Search390.com Expert Question of the Week May 14, 2001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GET THE INFO YOU WANT TODAY What do YOU want in your e-mailbox? How about FREE info and offers about computers, networking, wireless devices, finance and lots more? Visit http://search390.techtarget.com/postmasterDirect/ , choose the topics that interest you, and you'll get the e-mail you want. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to Search390's Expert Question of the Week newsletter. Remember, no question is too simple for Ask the Experts! If you have a 390-related question, send it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Selected questions will be answered by our experts. This week's question was answered by Gerhard Adam. ===================================== Q: We're working with an OS/390 V1.3 system which is in the process of being upgraded to OS/390 V2.9. The OS/390 V2.9 system is at a 9912 maintenance level. Given the V2.9 system is 16 months behind on maintenance, and that OS/390 V1.3 is no longer supported by IBM, would you recommend bringing the V2.9 system more current on maintenance before attempting to move it to production, and if so, what maintenance level would you recommend? A: I'm not a big fan of worrying too much about maintenance. In many cases, maintenance is more of an issue when planning product or hardware upgrades and, of course, when dealing with specific problems. In this instance, you're coming from a system that was unsupported, so it's not likely that you're going to be exploiting a great deal of new functionality with this new system immediately. I would recommend that you check current maintenance information for HIPERs and ++HOLD data and APPLY those as appropriate. If your system runs well during testing, I would go ahead and move it into production. Once the system is in production, then you could start a more normal maintenance cycle. What's normal? Well, in my case I prefer to stay between 3 to 6 months of current, unless I'm going to exploit some new functions/features or if I'm dealing with any particular problems. In my opinion, a lot of the issue of how current you want to be before you go into production is more dependent on how you can schedule your time. If it is more convenient to bring in a more current maintenance level now, then by all means go ahead. If it is something you'd rather do later, I don't see anything wrong with that either, excepting the recommendations I made above. The biggest problems I've seen with systems migrations relate more to poor testing and backout processes, rather than anything that is directly solved by maintenance. If testing is conducted thoroughly, this will point out any maintenance deficiencies that might exist. As I indicated, usually the largest exposure is from HIPER fixes that were missed. One other thing to consider for testing would be to ensure that basic functionality hasn't appreciably changed by migrating across all those release levels. Hope this helps. ===================================== ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ===================================== Do you have a question for Gerhard? To submit your question(s), go to: http://search390.techtarget.com/ateQuestion/0,289624,sid10_tax285033,00.html Or, if you prefer live interaction, check out search390's discussion forums. You can submit questions in the following categories: EBusiness; Operating Systems; Developer; and Sound Off--the forum that allows you to discuss just about anything! Maybe you'd like to answer a question that's already been submitted? It's up to you. 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