Fair enough.  And what about the tellers?  I ask in simple ignorance, never
having been one myself; do they log on to a mainframe ID at the beginning of
their shift?

---
Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313

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-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Farley, Peter
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 11:19

ATM's (and other IOT's like cash register subsystems, etc.) aren't "logged
on" per se, AFAIK.  I believe that those are transactional accesses, one to
check user PIN/Password/authorization of the card, another for each money
withdrawal/deposit/transfer/etc.  I don't believe they are actively
accessing the mainframe the whole time you are using them, only when you
perform an action and then only for that one transaction.

I think you wouldn't count those as "logged on", as opposed to the human
insurance agents who may well be actively logged on from their office
researching plans for a client or even possibly from a mobile device at a
claim investigation site.

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Bob Bridges
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 10:55 AM

If we're limiting the count to on-line in-house users - I'm talking about
TSO, CICS etc - I suspect State Farm might have a thousand users logged on
at a time (that's a massive system) but a few hundred is more usual in the
companies I've worked for.  Currently I have an insurance company as my main
client; in-house there are about 220 managers who review access, with let's
guess an average of five mainframe reports each.  They also have about 400
independent agents that use a system that ultimately connects them to the
mainframe, and each of those may have one or two assistants with their own
IDs.  That's probably typical for an insurance company.  I couldn't guess
about how many might be logged on at once.  Oh, sure I could, but it's just
a guess:  If there are 2000 mainframe IDs, maybe 500 at a time?  Purest
guess.

But we've also been talking about banks and their ATMs.  Do we count ATM
customers in the number for Bank of America, with their branches around the
country?  That could run to thousands at one time, don't you think?

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Smith III
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 10:14

In another thread, Jon Perryman wrote, in part:
>[You're] on a multi-million dollar computer shared by thousands.

Pure curiosity here: Without getting into any theology about futures, or
that obviously a single, relatively small app or even database could be used
in some sense by thousands of users via the network:
How many users do sites typically have these days?

In 1986, University of Waterloo had over 20,000 VM users (on four 4341s
running Adesse Single-System Image), which was considered well beyond the
pale by most. We had several thousand logged on at once. Now, that was VM
(VM/SP, to be precise).

How many users does your z/OS shop have defined, and what's your daily
high-water mark of logons? We're a tiny dev shop, so have a grand total of
about four humans who touch z/OS using keyboards, and one of them only does
USS stuff. That's presumably not typical; I mention it just in the spirit of

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