Seminar News

OS/390 & z/OS Technical Support Issues

A one-day, free seminar in London on Tuesday, 11th September 2001 (by invitation only)

Glennon Bagsby, NewEra Software, U.S.A. (9.45 a.m. - 11.15 a.m.)

"Reducing the Risk of IPL Failure through Image Management"

Glennon of NewEra Software has been with NewEra since its inception in 1989. He has more than twenty-five years experience in the Information Technology field and is a regular speaker at Guide-Share meetings internationally. Here he will discuss Image Management, which is the systematic process of reducing the risk of system outage due to IPL failure and the development of related system recovery strategies.

The creation and maintenance of a Sysplex and its Images will result in change. These often-simple changes have a direct effect on the overall reliability and availability of your business. Should a system need to be reinitialised, you need to know it will re-IPL without a problem. In the event of a system failure, the responsiveness of your technical team will be tested as they struggle to determine what went wrong, how to find it, fix it, test it, and move it back into production. Glennon will introduce proactive solutions designed to prevent problems as opposed to solving problems.

Mike FitzGerald, Fitz Software & Co. (11.15 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.)

"Using Point-in-time-copy & DP-Technician to clone a db production environment"

Mike worked in Germany throughout the 1980s with two major software houses specialising in migration projects across multiple platforms and MVS Systems Support. Projects planning encompassed all aspects of the Computer Centre (Hardware, OS, System Software, Applications Software, Personnel, etc.). Fitz Software & Co. was formed 10 years ago this June has 130+ licensed users across the U.K., Ireland and German speaking countries, specialising in Disaster Recovery, Migration software and Configuration & Asset Management.

There are multiple reasons for cloning a production database/system and making it available as another separate system on the same or another MVS image: a Data Warehouse application, a parallel read only batch processing system, a R/W test environment (Y2K, Euro,..), an OLAP application, etc.. There are solutions available on the market to clone db systems (for DB2, etc.) but most of them are impractical in the case of high volume data. Mike will discuss the alternative by taking a point-in-time-copy of the whole db system and making that cloned system available to another db system, even within the same image.

* Lunch 12.30 to 1.15 p.m. A complimentary light lunch will be served.

Michael Stiemke, AnSyNova, Germany (1.15 p.m. - 2.45 p.m.)

"Useful tools to find your way around TCP/IP on the host"

Previously having worked with Candle, Michael worked for Legent from 1981 to 1993 as Senior Product Manager for System and Automation products (worldwide). He contributed extensive code during the 80s to products such as Quick-Fetch, PMO or the ubiquitous TPX. After co-founding ANSYS AG in Switzerland he moved to building AnSyNova GmbH in Germany, which has been a successful, mainframe supplier of consulting services and Automation and Networking software for the past eight years. He's a regular speaker at GSE-Germany.

The capabilities of IBM’s TCP/IP offerings are rapidly expanding and improving. This makes it difficult to identify which ISV tools are really needed for problem diagnosis and performance measurement and assessment. Michael will show how AnSyNova’s automation expertise led to the development of a trace analysis program offering performance/utilisation indicators and other utilities - using only standard IBM interfaces, tools and REXX, resulting in AnSyNova’s 2cIP®. By using such utilities, costly monitors can often be avoided, while the use of existing "built-in" features of your system is extended. The presentation will include some instructive examples on common issues and their resolution, as well as sample code.

Fiona Dunne, Fitz Software & Co. (2.45 p.m. - 3.15 p.m.)

"Fitz in the System – More Options"

Fiona joined Fitz Software in 2000, having previously worked in the IT Service Delivery Section of a large banking institution. There she worked with both IT personnel and demanding end-users. This gave her a valued insight into determining and understanding client requirements and working jointly on individual solutions.

This will be a short introduction on what's currently available in the Fitz Software portfolio of products covering areas in particular in recovery & change management, asset & configuration management, and migration software. Fiona will also be giving you some indicators of what we hope to be introducing to the market in the next 6 months. This includes some highly competitive products that can replace some of those very expensive products you may still have installed today!

* Open-Session 3.15 to 3.30 p.m. Any questions to any of the speakers…..

For registration or more information telephone Fiona at 00-353-21-4832131 or email  seminars@fitzsoftware.com