On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:19:53 -0500, Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) <shmuel+ibm- [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>... >>Last, if the group takes responsibility for software maintenance then >>must do so (politically anyway) independently from any group >>member. > >And if the group takes responsibility for software maintenance then >the group MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE; that >means cleaning up after themselves and not asking another group to >bail them out after shooting themselves in the foot. >... This is true whichever way the original question is answered. For all of my career (since the mid '70s) I've been in system programming groups, but have been responsible for network-related software. Sometimes this has been part of the MVS group; sometimes outside it. Usually the MVS system programmers were responsible for aything that went into the MVS CSI. Sometimes that included me; sometimes not. ISV and program product CSIs the product owners were resposible for SMP runs. In my experience, quality of installation and maintenance had nothing to do with the group doing the maintenance. It had everything to do with the individuals. I've seen MVS system programmers install a product and then never apply maintenance because they cared nothing about the product. (They felt it was not their dog even after claiming ownership.) I've seen people both in and out of the MVS systems programming group slavishly following vendor's installation procedures that violated local naming standards, had horribly out of date blocksizes, etc. In other words, the group taking responsibility for the installation and maintenance of a product needs to do so with a reasonable amount of intelligence and diligence. On the other hand (or foot) I would say that asking for assistance after hosing over maintenance (as with any other problem) is fine after doing an appropriate amount of homework. Even very experienced SMPers can occassionally do themselves in; having another experienced set of eyes can be a lifesaver. And if corporate politics dictate that inexperienced users do their own SMP work, it's to everyone's benefit that the experienced SMP users lend them a helping hand. Otherwise they will have to pick up the pieces later on. Pat O'Keefe maintenance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
