Creating a Self-Managing Mainframe
September 1, 2018
Hybrid IT environments, along with IT leaders and their teams, are facing more challenges than ever because of digital transformation efforts to add new or improved services for customers. The challenges are coming from all sides, and IT teams are often backed into a corner, left to respond reactively to dynamic changes, customer situations, threats […]
ArticlesMaking Informed Technological Decisions
September 1, 2018
In my early system engineering years with IBM, my primary account was a large insurance company in central Wisconsin that was a leading-edge user of CICS [1] and one of the higher volume online systems in the world. Their advanced, heavily-used, real-time and transaction-based business applications stressed IBM’s largest S/370 processors to their limits. Transaction growth […]
ArticlesThe Challenge of Making Technical Decisions
August 1, 2018
One of the largest clients I’ve worked with over the years was a paper producer that owned numerous paper mills in Wisconsin that had lost most of their IT staff. It continuously produced several paper types, and if IT operations stopped for more than eight hours, mills would shut down. When a mill shut down, […]
ArticlesDisplay Active Prestart Jobs
July 24, 2018
The Display Active Prestart Jobs (DSPACTPJ) command can be very helpful to determine the values to use for those configuration parameters.
ArticlesHow DevOps and the IBM Z Digital Transformation Model Accelerate Innovation
July 1, 2018
As consumers’ demands and expectations of technology continue to change and advance, organizations must evolve to keep up. Those that aren’t innovating might be left behind with consumers moving on and competitors moving in. Staying ahead requires transformation. Organizations need a digital transformation strategy in place while providing value to customers. The developer community is […]
Project Planning for a Network
June 1, 2018
Just as in other aspects of an IT department, an information processing network’s complexity, security, function, performance and pervasiveness have evolved into a mushrooming flow of proliferating data types, protocols, disciplines, challenges and pitfalls that require constant attention and enhancement. It’s a moving target in a constant state of flux, exponentially different from the networks […]
ArticlesIBM z14 Model ZR1 Is Ready for Cloud, Pervasive Encryption and More
May 1, 2018
How can medium-sized businesses solve the conundrum of scaling for business growth with ease and confidence? The answer is the latest lean, mean and super fast player in the IBM Z* product line, the IBM z14* Model ZR1. It hits the field of play with a complete new physical system design. In a world where […]
ArticlesWhy It’s Important to Create a Library of Network Documentation
April 1, 2018
I’ve always been a strong advocate of documentation, because in my very first programming project, I got a profound lesson on why no project or assignment was complete until descriptive written information accompanied the work product. I was a graduate assistant in a business Master’s Degree program, and the associate dean offered me a summer […]
ArticlesICSF HCR77C1, the z14 and Pervasive Encryption
April 1, 2018
ICSF is a component of z/OS and IBM is touting HCR77C1 and the z14 to deliver pervasive encryption.
ArticlesDistributed Network Testing: The Key to Productive Network Management Infrastructure
April 1, 2018
Network testing was a pretty straightforward process when IBM assigned me to network implementation and management in my job as a Systems Engineer. There weren’t many network components: Point-to-point or multipoint modems, a channel connection between mainframe and 3705 communication controllers with associated network interfaces (which was admittedly complex), the analog telecommunications link, a 3270 […]