Daniel And I'm afraid I don't speak your argot either. [1]
I'm here because I spotted the word "VTAM" in you post. My first reaction was "If you don't use it, you very obviously don't need it." But maybe you have a niggling suspicion that you should be using it - after all, you've been paying CA for it - it must do something. Then I asked myself, you must still be using VTAM or you wouldn't be posting this question - would you? So, if you are using VTAM, there must be someone in your shop who does "speak VTAM" - mustn't there? So why didn't you ask your "VTAM man/woman"? Assuming you just don't have someone who "speaks VTAM" right now for whatever reason, you might like to get a suitable consultant in to review the product, review your use of VTAM and the VTAM applications and other SNA products if any. He/she can then advise you on whether or not you need NetSpy. Now to give you some orientation in the meantime: CA do not let me access the manuals so I have to go on what I can glean from product briefs and the like. Incidentally, the product brief I found dates from last year, 2008, and includes, in its support for VTAM buffer pools, two pools fairly recently introduced, all of which indicates that CA still regard it as a current product. I get the impression it covers the same ground as NetView Performance Monitor, originally Network Performance Manager (both NPM). If that is the case, you need to review your network for 3745s, NCPs, and end-to-end SNA sessions running from the VTAM applications to devices capable of supporting the SNA PU entity. If you don't have those sorts of things anymore, you will have no need for the functions which NPM - and I assume NetSpy - considered "grist to their mill". For example, you may still have VTAM applications such as TSO - and maybe even still NJE, CICS and IMS using SNA and an SNA flavour of some utility functions such as file transfer - but the infrastructure could be quite different from the infrastructure for which NPM and NetSpy were created. Within a sysplex you will be using XCF links, between sysplexes you may be using MPC CTC links and links to anywhere else will be using Enterprise Extender (SNA APPN/HPR over IP) through OSA features in QDIO mode. Your end-users will gain access to the network of VTAM applications by means of, ideally, a duplexed TN3270 server exploiting distributed dynamic VIPAs, possibly with an, ideally, duplexed session monitor application exploiting VTAM generic resources. If your CA/NetSpy salesman and his/her technical support can offer you something you can be persuaded you really need to use in this environment, then maybe you can be persuaded to continue with NetSpy - or use some more up-to-date products, possibly in its stead Chris Mason [1] "The 'B.M.T.' sandwich at Subway was originally named after the 'Brooklyn- Manhattan Transit.' Consisting of sliced genoa salami, pepperoni, ham and your choice of salad, it has become one of the chain's most popular subs." [2] Here I have to admit that the shop where I work from time to time as a consultant just recently lost their "VTAM man" and the replacement is someone who used to be a "VTAM man" some years before and now does "routers" and the like - in addition to his new, "flashback", role! On Tue, 7 Apr 2009 07:55:10 -0500, Daniel McLaughlin <[email protected]> wrote: >Boss has this in his budget but it hasn't been used here since BMT. Looked at >CA site and didn't derive much useful info from the manuals, maybe because I >don't speak VTAM. > > 1. What's it for? > 2. In a small monoplex without a lot of outside traffic is it useful? > >Thank you...even for the rib pokes! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
