On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:54:46 -0500, Scott Barry <sba...@sbbworks.com> wrote:
>IBM / Tivoli acquired SoftAudit which had some years back started moving >away from "systems" to more "enterprise application" asset discovery, with >various OPEN hooks and an SMF data-capture type agent running on z/OS. >Most any called, linked program is revealed in the generated data, with job, >task, transaction, application-environment identification data. For many >years, SoftAudit kept updated "systems" software identification inventory >data and kept their clients aware of the mainframe software side -- asking >an enterprise to take the time to inventory, document, estimate corporate >value and/or business relevance, and determining age or whether source code >exists, can be quite an undertaking. We tried SoftAudit long before IBM bought it. Millions of dollars and hundreds upon hundreds of man-hours trying to get accurate inventory out of it proved futile in the end. Unless IBM completely rewrote it (more likely all they've done is repackage it), I wouldn't even consider giving it another go. One of my colleagues pegged the source of our woes: "Sure, it will tell you what software you're running... but, first, you have to tell it what software you're running." IMHO, you could do just as well with an MS Access database and something like Event Action to audit usage. If your installation teams follow established naming conventions (and ours still don't - sigh), spending $,$$$,$$$ on a tool doesn't seem justifiable. Regards, Art Gutowski Ford Motor Company ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
