You make a very good point that if everything is stable and hasn't been
changed in years then there seems to be little risk. But when at outlier
occurs you're in trouble!
On 19/04/2017 11:08 PM, Blaicher, Christopher Y. wrote:
Back when S&L banks were getting into NOW accounts, what we know as checking
accounts, I was hired to be the manager of systems programming. They were running
unsupported versions of the operating system, CICS, BTAM and everything else. They
had a 99.9% up-time and every one slept well, all because nothing had changed in
YEARS.
Then they had to bring in new software to do check processing and it needed
current versions of the software and go to VTAM.
Making all those changes, and not having another machine to do it on, was a
challenge. There were bumps in the road, but we stayed at over 95% uptime and
clawed our way back to over 99%.
Management slept well, I didn't for about 3 months. Oh, and then they decided
to move the data center.
Chris Blaicher
Technical Architect
Mainframe Development
Syncsort Incorporated
2 Blue Hill Plaza #1563, Pearl River, NY 10965
P: 201-930-8234 | M: 512-627-3803
E: cblaic...@syncsort.com
www.syncsort.com
CONNECTING BIG IRON TO BIG DATA
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf
Of David Crayford
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 10:26 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Old hardware
How do your management sleep at night with an unsupported software?
On 19/04/2017 8:58 PM, John McKown wrote:
That is interesting to know. But, unless the situation changes (IMO
"for the better"), then we are stuck on our current configuration
FOREVER. Upper management utterly hates, despises, abhors, and
denigrates the existence of z/OS. They truly seem to be "all Windows,
all the time!". I firmly believe that we could upgrade z/OS if and
only if the current I.T. management is completely replaced (and the COO as
well).
We have a number of software packages on a permanent execution
license, but with _no_ upgrades or support included. When we upgraded
from z/OS 1.10 to 1.12, one of them died a horrible death. It put in
an address space termination exit which would _occasional_ abend with
S0C4-?? . I found that happened when the address space was in some
sort of cross memory mode. I had to create my own "patch" which
basically detected this and made a branch to the "right place". So,
upgrading z/OS is definitely out of the question. It could well cause
more products to abend due to incompatibilities and we would be stuck.
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:01 AM, Timothy Sipples <sipp...@sg.ibm.com>
wrote:
John McKown wrote:
z9BC here. A two CP machine. Two LPARs running z/OS 1.12, but one
is just my "sandbox".
FYI, since the announcement of IBM Multi-Version Measurement (MVM):
https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/3/897/ENUS217-093/ENUS217-093.P
DF
you are permitted to run newer IBM products that are compatible with
your machine, within the same capacity(ies), at no additional
charge.(**) Or, in other words, there is no more Single Version
Charge (SVC) period. (Hurray!) MVM begins on June 1, 2017, based on
your May, 2017, Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT) submission. Since
SVC offered a minimum of 12 months, anything newer that you start
running now will only consume one or two months of SVC before MVM kicks in. In
other words, MVM has effectively already arrived.
Here are some examples of software releases compatible with your z9BC
machine:
z/OS Version 2.1 (not 2.2 or above)
DB2 Version 10 for z/OS (not 11 or above) Enterprise COBOL Version
6.1 (*) CICS Transaction Server Version 5.3 (*) IBM SDK for z/OS Java
Technology Edition Version 8 (*) WebSphere MQ Version 9 for z/OS (*)
(*) Latest releases as I write this.
All of the software releases listed above are currently IBM
supported, as I write this. DB2 10 will reach End of Service (EoS) on September
30, 2017.
Since DB2 10 requires z/OS 1.10 or higher, if you're running DB2 then
you might already have Version 10.
Of course I don't recommend staying on a z9BC machine, but you can
still move up somewhat without additional charge and without a machine upgrade.
Indeed possibly a lower peak processor utilization requirement, for
example if you put Enterprise COBOL Version 6.1 to good use.
(**) Read the fine print since it's *possible* to do something
otherwise, as always.
------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
Timothy Sipples
IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA
E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com
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