Paul, That's a question with many right answers. I receive all maintenance on a weekly basis which includes current holddata. We only do two maintenance cycles a year (our prod lpars only see two IPL's per year). Once maintenance cycle is done, then nothing gets applied unless we run into a error situation, and have to take action. For me, during a maintenance cycle, I do most of the heavy lifting in the sandbox environment and am pretty aggressive with what gets applied, and when I feel good about it, I roll the entire package to DEV. Our DEV lpars are pretty heavily exercised, so I let the new maintenance bake there for 4-6 weeks, before scheduling PROD. Prod we stagger a third of the lpars at a time over a 4-5 week period. In the 4-6 weeks while burning in DEV, I'll continue to roll Hiper's and Exception sysmod identified maintenance right up to when we start Prod upgrades.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dave Jousma AVP | Manager, Systems Engineering Fifth Third Bank | 1830 East Paris Ave, SE | MD RSCB2H | Grand Rapids, MI 49546 616.653.8429 | fax: 616.653.2717 -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Feller, Paul Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 11:57 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies [EXTERNAL] **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** So here are a few questions for the group. First I'll say we run a weekly receive process to pull all the needed stuff from IBM. My questions are this. Do you apply only PE fixes and hipers monthly and RSU stuff quarterly? How long do you wait between applies in terms of moving fixes through your systems? These are just curiosity questions on my part. Thanks.. Paul Feller GTS Mainframe Technical Support -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Seymour J Metz Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 9:59 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies [EXTERNAL] Examining the report is the better way. SMP and service distribution are greatly improved from what they were, and a lot of the manual processing is no longer necessary. In particular, the handling of service flagged PE is automatic unless HOLDDATA is broken. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__mason.gmu.edu_-7Esmetz3&d=DwIFAw&c=9g4MJkl2VjLjS6R4ei18BA&r=eUhu3PeeWy6RTndlJVKembFjFsvwCa8eeU_gm45NyOc&m=9WrwtM3v2qJgVnc0vKBT8BxdN2h63_XGM6DMSrclpt4&s=PakqTr9IvSX7GBqs1iyFMvA8hgr3sSZ_Xcbz56oVa4Y&e= ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Edgington, Jerry <jerry.edging...@westernsouthernlife.com> Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 10:05 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies That is exactly the information I was looking for. Thank you, very much. I thought there had to be some "better" methodologies to apply SMP/e. :) -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jousma, David Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 10:03 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies This message was sent from an external source outside of Western & Southern's network. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the contents are safe. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Yes. As Rex pointed out, the first part of the output in the SMPRPT DD statement will be the listing of what PTF's did NOT go on, and why. You'll want to review that, and make sure the only ones that did not go on were the ones with Errorhold. If a PTF you wanted to go on didn't, it will show here (MODID error for example if you have a usermod), or a space problem on a target dataset, etc. Here is an example of a APPLY I ran today. One PTF didn't not go on, because it is in error. CAUSER SYSMOD SUMMARY REPORT FOR APPLY PROCESSING CAUSER FMID MESSAGE ID PAGE ERROR DESCRIPTION AND POSSIBLE CAUSES UJ02757 HDZ2240 GIM35901I 1 ERROR HOLD CA59681 WAS NOT RESOLVED. PAGE 0003 - NOW SET TO TARGET ZONE MVSTZN DATE 06/22/20 TIME 07:43:25 SMP/E 37.05 SMPRPT OUTPUT UNRESOLVED HOLD REASON REPORT FOR APPLY PROCESSING NOTE: THE SYSMODS LISTED IN THIS REPORT ALSO APPEAR IN THE CAUSER SYSMOD SUMMARY REPORT. HOLD MISSING HELD RESOLVING RESOLVER TYPE FMID CLASS APAR SYSMOD SYSMOD STATUS ------ ------- ------- ------- ------- --------- -------- ERROR HDZ2240 PE CA59681 UJ02757 PAGE 0004 - NOW SET TO TARGET ZONE MVSTZN DATE 06/22/20 TIME 07:43:25 SMP/E 37.05 SMPRPT OUTPUT _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dave Jousma AVP | Manager, Systems Engineering Fifth Third Bank | 1830 East Paris Ave, SE | MD RSCB2H | Grand Rapids, MI 49546 616.653.8429 | fax: 616.653.2717 -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Edgington, Jerry Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 9:48 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** Dave, So, if you get RC=8, you run the Apply anyway, just letting SMP/e determine what PTFs can be applied, correct? If that is the case, that would simplify the SMP/e apply process. Thanks, Jerry -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jousma, David Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 7:57 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: SMP/e maintenance methodologies This message was sent from an external source outside of Western & Southern's network. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the contents are safe. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I do not attempt to get a RC0 or RC4 apply. What goes on goes on. Obviously review results to make sure that there wasn't an issue, but coding up a bunch of excludes to not select those with holderror just to get a RC0 is not necessary in my opinion. Here is one apply example APPLY CHECK SOURCEID ( SYSPLXDS XSYSTEM HIPER IBM.* RSU* SECINT ) GROUPEXTEND ( NOAPARS NOUSERMODS ) BYPASS ( HOLDSYSTEM) NOJCLINREPORT RETRY ( YES ) . _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dave Jousma AVP | Manager, Systems Engineering Fifth Third Bank | 1830 East Paris Ave, SE | MD RSCB2H | Grand Rapids, MI 49546 616.653.8429 | fax: 616.653.2717 -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Edgington, Jerry Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 7:42 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: SMP/e maintenance methodologies **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** Hello everyone, I am looking for SMP/e methodologies about a couple of situations within SMP/e. Just looking for how people do SMP/e maintenance in certain situations. 1) What methodology is employed to get to a clean Apply Check, when you outstanding Error Holds? APARs without PTFs, local fix or work arounds? 2) For Apply check, what PARMs do you use? Select, FixCat, Bypass, etc? I was taught a SMP/e methodology, many years ago, but just wondering if there might be a better way. Thanks, Jerry Edgington ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN **CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL** **DO NOT open attachments or click on links from unknown senders or unexpected emails** This e-mail transmission contains information that is confidential and may be privileged. It is intended only for the addressee(s) named above. If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read, copy or disseminate it in any manner. 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