Clearly Defining Project Completion
December 1, 2018
My first contract as an independent consultant was with a large, multinational bank. They were attempting a processor-to-processor application that exchanged banking information nightly, and trying to implement a new IBM function called IBM Advanced Program-to-Program Communication (APPC)—something new to them, but not me. I was initially delighted to take the project. I met with […]
ArticlesThe Right KPIs for Mainframe DevOps
November 1, 2018
To compete in fast-moving, disruption-prone digital markets, enterprises must aggressively embrace DevOps on the mainframe. DevOps is becoming increasingly important, and without it—along with associated agile best practices—delivery on these digital initiatives will be too slow and infrequent to keep pace with escalating customer expectations. To successfully drive adoption of DevOps on the mainframe, IT […]
ArticlesFlexibility Is Key in Project Estimation
November 1, 2018
So often we hear of projects—especially government funded projects—exceeding their budget, and for a long time my knee-jerk reaction was that hanky-panky was afoot. I’m sure sometimes that’s true, but when consulting became my career and sizing a project became a necessary skill, I realized it wasn’t so clear cut. In most cases, there are […]
ArticlesProject Plans Require Nurturing Leadership
October 1, 2018
I was recently chatting with a colleague who was complaining about project team members ignoring his directions, neglecting a schedule he’d built before a short vacation and consequently getting an email from his unhappy client about project delays. I asked if he’d held a meeting to discuss assignments and appoint someone in charge. When he […]
ArticlesCreating 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 […]
Making 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 […]
ArticlesProject 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 […]