SPARTA News July 2012

July 2012

SPARTA President’s Corner

by Brad Carson

I hope everyone has survived the searing July heat we've had.  I know those 100+ degree days can really wear a person out. I've been taking my morning walks at 5 a.m. to try and beat the heat. That works only so well, since it was still very humid outside. I'd still get back to the house and be soaked with sweat! Martha and I are looking forward to a long weekend up on Kerr Lake to attend the Clarksville Lakefest. I know I'll be spending some time in the cool water.

Last month Bob Thompson from the US EPA came to speak to us about going "Green" outside the data center. I know this was a bit off topic for us, but I thought he gave a great presentation on becoming more "Green" at home. I didn't know about some of the things that are available now for raising the level of greenness of your home. I know that I'll be looking into some of these as Martha and I update our own home.

Well we still haven't been able to get DB2 V10 into our last production subsystem. Our management would not let us even try to upgrade during our June window and in July I have a support availability issue (my DB2 lead was booked for a cruise). So now the earliest I'll be able to try again is our August outage window on the 19th. Until then we will begin to migrate some of the Dev/QA subsystem into V10 New Function Mode. We've done that with our own DB2 subsystems and ran into storage group issues when all the next catalog tables (and table spaces) were defined. Seems that V10 New Function adds a number of new tables and indexes to the DB2 catalog. So we've already added volumes to the SMS storage groups used by all other DB2 subsystems. I think we should be ready for this.

We now have z/OS 1.13 running on one LPAR and are working on validating the non-IBM software that runs under z/OS. Most of the IBM-based software has not had any issues. We've even validated that our old friend INFOMAN still works on z/OS 1.13. Some of our biggest headaches have been the new version of NETVIEW (6.1) and System Automation for z/OS (3.3). As we work through these, then we can address 3rd party software. We've already updated MXI and IOF since we use them so much.  I'll let you know how things are going in future newsletters.

This month our speaker will be David Lytle from Brocade to talk to us about FICON performance and FICON fabric (SAN) issues. See you on the 31st at LabCorp in RTP.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)


July 31 FICON Performance by Brocade
August 21 Durham Bulls at the DBAP
Sept. 25 SHARE Conference 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.

2012-2013 SPARTA
Board of Directors

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

Ron Pimblett - Vice President
DTS Software 919-833-8426
4350 Lassiter at North Hills Ave, Suite 235
Raleigh, NC 27609

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.

July 2012 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V484 (dated July 8, 2012) 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 June 26, 2012 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.
•Thirteen (13) people were present of which eleven (11) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job functions.
•The minutes of the May 2012 meeting were approved as published in the June 2012 newsletter.
•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's Report. As of June 12, 2012, the balance is $1,113.27. Motion was made and approved to accept the Treasurer's Report as published in the 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.

•Brad Carson reminded everyone to leave the LabCorp conference room clean.

•Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):

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

•The July SPARTA meeting will be July 31 at LabCorp in RTP.

•Food for the July 2012 meeting will be BarBQ.

NEW BUSINESS

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

•Send any e-mail address changes to Brad Carson so he can update the SPARTA Listserv.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 8:30 p.m.

•Bob Thompson from the US EPA gave a presentation on “Green Outside The Data Center.”
 
• There Are 2 Parts To Being Green - Green Commercial Buildings and A Green Home
- Agenda - A Personal Green Home
- What is a green home?
How much will it cost?
What are the typical barriers?
What are the solutions?
Being green requires change and that is difficult
 
• What Is a Green Home?
- Indoor Environment Quality
- Location
- Materials
- Water
- Energy
- Education
 
• Is Green Good Enough?
- Tradition --> Green --> Sustainable --> Regenerative
 
• What is Missing From A Historically Typical Green Home?
- It needs to be rated
- House size (not so big)
- Food Production
- Charging station for electric vehicles
- Reduced consumption for daily living
- Work-at-home ready
- Extended family ready
- Future adaptability
- Composting (SE Asian tradition per Bill McDonough)
- Ease of recycling
- Commuting and public transportation
- Environmental Justice
- Social Justice (green for everyone)
- O&M (e.g., what we put in the air and down the drain)
- Consuming more because you’re using less
 
• Building Green … Is It Worth It?
- Basic Premise (Waste creates opportunities for improvements and savings)
- Health and well being
- Economic (now and future)
- Climate change
- Simply “the right thing to do”
- Legacy issues (duration, life of house maybe 100 years)
- Cheap materials to build versus long term maintenance costs
 
• What are the Barriers?
- Lack of metrics and tools that ensures choosing the best balance of goals and green factors
- Lack of knowledge and valuation by Suppliers and Builders
- Framers and two stud corners (headers over load)
- Lenders and green and modern impacts on LTV for mortgage
- Building Codes are ‘minimums’ and several years behind
- Local interpretation of codes and ordinances by authorities
- Regulations: water meter to bill for use of rainwater
- Cost, perceived versus real 
- Appraisal and Lending
- Insurance (no deduction for being efficient)
- Availability of green materials and services
- Green materials versus Greenwashing
 
• How to Overcome the Barriers
- Information (Internet is a great source)
- Persistence
- Personal connections (meet with local codes officials)
- Mass produced may not be the best (cellulose versus spray foam)
- Passage of time (technologies and acceptance improve with time)
- Customized approach
 
• Struggles: Internal and External
- Size
- Cost
- Amount of windows (energy drain versus daylight)
- Greenhouse
- Aesthetics (cost versus the environment)
- Naysayers
- Appraisal
 
• Who Designs and Who Decides?
- Caveat emptor
- Broad range of options
- Broad range of opinions
- Bottom Line: You are responsible for your home
- If you really want green, you must know it, or pay for trusted expertise
 
• How Do You Learn?
- Internet
- E-mail based newsletters
- Expos, conferences, and workshops
- Monthly publications
- Local green building advocacy groups (Triangle Chapter of LEED)
 
• Green Goals
- Reduced commuting distance
- Great views
- Green
- Multi-use space (extended family, workshop, office/business, entertaining)
- Minimize debt and expenses
- Aesthetics (enjoy and are proud of)
- Education and Promotion
 
• Resources
- Houzz.com
- Fine Homebuilding
- Journal of Light Construction  (JLConline.com)
- Environmental Building News
- BuildingScience.com
- Homepower.com
- US Green Building Council
- Green Building Alliance
- Oikos.com
- Google
- Triangle Modernist Society (Triangle #3 in Modern)
- Triangle Chapter of USGBC
 
• Examples (Design Criteria, Diagrams, and Pictures of Bob’s Green Home
  (Presentation is available on SPARTA website)    

•The presentation ended about 8 p.m. and the meeting ended at 8:30 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for July 2012

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $1068.50 as of July 13, 2012.

Financial Report
3/01/2012 through 07/13/2012

Items of Interest


SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2012

contributed by Tommy Thomas and Chris Blackshire

July 31 - BarBQ
Aug. 21 - DBAP Buy Your Own
Sep. 25 - Pizza
Oct. 30 - Chicken
Nov. 27 - Subs
Dec. 25 - No Meeting, Happy Holidays


Mainframe Analytics: Getting Good Performance at a Good Price

contributed by Ed Webb

From EnterpriseSystemsMedia.com

Application Performance, Not Sub-System Performance
Performance analytics isn’t the measurement of the performance of IT or particular sub-systems on the mainframe or distributed platforms; it’s the process of understanding the performance characteristics of applications that support the business.
When performance is reduced or a service isn’t available, it can impact customer satisfaction. If it takes too long to complete a transaction, a customer might visit another company to purchase a product. Or, if it impacts an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), and a customer can’t access funds, this jeopardizes the customer experience. Failing to watch the right KPIs can cause a business to lose revenue or incur higher expenses to recover from problems.
Top-Three KPIs
There are thousands of KPIs; no IT group could measure them all. But if you’re trying to tie the performance of IT and IT infrastructure to business users and customers, you’re really interested in those metrics most closely aligned to the business and business applications—especially response time, latency, and resource consumption. Although monitoring and correlating these measurements doesn’t directly solve a problem for you, it does help you recognize if there’s a problem at the boundary between the business and IT.
• Response time: Overall response time as experienced by users. User Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is the best way to determine what performance and service levels the customers are experiencing.
• Latency: From an applications perspective, the latency between nodes in an application (back-end, mainframe, or distributed). You can acquire this measurement at the network or system level.
• Resource consumption: Indicators of resource consumption at the business level and application level. These are high-level KPIs across a spectrum of platforms.

Read the rest of this article here.


SHARE 2012 August in Anaheim

contributed by Ed Webb

You may have missed the early registration deadline (Friday, June 15) for SHARE in Anaheim, August 5-10, 2012, but don’t let that deter you! SHARE is still the best education and training value for “z people”.

Learn more about the Anaheim conference at SHARE.org including registration, hotel, and online schedule, available now.


REXX Programmers Shouldn’t Overlook ‘Stacks’

contributed by Ed Webb

From IBM Systems Magazine:

Frequently, when writing a program, having some temporary storage space available is quite useful. Simply called “variables,” these temporary storage spaces are often assigned a name that, hopefully, indicates something meaningful related to their intended use. Doing so is considered polite, as a programmer, to try and ease the burden for those who might have to maintain code in future. You never know, it might be you one day looking at 10-year-old code you wrote, and wondering what on earth you had in mind at the time.

Variables are fine for storing a value once and retrieving it later, but what if you don’t know in advance how many items you will be asked to store? Sure, you could just keep creating new variables, but there’s a simpler way—the “stack.” Stacks are a basic programming construct that seem less well regarded in these days of object-oriented coding because it’s just as simple to instantiate another copy of a variable. However, a stack, by design, incorporates some useful characteristics your program might want to leverage.

To picture a stack, imagine a pile of dinner plates at a buffet. Generally, you take the top plate, and the next one will then be available for whomever follows you in the queue. Similarly, when workers want to replenish the stack of plates, they add a few to the top of the stack, pushing those that were previously at the top down a few places. If you can picture this concept, then you understand the stack—each plate represents a variable containing an arbitrary value assigned it before it was placed on top of the stack.

There's one important detail, though, that this analogy doesn’t quite convey: In a programming environment, it's usually possible to grab a plate from the bottom of the stack, just as readily as from the top. Likewise, you can add a plate to the bottom.

For the details about REXX and stacks, read here.


The Performance Information Gap Paradox

contributed by Ed Webb

From mainframezone.com

“System z I/O technology has advanced significantly over the past five years. These advances are diverse, yet synergistic, ranging from the mainframe itself to the FICON directors and the storage control units and devices. Speeds and feeds are continuously becoming faster as new technologies have emerged such as:
• Modified Indirect Data Address Words (MIDAWs)
• HyperPAVs
• z High Performance FICON (zHPF)
• 16 Gbps FICON
• FICON Dynamic Channel path Management (DCM)
• PCIe I/O drawers.
More changes are on the horizon. Changes have also occurred in IBM’s System Management Facility (SMF) and Resource Measurement Facility (RMF). Understanding these new technologies is crucial to your job, but so is understanding their performance. That will be the focus of this and subsequent articles.

Paradoxical Problem
With the technology advances seen in mainframe/mainframe storage I/O over the past five years, we have a less than optimal understanding of the root functionality of this new technology. Users understand the benefits of zHPF, but often lack an understanding of how it works and how the benefits accrue. Awareness of performance implications and the performance management of this new technology are also insufficient.

So we’ve made fantastic technical advances that, used correctly, can radically enhance the overall performance of your mainframe storage and I/O. But we don’t know all we should to take advantage of what we paid for. This yields the performance information gap paradox.”

For the rest of the article, read here.


Humor


Old Mainframe Jokes

contributed by Ed Webb

How many IBM employees does it take to change a light bulb?
Fifteen. Five to do it, and ten to write document number GC7500439-001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank".

A system programmer came home from work almost at dawn and told his wife enthusiastically: "Tonight I have installed a new release of MVS/ESA together with VM/CMS and CICS/VS". "G.O.O.D" answered his wife.

If you can pick it up, it's a PC.
If you can't pick it up but you can push it over, it's a minicomputer.
But when you can't pick it up or knock it over, it's a mainframe.

A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

Tell them that when a data set is scratched it doesn't itch any more.
NO! Scratching it just makes in worse! And can lead to a viral infection. Never scratch your data!

Why did the systems programmer cross the road?
To recreate the problem...

How was Herman Hollerith buried?
9 edge face down.

What do you call a JCL specialist that takes care of procs?
A Proc-tologist

A systems programmer was at lunch with some Data Processing auditors. The waitress asks the sysprog what he wants for lunch and he says "Pork chops". She says "What about the vegetables?". The sysprog says "Oh they can order for themselves".

How many D.P. Auditors does it take to wallpaper a room?
That depends on how thinly you slice them.

News Flash: A catwalk over the Shark tank at the aquarium collapsed earlier today and a group of visiting D.P. Auditors fell in. According to late reports, all of the Sharks were safely rescued.

For more humor like this, go to http://planetmvs.com/humor/jokes.html

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

7 p.m.

LabCorp in the RTP

Free Food: BarBQ, Drink, Dessert

Program:

FICON Fabric and Performance

Speaker:

David Lytle of Brocade

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

First Class Postage

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