When we did our conversion we would have been able to answer 3 of these questions as YES. Number 3 was a strong "MAYBE". The main reason we did all of the work ourselves was that the customer agreed to let us get rid of Top Secret in lieu of RACF, but they were not willing to spend any money. It actually ended up being a good thing that we did the work as we cleaned up a LOT of old stuff during the conversion. We did have a fairly small single system shop, so that made the conversion easier than it would be in a large multi-system or sysplex complex...
Todd Burrell, PMP, ITIL Expert, CISSP | Project Manager | ITSO AHB | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Contractor - HP Enterprise Services | 1600 Clifton Rd, Building 21, MS D24, RM 1300 | Atlanta, GA 30338 | 404-971-7275 (Blackberry) 404-723-2017 (Mobile) | [email protected] THIS COMMUNICATION MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL AND/OR OTHERWISE PROPRIETARY MATERIAL and is for use only by the intended recipient. If you received this in error, please notify the sender and delete the communication from all computers. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tony Babonas Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 9:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: CA Top secret to RACF conversion My previous company went through a TS to RACF conversion back in '05. We engaged IBM to do aid the effort and based on my experience and results I would recommend them. There are other companies that can and would do this conversion so it might pay to shop around. I have known of a few (no doubt small) shops that tackled this themselves. It is theoretically possible to achieve this in-house. I'd recommend assessing your own environment in view of the following potential variables. 1. How well does the present staff know RACF, meaning 'really' know RACF. 2. Assuming talent is present, does the present staff have the time? 3. How well does the present staff 'intimately' know the content of the Top Secret database? TS allows some liberties that RACF does not. Significant complications can arise. 4. Are the shop exit-free? If not, is the author(s) still available? Shooting from the hip, even with 4 'yes' answers above, I'd still hire it out. On 12/19/2013 7:37 PM, Mitch wrote: > Mark: > > I agree with Ed. And, make sure they have done this before and preferably, > have an automated solution that is proven in the marketplace. My partner and > I are about to embark on another such project after the first of the year. > > Regards, > > Mitch McCluhan, > Legacy Modernization Consultant > www.lcmg.us > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ed Gould <[email protected]> > To: IBM-MAIN <[email protected]> > Sent: Thu, Dec 19, 2013 4:39 pm > Subject: Re: CA Top secret to RACF conversion > > > Mark: > I do not care for consultants in general. > ut when you have a project such as conversion like this I will say > his. > IRE a Good consultant it is well worth the time and the money. > Ed > On Dec 19, 2013, at 1:33 PM, Mark Zelden wrote: >> On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:03:09 -0600, [email protected] wrote: > >> http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245677.pdf >> >> There is also an IBM Tool, which you must license that can help >> with the >> migration. There are also Technical Services which can be >> contracted to >> help, if that is of interest. >> >> > > On Thu, 19 Dec 2013 16:47:56 +0000, Burrell, C. Todd (CDC/OCOO/OCIO/ > ITSO) (CTR) <[email protected]> wrote: > >> We did this a few years ago and I ended up writing a great deal of >> REXX code to read in Top Secret reports and then create the >> appropriate RACF commands. It was not an overly painful >> conversion, but we did spend a couple of months testing out the >> process on our test system. I don't have the REXX code any >> more due to our mainframe getting shut down about 18 months ago, >> but the REXX code was not that hard. Just test - A LOT. >> > > I don't often say "hire a consultant", but this is one of the few > cases I do recommend at least > looking at some of the companies that offer these services. They > have the experience in > doing these conversions and hopefully know about caveats or > situations you may have > not even thought of. They also have the tool sets like the ones > Todd mentioned above they > have developed from an array of clients (not just one). Weigh > the cost of developing > the tools yourself and the risk of "missing something" or extra > time in testing etc. against > whatever the consulting company wants to charge you. It's also a > good opportunity to > create your RACF DB with some standards and perhaps get rid of > years of shoe horning > in profiles / rules to "make things work". This takes more effort > than just listing profiles > and creating equivalent RACF commands. > > Regards, > > Mark > -- > Mark Zelden - Zelden Consulting Services - z/OS, OS/390 and MVS > ITIL v3 Foundation Certified > mailto:[email protected] > Mark's MVS Utilities: http://www.mzelden.com/mvsutil.html > Systems Programming expert at http://search390.techtarget.com/ > ateExperts/ > > > > > > Regards, > > Mark > -- > Mark Zelden - Zelden Consulting Services - z/OS, OS/390 and MVS > ITIL v3 Foundation Certified > mailto:[email protected] > Mark's MVS Utilities: http://www.mzelden.com/mvsutil.html > Systems Programming expert at http://search390.techtarget.com/ > ateExperts/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > or IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > end email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
