7 ISPF skeletons that will need to be modified for package binds and we will do a cutover during a weekend window. When we do this we are currently planning on converting ALL DB2 subsystems from plans to packages. I'll keep you all up to date in future newsletters.

This month Duane Reaugh (emeritus) from DTS Software will talk to us about their new software for interfacing with the BusTech (EMC) MDL hardware. I look forward to seeing you all at LabCorp on the 24th.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


Special Date: May 24 MDL Control Center by Duane Reaugh for DTS Software

June 28 TBD

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.

2010-2011 SPARTA
Board of Directors

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

Ron Pimblett - Vice President
MDI DataSystems 919-426-6518

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
3060 S. Church St. 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 Brad Carson; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Brad at 336-436-8294.

Early 2011 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V480 (dated January 16, 2011) 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 29, 2011 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.
•The meeting was held at LabCorp in RTP, N.C.
•Fifteen (15) people were present of which twelve (12) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job functions.
•The minutes of the March 2011 meeting were approved as published in the April 2011 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer gave the Treasurer's Report. As of April 25, 2011, the balance is $1,257.25. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report.

OLD BUSINESS

•Brad reminded everyone that SPARTA membership dues are $30 per year and should be paid soon.

•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 based on internal politics, budget, the weather):

- May 24 David Jones IBM, JES3
- June 28 TBD
- July 26 Ann Totten IBM, z/OS 1.12 zFS
- Aug. 30 Durham Bulls
- Sept. 27 SHARE Updates, Presenters TBD
- Oct. 25 UBS Hainer, DB2 BVC5 Copying DB2
- Nov. 22 TBD
- Dec. 27: No meeting

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

•Brad reminded everyone to keep the conference room clean.
•The May SPARTA meeting will be May 24 at LabCorp in RTP.
•Food for the May meeting will be Chicken.

NEW BUSINESS

•Annual April Elections: the current officers were elected for the next year as follows:

Brad Carson - President - LabCorp
Ron Pimblett - Vice President - MDI Data Systems
Mike Lockey - Secretary - Guilford Co. Information Services
Tommy Thomas - Treasurer - LabCorp
Ed Webb - Communications Director - SAS Institute

•The May 31 meeting was changed to May 24 because of the Memorial Day holiday week.
•Thanks to Tommy Thomas of LabCorp for hosting the meeting.
•There were issues with Ed Webb’s AOL-based e-mail for officers being treated as spam.
•If you have any Listserver issues, contact Brad with any email address changes.
•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:45 PM.
•Representatives from ASG made the presentations.

Presentation: ASG Software about Managing Complexity Through Enterprise Automation

Larry Pease - Account Executive (678-446-5545)
Jack Marcus - Solutions Architect, Electronic Content Management
Keith Veler - Solutions Engineer, Performance Management
 
•Agenda
        ASG Overview
        Mainframe Performance Monitoring Solutions
        Enterprise Automation Management Suite (EAMS)
        Q & A
 
•Summary: Who is ASG, Values, and Goals
        Private company, Revenue around $350M, 8,500 customers, 1,200 employees
 
•Review of the ASG products Suite (the center or foundation is EAMS)

CMS - Cloud Management Suite
ITOMS - Infrastructure & Operations Management Suites
EAMS - Enterprise Automation Mgmt Suite (Foundation Technology)
AMS - Application Management Suite
DIMS - Data and Information Management Suite
 
•This suite of products was produced by ASG customer requests for solutions
•Visibility is a challenge with all the various solutions so IT can manage an increasingly complex environment. ASG helps with a holistic view of the IT environment.

•Enterprise Automation Management Suite
Provides a foundation technology and architecture that associates IT assets with key business processes
•ASG’s EAMS Architecture Manages Complexity
EAMS Managing ASG’s Global IT Environment (displayed as dashboard type gauges)
 
•How To Reduce Business Disruptions And Control Costs
        Challenges and Solutions listed
 
•ASG Performance and Infrastructure Management
Complete and Comprehensive Product Set as follows for:
Operating Systems
Online Transaction Monitors
Networking and Messaging
Database and Storage
Applications
Change Management
Management Consoles
 
•EAMS - Target Customer Needs/Problems
- Evolved from monitoring disparate technology that support business services…
- To monitoring business services and their underlying technology
 
•Performance Monitoring Example Screenshots
        Batch Reporting
        Exception Processing
 
•ASG-NaviPlex  (Microsoft Windows Client GUI)
Consolidating the complexity of the mainframe (eliminates the clutter)
Summarized enterprise exception report (color coded)
Real Time updates
 
•New - ASG-TMON 3270 Web Browser User Interface
List of immediate notification
Drill down to display current exceptions and system statistics
Immediate notifications (audio, visual, email, pages, tickets, SNMP traps)
Consolidation of the business services
Can drill down and monitor the infrastructure
 
•New Technology - Always Be In Touch With Your Business!
Smart phone technology provides VPN access to networks.
        View your enterprise dashboard on your phone.
        Let the system alert you immediately when problems occur
Research the situation no matter where you are located.
 
*Q & A
        Quick convert from Omegamon to TMON


• Meeting ended at 9:30 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for May 2011

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $1177.72 as of May 13, 2011.

Financial Report
3/01/2011 through 05/13/2011

Items of Interest


SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2011

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

May 24 - Chicken
Jun. 28 - Subs
July 26 - BarBQ
Aug. 30 - Durham Bulls - buy your own
Sept. 27 - Pizza
Oct. 25 - Chicken
Nov. 29 - Subs
Dec 27 - No Meeting, Happy Holidays!


New CICS TS 4.2 Features to Note

contributed by Ed Webb

Robert Crawford provides some details about features of interest in the latest CICS: Event Processing, Thread-safeness, 64-bit Storage Usage, and Support for new Java 6.0.1.

Read the entire article here:

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/New-CICS-TS-42-features-to-note?asrc=EM_NLN_13886141&track=NL-576&ad=831659


First SHARE in 1952

contributed by Ed Webb

Here’s an interesting history of SHARE at the beginning:
http://www.mainframezone.com/blog/mainframe-history-and-the-first-users-groups-share


What is the Hoshin Planning Process?

contributed by Chris Blackshire

The Hoshin Planning Process is a systematic planning methodology for: 1) defining the long-range key objectives of the organization or company; and 2) ensuring the implementation of 'business fundamentals' required to successfully run the business on a daily basis.  Hoshin planning, therefore, is a two-prong planning approach that covers the organization's strategy to achieve breakthrough results through its long-term objectives and ensure continual improvement through its short-term business fundamentals.

Like many modern business concepts today, hoshin planning was developed in Japan. The Japanese words 'hoshin kanri' can be translated into 'direction setting'.  And like many Japanese management concepts, hoshin planning also promotes the involvement of all employees in the process, on the basic premise that desired results can only be attained if everybody in the organization fully understands the goals of the company and is somehow involved in the 'chain' of plans defined to achieve them.

The plan generated by the Hoshin process is hierarchical in nature, with the corporate objectives determining the corporate strategies which, in turn, are supported by lower-level strategies that cascade down the organization. In effect, the goals of every individual should support the goals of the next person up in the hierarchy. Every strategy further consists of tactics or actions that need to be undertaken to accomplish the strategy.

The hoshin planning process basically consists of the following steps: 1) identification of critical business issues that the organization faces; 2) establishment of business objectives to address these issues; 3) definition of the company's over-all goals; 4) development of strategies that support the over-all goals; 5) definition of sub-goals or tactics that support each strategy; 6) establishment of metrics or indicators for measuring process performance; and 7) establishment of business fundamental measures. The first 3 steps of this process are handled by top management, with the defined over-all goals supported by the rest of the organization through steps 4-7.

An important aspect of the Hoshin process is the regular review of the defined plans. It is not enough to have a documented plan - it needs to be checked against actual performance.  Hoshin plans must undergo a major review at least once a year. During review, Hoshin plans are usually presented using Hoshin review tables, each of which shows a single objective and its supporting strategies. A group or individual responsible for several objectives therefore needs to generate several review tables in order to cover all objectives.

The following details must be shown for each strategy in the review table: 1) the strategy owner(s); 2) the timeframe; 3) the performance metrics; 4) the target(s) for each strategy as defined during the Hoshin planning process; and 5) the actual results at the time of the review.  Any discrepancy between the target and actual results, whether positive or negative, must be noted along with the impact of the discrepancy on next year's plans. As mentioned earlier, hoshin plans are hierarchical in nature, cascading from the top levels to the lower ones, so review tables must likewise cascade upwards.

Reflection, which is the analysis of what went right or what went wrong in each strategy, is an important aspect of hoshin reviews. Determining objectively what were done right in strategies that attained the desired results and what need to be improved in strategies that failed to hit their targets is required in the organization's learning process. Analyses of how the strategies fared must be done in terms of detailed supporting data.

There is actually another set of tables used in Hoshin planning, i.e., the strategy implementation planning tables. Implementation plans are used to
identify the tactics or action plans needed to accomplish each strategy. Implementation plans usually present the following information: 1) the tactics needed to implement the strategy; 2) the people involved in each tactic and their exact responsibilities; 3) the timeline of each tactic, usually presented as a Gantt chart; 4) performance measures; and 5) how and when the implementation plans will be reviewed.

Key strategies can not be pursued effectively unless the company's operations are sound and stable. This is the reason why the Hoshin planning process also involve the definition of business fundamentals and their metrics, which are documented in a business fundamental table.  Business fundamentals, or the basic elements that define the success of a key business process, are monitored through its corresponding metrics.  These business fundamental metrics indicate whether or not the various value-adding operations or activities are doing well. BFT figures must be in control before the long-term strategies are attended to.

Lastly, Hoshin planning, to be truly effective, must be cross-functional, i.e., they must promote intra- and inter-process cooperation.  This only reflects the reality that the various departments of a company need to support each other in order to achieve remarkable synergistic results.


Humor


You Might Be a Redneck Techie If ...

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Matthew Fortner in Tech Junkie - Published in the N&O on 4/12/2011

You might be a redneck techie if

The DVD/CD-R drive tray is your spit cup holder.

You use Excel to keep track of all the tires in your front yard.

Your keyboard is camouflaged.

Your password is "bubba."

Your monitor is up on blocks and sprayed with primer.

Check the rest of the list at http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/11/1121130/you-might-be-a-redneck-techie.html.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
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:

MCC for Bus-Tech MDL and EMC DLm Virtual Tape Libraries

Speaker:

Duane Reaugh for DTS Software

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

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