Esteemed MVS colleagues: We have a 2-LPAR, both MONOPLEX, machine environment today that has only the sysprogs using the 2nd LPAR. z/OS 1.4 soon to be 1.6, then 1.8. It has DASD HCD-defined as shared, and we have been very careful. Our GRS effort of a few years ago was not pursued.
But now we wish to branch out to more LPARs. Our laundry list includes a COBOL penalty LPAR and a DB2 LPAR, both for the purpose of using the IBM pricing strategy in VWLC to reduce our costs. COBOL could be priced at 3 MSUs, and while DB2 would not reduce, at least its heavy lifting efforts from external sources could be relegated away from adding to our cost for CICS, IMS, Netview, etc. environment. And the development folks have discovered the 'true meaning' of the words 'test region' from their newer Oracle counterparts as meaning a 'separate instance of the operating system' and a perception of isolation. All this demands we at least have GRS up and running. The first question of the day is, however, at what point would we cross the threshold beyond mere GRS to where we really ought to have a coupling facility and an outright SYSPLEX, even on just one machine? When does the CF offload work in sufficient volume as to justify buying the ICF processors? (I understand that memory use is not that much, <1GB.) And if we went that route, how many CPs do we need? At past OS/390 conferences, probably back in the early days of the 9672 hardware series, IBM had essentially specified having two CPs for reasons of not allowing the single CP to find itself buried in some task and slow down the entire system. CFCC (at least then) was not interruptible, so it would complete any individual task, no matter the waiting task's importance or minimal load. Is it 'best practice' to duplex the CF LPAR? And with us considering a z9 BC that would have 8 CPs, 4 MVS, 1 SAP, 1 zIIP committed, that leaves us just the two with no spares if they both were employed as ICFs. We have no IFLs or zAAPs, and no expectation that we will anytime soon. I have looked for information but so far have only really found implementation instructions. I need to know that the path is worth traveling before charting the course. Several of you must have CFs and SYSPLEXs, so there should be a good body of experience from which to obtain such insight. Thanks, Rick Rick Rodie USG Corp [EMAIL PROTECTED] 312-606-5578 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
