Yes. I have at least two instances I can recall where we had to IPL following
use of FORCE. The more recent involved damage to a JES2 control block that was
not repairable using a WARM start but was still some years ago. IBM put that
warning in the manual for a reason and you should pay attention to it.
Our firm policy is that Operators are not permitted to issue MVS FORCE or
utility/monitor KILL (MEMTERM) commands. If they cannot terminate something
using CANCEL they have to page the systems programming staff and we make every
attempt to get root cause on why CANCEL will not succeed in addition to trying
to remove whatever the unit of work is. We would never put FORCE in AUTOMATION.
My Rule Of Thumb is Avoid Excessive use of FORCE!
Always try CANCEL at least 10 more times waiting at least 10 seconds between
attempts beyond when you tried it before and found it did not work promptly.
You would be surprised how often this works. Frequently there is another
subtask or layer of recovery that when kicked a few more times gives up and
dies.
Check for outstanding WTORs
Check for DFSMShsm recalls in progress connected to this work. DFHSMShsm and
DFSMSdfp will keep CANCEL from succeeding but don't put out any message to show
you this is what is happening. This is an area the east and west coast should
get together on and fix it!
Check RMF III (or your equivalent) to see what the task was doing when it was
healthier and after it was CANCELed and did not terminate
Check logrec and SYSLOG and see might have happened you missed
Take a console dump of the task and asid 1 even if it is messy and after the
whole thing started to go south better to have some doc than none
Always open a PMR, involve management and apprise them of the potential for an
outage, WAIT till outside of prime time unless the alternative is an immediate
IPL. This part has helped IBM and other vendors to resolve a number of bugs
over the years and it is worthwhile to improve life for everyone. When
possible we open the PMR BEFORE using FORCE and ask IBM for help in making the
decision to use FORCE, what additional documentation we might gather, etc.
We train like we fight i.e. same due diligence on development LPARs as PROD
ON-LINE LPARs otherwise how would you learn?
For work which just might be marked non-cancelable try FORCE ARM just an
industrial strength CANCEL
If you are prepared to IPL use FORCE!
So you cannot run a batch job with a particular name or delete and allocate
data sets with these 12 unique names is it really worth risking a 1 in 100 shot
of taking down an LPAR while anything is depending on interactive applications?
Everything people get into a spot where they feel they "have" to do something
without thinking it through and really looking at the alternative of doing
nothing or waiting I think of this scene in the movie BACKDRAFT :-)
Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale: So stop me if I got this wrong. Now the fire is almost
out, you're upstairs on the unburned floor checking for heat, is that correct?
And you've been told by your Battalion Chief, your Captain and by me not to do
nothin', right? Not to do nothin' until ordered. That's correct, right?
Candidate: Yes, sir.
Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale: Ok. But now the itch starts. The 'Glory Boy' flash
starts. 'Hey, I'm a hero. Heroes don't just stand around.' You can tell me,
that's what it was, wasn't it?
Candidate: Yes, sir.
Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale: So you punched out a window for ventilation. Was that
before or after you noticed you were standing in a lake of gasoline?
[shouting]
Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale: Was that BEFORE OR AFTER you noticed you were standing
in a lake of GASOLINE, YOU IDIOT?
Candidate: Before, sir.
Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale: You could have burned or killed or crispened half that
company! To say nothing of the fact that you wrecked the physical evidence that
I use to prove that it's arson, and you know how <> hard it is to determine the
cause of these fires! Now you go home and you think about that!
Best Regards,
Sam Knutson, GEICO
System z Performance and Availability Management
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(office) 301.986.3574
(cell) 301.996.1318
"Think big, act bold, start simple, grow fast..."
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