subject:"Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture"

Sure! It's like a headline which says that Microsoft says everybody should run 
Windows.  Or a consulting firm recommending that they be hired. Or an 
outsourcer saying that outsourcing is the inexpensive wave of the future. In 
other words, consider the source. Unbiased they ain't!

From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Kelman, 
Tom [thomas.kel...@commercebank.com]
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:22 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
off the mainframe.   comments?

http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2009/11/why_the_time_fo.html?cid=n
l_bnk_daily

Tom Kelman

Enterprise Capacity Planner

Commerce Bank of Kansas City

(816) 760-7632

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 09:59:09 -0800, sc...@aitrus.org (Scott) wrote:

>I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning up the
>dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.

Periodically, the business model needs to be re-analyzed, and the IS
model should be changed to better fit the changed business model.

The core of the new system, as the core of the old system, should be
the data model.The tools used to support the data model are
secondary, whether they are COBOL or JAVA or Mainframes or server
farms. Design the business model, match the data to this business
model, then shop around for the tool.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 09:35:05 -0800, d...@bkassociates.net (Doug Fuerst)
wrote:

>How does replacing one mainframe with loads of hot running servers save 
>money? This is nothing more than more Accenture bigotry against 
>mainframes. The regulatory environment is likely to dictate LESS brands 
>and services in the future, especially if a Glass-Steagall replacement 
>is eventually enacted. Banks are being told to go back to being banks. I 
>would ask what Accenture is missing?

Changing your tools makes money - for the consultants.Telling you
to keep the status quo is counter-productive consulting strategy.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread P S

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:

> Periodically, the business model needs to be re-analyzed, and the IS
> model should be changed to better fit the changed business model.
>
> The core of the new system, as the core of the old system, should be
> the data model.The tools used to support the data model are
> secondary, whether they are COBOL or JAVA or Mainframes or server
> farms. Design the business model, match the data to this business
> model, then shop around for the tool.
>

But what's the problem you're trying to solve here?

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Ted MacNEIL

>They don't actually say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big 
>banks should get off the mainframe.   comments?

Having worked in the financial sector for most of my career, I would say it's a 
very bad idea.
Nothing beats the integrity, reliability, and security of mainframe.
(Of course, I'm biased)

-
Too busy driving to stop for gas!

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Steve Comstock


Scott wrote:

I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning up the
dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.  Accenture
is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook your books
while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just another batch of
MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or decent in the world.



Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I
think that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language
for what it's designed to do: automate business rules.

Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run
as CGIs on the web. And well written COBOL is easier to
read than almost any other programming language.


I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out
there (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many
languages). Frankly, with the training business down so badly
I would be interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern
COBOL capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the
code.

Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)




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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Scott
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:58 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 
> I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but 
> cleaning up the
> dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for 
> that.  Accenture
> is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to 
> cook your books
> while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just 
> another batch of
> MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or decent 
> in the world.
> 

Scott,

Come, on! Don't be shy. What is your real opinion of them? I wonder how many 
shares are owned by MS and Bill Gates?

--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV
IT

Administrative Services Group

HealthMarkets(r)

9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010
(817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com * www.HealthMarkets.com

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

sc...@aitrus.org (Scott) writes:
> With a cheaper job market, now is the time to hire hands to go through your
> massive libraries of copy-and-paste COBOL and begin some initial
> design/development of Java libraries.

in the 70s & 80s ... there was addition of "real-time" transactions to a
lot of the financial infrastructures ... but they frequently were only
front-end that started the transaction for after hrs "batch
settlement" window. slightly related past post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27 Father Of Financial Dataprocessing

i.e. commit paradigms providing auditors the level of trust in
computerized implementations ... vis-a-vis paper.

in the 90s, there were billions spent on development of "straight
through processing" efforts (eliminating overnight batch settlement by
taking every transaction straight through to completion) ... leveraging
large number of parallel "killer micros" and object-orieinted
parallelization technology.  the issue was that with increasing business
and globalization ... the amount of work that needed to be done in the
"overnight batch window" was increasing while globalization was
decreasing the size of the window.

most of the projects were eventually declared a success and disappeared
... it was very late into several of the efforts when they got around to
do any speeds&feeds and found that the parallelization technology was
increasing overhead by a factor of 100 times (compared to the batch
cobol implementations) ... totally swamping any of the anticipated
throughput improvements from the parallel killer macros.

we saw some proposals for re-engineering activities in the middle part
of this decade ... that were scuttled because the decision makers still
hadn't recovered from the failed efforts in the 90s.

a few recent posts in threads on such re-engineering efforts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#87 Cleaning Up Spaghetti Code vs. Getting 
Rid of It
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#43 Business process re-engineering
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#14 Legacy clearing threat to OTC 
derivatives warns State Street
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#55 Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#1 z/Journal Does it Again
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#2 z/Journal Does it Again
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#21 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use 
z/OS UNIX?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#57 IBM halves mainframe Linux engine 
prices
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#81 A Faster Way to the Cloud
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#81 big iron mainframe vs. x86 servers

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

I agree that Enterprise COBOL has the potentiality for excellent code. One 
thing lacking that exist for Java, Perl, Ruby, and other such languages is a 
HUGE support library. CPAN has so much good stuff in it that writing something 
like a browser in Perl is simple. Try it in COBOL. What COBOL needs is 
something equivalent to CPAN or the other user and vendor supplied support 
routines. I would shudder to try to write a browser in COBOL. Because I would 
have to do it ALL myself. And for "browser" substitute any advanced "Internet 
aware" functionality. Perhaps RDz (or whatever it's called) has advanced 
functionality for COBOL in it. I don't know. But writing a TCP/IP program in 
Java is, relatively, simple. It's even easier in other languages.

In terms of the "base" language itself, I can use most anything. OK, on Linux, 
I use Perl a LOT. Because I know it and love regular expressions and it's 
acceptably easy to use and fast (running and writing). I'm probably one of the 
few people who think that APL2 is interesting.

--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV
IT

Administrative Services Group

HealthMarkets(r)

9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010
(817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com * www.HealthMarkets.com

Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain confidential or 
proprietary information. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact 
the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. 
HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten and issued by the 
insurance subsidiaries of HealthMarkets, Inc. -The Chesapeake Life Insurance 
Company(r), Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of TennesseeSM and The 
MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company.SM

 

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Steve Comstock
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:17 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 

> 
> Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I
> think that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language
> for what it's designed to do: automate business rules.
> 
> Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run
> as CGIs on the web. And well written COBOL is easier to
> read than almost any other programming language.
> 
> 
> I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out
> there (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many
> languages). Frankly, with the training business down so badly
> I would be interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
> modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern
> COBOL capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the
> code.
> 
> Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)
> 
> -- 
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> -Steve Comstock
> The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
> 
> 303-393-8716
> http://www.trainersfriend.com
> 
>z/OS Application development made easier
>  * Our classes include
> + How things work
> + Programming examples with realistic applications
> + Starter / skeleton code
> + Complete working programs
> + Useful utilities and subroutines
> + Tips and techniques
> 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Well ..., if somebody really wanted to do this, then I'd really recommend the 
CobolRecordGenerator that comes with z/OS Java SDK (written by the geniuses at 
Dovetailed Technologies - yes, I'm impressed). Compile your COBOL with ADATA. 
Use the aforementioned program to read the ADATA and create a Java class with 
get and set methods to access the fields defined in your COBOL program. I've 
used the AssemblerRecordGenerator to generate 433 Java classes to access 76 
different SMF records. It was a bit confusing to this Java novice to learn how 
to properly use this, but it works for me.

From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Scott 
[sc...@aitrus.org]
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:30 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

With a cheaper job market, now is the time to hire hands to go through your
massive libraries of copy-and-paste COBOL and begin some initial
design/development of Java libraries.

Scott

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Scott

I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning up the
dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.  Accenture
is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook your books
while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just another batch of
MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or decent in the world.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:52 AM, McKown, John  wrote:

> Well ..., if somebody really wanted to do this, then I'd really recommend
> the CobolRecordGenerator that comes with z/OS Java SDK (written by the
> geniuses at Dovetailed Technologies - yes, I'm impressed). Compile your
> COBOL with ADATA. Use the aforementioned program to read the ADATA and
> create a Java class with get and set methods to access the fields defined in
> your COBOL program. I've used the AssemblerRecordGenerator to generate 433
> Java classes to access 76 different SMF records. It was a bit confusing to
> this Java novice to learn how to properly use this, but it works for me.
> 
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of
> Scott [sc...@aitrus.org]
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:30 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
> Accenture
>
> With a cheaper job market, now is the time to hire hands to go through your
> massive libraries of copy-and-paste COBOL and begin some initial
> design/development of Java libraries.
>
> Scott
>
> --
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Doug Fuerst

How does replacing one mainframe with loads of hot running servers save 
money? This is nothing more than more Accenture bigotry against 
mainframes. The regulatory environment is likely to dictate LESS brands 
and services in the future, especially if a Glass-Steagall replacement 
is eventually enacted. Banks are being told to go back to being banks. I 
would ask what Accenture is missing?


Doug

Kelman, Tom wrote:

Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
off the mainframe.   comments?

 


http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2009/11/why_the_time_fo.html?cid=n
l_bnk_daily

 

 
  

snip

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Steve Comstock


McKown, John wrote:
I agree that Enterprise COBOL has the potentiality for excellent code. 
One thing lacking that exist for Java, Perl, Ruby, and other such 
languages is a HUGE support library. CPAN has so much good stuff in it 
that writing something like a browser in Perl is simple. Try it in COBOL. 
What COBOL needs is something equivalent to CPAN or the other user and 
vendor supplied support routines. I would shudder to try to write a 
browser in COBOL. Because I would have to do it ALL myself. And for 
"browser" substitute any advanced "Internet aware" functionality. 


Wait a minute. Remember I said COBOL is good at what it's designed
for: automating business rules. It was never designed to be a
language for creating a browser or similar application.

That being said, I agree a good support library would be nice to
have. Something richer than the LE library of routines.

As far as "Internet aware" functionality, I've mentioned in the
past you can write COBOL CGIs, and we have a course on how to
do this, including accessing VSAM files and DB2 database data
to display on a website hosted on z/OS, without using WebSphere
or even CICS/TS.



Perhaps RDz (or whatever it's called) has advanced functionality for 
COBOL in it. I don't know. But writing a TCP/IP program in Java is, 
relatively, simple. It's even easier in other languages.


Again, I don't consider a TCP/IP program to be "business rules". Other
languages are better for that kind of code.



In terms of the "base" language itself, I can use most anything. 
OK, on Linux, I use Perl a LOT. Because I know it and love regular 
expressions and it's acceptably easy to use and fast (running and 
writing). 

>

I'm probably one of the few people who think that APL2 is interesting.


I remember the first (only) APL class I attended, when I was still
with IBM. The class challenge was always to solve a lab with a
single APL statement. Pretty bizarre stuff came out of that!




--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV

IT





--

Kind regards,

-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.

303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com

  z/OS Application development made easier
* Our classes include
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   + Programming examples with realistic applications
   + Starter / skeleton code
   + Complete working programs
   + Useful utilities and subroutines
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Mark Jacobs

Kelman, Tom wrote:
> Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
> their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
> say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
> off the mainframe.   comments?
>
>  
>
> http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2009/11/why_the_time_fo.html?cid=n
> l_bnk_daily
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Tom Kelman
>
> Enterprise Capacity Planner
>
> Commerce Bank of Kansas City
>
> (816) 760-7632 
>
>  
>
>   

And they will be happy to supply services, at a very low monthly price,
to make it happen.

-- 
Mark Jacobs
Time Customer Service
Tampa, FL


Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt 
that I was a modest man.

Robert A. Heinlein
Double Star(1956)

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Scott

With a cheaper job market, now is the time to hire hands to go through your
massive libraries of copy-and-paste COBOL and begin some initial
design/development of Java libraries.

Scott

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Kelman, Tom  wrote:

> Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
> their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
> say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
> off the mainframe.   comments?
>
>
>
> http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2009/11/why_the_time_fo.html?cid=n
> l_bnk_daily
>
>
>
>
>
> Tom Kelman
>
> Enterprise Capacity Planner
>
> Commerce Bank of Kansas City
>
> (816) 760-7632
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *
> If you wish to communicate securely with Commerce Bank and its
> affiliates, you must log into your account under Online Services at
> http://www.commercebank.com or use the Commerce Bank Secure
> Email Message Center at https://securemail.commercebank.com
>
> NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any attached files are
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> individual or entity intended as the recipient. If you are not
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.


re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

semi-advertisement warning ... in the past couple yrs, i've done some
work with a company that does business rule specification ... which then
generates relatively fine-grain, parallel friendly SQL. 

The magic is being able to translate the business rule specifications
into small enough units of work (characterized by parallel-friendly SQL
statements) and then rely on modern generation of RDBMS implementations
to achieve the parallelization. They've done some end-to-end bank
business process implementations that have significantly more reporting
and audit control than typical operation ... with a lot being a
side-effect of it being done at the business rule specification level
... and some of it being real-time "straight-through processing"
... resulting in real-time status/reports at all points in time.

They've been able to demonstrate extremely high DBMS transaction rates
(in part because of making the operations finer grain) ... but also very
high financial transaction rates & thruput (a lot of RDBMS
implementations are starting to demonstrate parallelization efficiencies
... better than the parallelization programming tools that were in use
in the 90s).

the business rule level specification makes for rapid development and
extremely agile change cycles. fine-grain SQL units of work are
generated from the business rule specifications ... and relies on
parallel RDBMS to achieve high throuhput.

slightly related thread on some "modern" high-performance parallel
RDBMS work
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43 From The Annals of Release No 
Software Before Its Time
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46 From The Annals of Release No 
Software Before Its Time

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Scott

Well, I've got an opinion on just about everything.  I haven't seen good
COBOL code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  To me that's enough evidence of
some tremendous failure, somewhere--organizational or design.  That isn't to
suggest that bad code is exclusively in COBOL's domain.  I've seen
exponentially more code in C, Perl, Ruby, etc.  Plenty of stuff resembled
what you might find in a Roman Vomitorium, but it's been very easy to find
some beautiful, modular, well-crafted stuff at any company.

Unless it's being managed by CIS majors and a dozen Indian VB.NET lackeys.
Then the stuff should be nuked from orbit.

If you have some "what jesus would write if he used cobol" then I'm happy to
see it.  My big motive for advocating Java is the Object-Oriented libraries
that you can build and your ability to export that to other systems if the
business case ever presents itself, with only minor changes necessary.

Scott

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Steve Comstock
wrote:

> Scott wrote:
>
>> I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning up the
>> dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.
>>  Accenture
>> is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook your
>> books
>> while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just another batch of
>> MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or decent in the world.
>>
>>
> Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I
> think that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language
> for what it's designed to do: automate business rules.
>
> Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run
> as CGIs on the web. And well written COBOL is easier to
> read than almost any other programming language.
>
>
> I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out
> there (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many
> languages). Frankly, with the training business down so badly
> I would be interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
> modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern
> COBOL capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the
> code.
>
> Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kind regards,
>
> -Steve Comstock
> The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
>
> 303-393-8716
> http://www.trainersfriend.com
>
>  z/OS Application development made easier
>* Our classes include
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 10:58:01 -0800, john.mck...@healthmarkets.com (McKown,
John) wrote:

>I agree that Enterprise COBOL has the potentiality for excellent code. 
>One thing lacking that exist for Java, Perl, Ruby, and other such languages 
>is a HUGE support library. CPAN has so much good stuff in it that writing 
>something like a browser in Perl is simple. Try it in COBOL. What COBOL needs 
>is something equivalent to CPAN or the other user and vendor supplied support 
>routines. I would shudder to try to write a browser in COBOL. Because I would 
>have to do it ALL myself. And for "browser" substitute any advanced 
>"Internet aware" functionality. Perhaps RDz (or whatever it's called) has 
>advanced functionality for COBOL in it. I don't know. But writing a TCP/IP 
>program in Java is, relatively, simple. It's even easier in other languages.

The library is the advantage of OO, as OO CoBOL doesn't need a CoBOL
library.   Any language will do.

Of course, library based languages have their own issues.  

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Scott
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:33 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 

> 
> Unless it's being managed by CIS majors and a dozen Indian 
> VB.NET lackeys.
> Then the stuff should be nuked from orbit.

Agree. But it is "cheaper" and so "better" to the bean counters who care only 
about today and let tomorrow worry about itself.

> 
> If you have some "what jesus would write if he used cobol" 
> then I'm happy to
> see it.  My big motive for advocating Java is the 
> Object-Oriented libraries
> that you can build and your ability to export that to other 
> systems if the
> business case ever presents itself, with only minor changes necessary.

I would love this. Something like a Java package. And the ability to "import" 
that package using an IDE. I use NetBeans. I know that I need to learn Eclipse. 
It is very nice to have NetBeans list the possible values when I enter a period 
as I type in a package name. I can then easily select all the way down to the 
exact method that I need. And it encourages a package to, say, read and write a 
particular record defination. Use the .read() and .write() methods along with 
the get...() and set...() methods to access the fields. Not only is it 
"easier", but you can change the underlying package so long as the methods used 
continue to have the same parameters. And it allows a type of polymorphism on 
the method.

> 
> Scott


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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 10:46:19 -0800, eamacn...@yahoo.ca (Ted MacNEIL) wrote:

>>They don't actually say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big 
>>banks should get off the mainframe.   comments?
>
>Having worked in the financial sector for most of my career, I would say it's 
>a very bad idea.
>Nothing beats the integrity, reliability, and security of mainframe.
>(Of course, I'm biased)

I'm biased too.   Trouble is in comparing apples and oranges.It
makes sense to me that a server farm that is spread out between New
Orleans and Denver would be more reliable during Katrina than a
mainframe in New Orleans alone.Reliability of a particular server
in a properly implemented farm should not matter, and I can see a farm
being more reliable for some purposes. 

Of course, spreading it around would make security much more
difficult.

I'm not sure what you mean by integrity here.   I suspect you are
referring to issues such as having Google come up with different
matches when queries hit different servers in their farm. This is
a trade off in getting everybody a quick response instead of going
through one bottleneck.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Howard Brazee
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:42 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 

> 
> The library is the advantage of OO, as OO CoBOL doesn't need a CoBOL
> library.   Any language will do.
> 
> Of course, library based languages have their own issues.  

But, to my limited knowledge, there is no such library available. It's like 
having a hydrogen car which gets 200 mpg. Too bad there's nowhere around to buy 
fuel. And, at least around here, COBOL will likely never be Object Oriented. 
It's "too different".

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Guy Gardoit

That's a very broad statement to make - and I might say a ridiculous one.
There is plenty of well-written, excellent Cobol code out there  - some of
which I have written over the years:-)

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Scott  wrote:

> ...snip ... I haven't seen good
> COBOL code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  ...snip
>
>
> --
> Guy Gardoit
> z/OS Systems Programming
>

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Veilleux, Jon L

Well I have to pipe up and respond to this remark. There are a TON of COBOL 
programs here that have been running for years and years with no problems and 
reasonable performance. Once they get replaced by JAVA, etc, they abend 
constantly and perform horribly. I have yet to see 'good' JAVA code. 
If COBOL was still taught in the Colleges, then you would see the function 
libraries being built by the same folks who are now building the JAVA,etc, 
functions (with better performance...my $.02).

Jon L. Veilleux 
veilleu...@aetna.com 
(860) 636-2683 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of 
Scott
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:33 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Well, I've got an opinion on just about everything.  I haven't seen good COBOL 
code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  To me that's enough evidence of some 
tremendous failure, somewhere--organizational or design.  That isn't to suggest 
that bad code is exclusively in COBOL's domain.  I've seen exponentially more 
code in C, Perl, Ruby, etc.  Plenty of stuff resembled what you might find in a 
Roman Vomitorium, but it's been very easy to find some beautiful, modular, 
well-crafted stuff at any company.

Unless it's being managed by CIS majors and a dozen Indian VB.NET lackeys.
Then the stuff should be nuked from orbit.

If you have some "what jesus would write if he used cobol" then I'm happy to 
see it.  My big motive for advocating Java is the Object-Oriented libraries 
that you can build and your ability to export that to other systems if the 
business case ever presents itself, with only minor changes necessary.

Scott

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Steve Comstock
wrote:

> Scott wrote:
>
>> I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning 
>> up the dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.
>>  Accenture
>> is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook 
>> your books while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just 
>> another batch of MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or 
>> decent in the world.
>>
>>
> Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I think 
> that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language for what it's 
> designed to do: automate business rules.
>
> Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run as CGIs on 
> the web. And well written COBOL is easier to read than almost any 
> other programming language.
>
>
> I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out there 
> (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many languages). 
> Frankly, with the training business down so badly I would be 
> interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
> modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern COBOL 
> capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the code.
>
> Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kind regards,
>
> -Steve Comstock
> The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
>
> 303-393-8716
> http://www.trainersfriend.com
>
>  z/OS Application development made easier
>* Our classes include
>   + How things work
>   + Programming examples with realistic applications
>   + Starter / skeleton code
>   + Complete working programs
>   + Useful utilities and subroutines
>   + Tips and techniques
>
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Scott Gonyea

Hey, there's a reason my blog is called "inherently lame" and not
"voice of reason"!

Scott

On Monday, November 30, 2009, Guy Gardoit  wrote:
> That's a very broad statement to make - and I might say a ridiculous one.
> There is plenty of well-written, excellent Cobol code out there  - some of
> which I have written over the years    :-)
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Scott  wrote:
>
>> ...snip ... I haven't seen good
>> COBOL code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  ...snip
>>
>>
>> --
>> Guy Gardoit
>> z/OS Systems Programming
>>
>
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 12:06:56 -0800, veilleu...@aetna.com (Veilleux, Jon L)
wrote:

>Well I have to pipe up and respond to this remark. There are a TON of COBOL
>programs here that have been running for years and years with no problems 
>and reasonable performance. Once they get replaced by JAVA, etc, they abend 
>constantly and perform horribly. I have yet to see 'good' JAVA code. 
>If COBOL was still taught in the Colleges, then you would see the function 
>libraries being built by the same folks who are now building the JAVA,etc, 
>functions (with better performance...my $.02).

People don't need college to learn Java.   Java's available for free,
it handles the kind of applications an amateur knows & likes to play
with, and it is easy to find help on the Web.

CoBOL is designed to handle business needs.   Hobbyists not only don't
have those needs on their PCs, they don't really understand them.

I have seen posts on both sides of this thread saying that they
haven't seen any "good code" on the other side.I suspect that
these are based upon incompatible definitions of "good code".

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread P S

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:

> People don't need college to learn Java.   Java's available for free,
> it handles the kind of applications an amateur knows & likes to play
> with, and it is easy to find help on the Web.
>

People don't need college to learn brain surgery, either, though the results
MAY be better. I'd actually not argue for "college", but for mature, skilled
OJT. The problem with all too much code on all sides of the fence is folks
who have no training and just hack things together.

CoBOL is designed to handle business needs.   Hobbyists not only don't
> have those needs on their PCs, they don't really understand them.
>

Strewth!

I have seen posts on both sides of this thread saying that they
> haven't seen any "good code" on the other side.I suspect that
> these are based upon incompatible definitions of "good code".
>

Mmm...not necessarily incompatible, but definitely different perspectives, I
imagine!

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Roy Hewitt

Ted MacNEIL wrote:

Nothing beats the integrity, reliability, and security of mainframe.
(Of course, I'm biased)

Of course you're biased.. (and Ted I'm not directing this at you, but your comment is typical of
many I see).. We're all biased on this list (typically!!) but a lot of the time to me it seems to
be a head in the sand biased approach. Too many times I hear how wonderful the mainframe is; and
then when I take a closer look underneath the latest shiney Green/Blue/Gold stripe on the z door, I
find a hotch potch of applications and systems strung together over 30 or 40 years. The z10s are
probably one of the most hi-tech bits of kit you'll have in your machine room, and z/OS is pretty
good too ;-).. But what gives the mainframe such a bad name is usually the pile of 40 year apps
stuck together running on top of it and our resistance to change.. (oh, and our morbid fascination
with 3270!!) And why did we get this way?.. well it's what I call the pair of "IBM's double-edged
swords".

And I like to think I'm not writing this with a wilful ignorance of zSeries. I've spent 25+ years in
this game, 3 as an Assembler programmer, then the rest Sysproging in one form or another. And yes, I
know that makes me quite a junior compared to some of you old timers ;-), but having done most of it
as short term contracts I think I've seen the whole range from tiny single box sites right up to the
10+ footprints.

So what are these double edge swords? Well, firstly we have "Downward
Compatibility".

Yes, you're all sitting there thinking "That's a good thing, isn't it?".. "I can still run my zxy
program that I assembled way back in '72; how many other systems can I do that on?".

Well yes, of course it's a good thing, we all boast about it, "Hey, look how easy my upgrade is!".
But remember the other side of that sword! You see I feel that because we've never had to change
anything, when we do upgrades, we just keep running stuff forever. And not only do the apps stay
there forever, but as an industry I think it makes us very resistant to *change*. I mean, how many
times on this list do we keep harping on about how wonderful it was when we had to handcraft our own
IO routine etc etc!! We don't like change (and yes I'm talking to you writing notes on your stack of
puchcards!) And that resistance to change is partly what I think gives the mainframe a bad name.

And the other sword? Well, that is what I call "System Versatility". Basically, IBM's design that
allows any and every site to configure z/OS (and all its predecessors ) in any which way they want.
Yes, it gives great flexibility. Hey, what should I call my ISPF libraries? Today I'll be mostly
calling then SYS1.SISPblah blah or maybe ISP.SISPblah blah. or I could put version numbers in or..
etc etc. You see, I can do anything I want, and I guarantee it will be different from the shop down
the road, and all because IBM never came up with a *defined* way to it. In my opinion they still
haven't. Ok, the ServerPac defaults are a lot more structured than the old CBIPO, i,e. Sxxx for
target libs and Axxx for distribution libs, and the fact they finally dropped the use of version
numbers (what took you so long!). So why is this "system Versatility" such a problem? because it
makes it so damm difficult to maintain software, never mind the heartache it must cause vendors (I
can hear Gil's keyboard clicking away). And that difficulty just gives management the view that "its
always big and hard" to do anything. And here's the rub, IBM can't change it now
because...of...yep.. "Downward compatibility". And yes I know it's possible to design system
standards/configurations such that it *does* simplify upgrades/installation - but I very rarely see
examples being used - partly due to the history at the site, and also because I've never seen IBM
come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS. (And don't get me started on the
shamplexes we're forced to have in order to get cheaper sw costs!)

So we're stuck with it - we have this wonderful hi-tech flexible downward compatible system -
hanging like a millstone around our necks. So it's actually refreshing to read an article like this
- remember they never said anything about getting off mainframe, and also quite typical of the
response we saw on the list... Now where's that sand...

..and now we return to our scheduled broadcast

Cheers

Roy

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

I agree with you. 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Ted MacNEIL
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:45 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

>They don't actually say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that
big banks should get off the mainframe.   comments?

Having worked in the financial sector for most of my career, I would say
it's a very bad idea.
Nothing beats the integrity, reliability, and security of mainframe.
(Of course, I'm biased)

-
Too busy driving to stop for gas!

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Cobol Common Business Oriented Language. I have seen some written in
Java. Didn't look that good to me. Hard to understand. 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Steve Comstock
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:11 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

McKown, John wrote:
> I agree that Enterprise COBOL has the potentiality for excellent code.

> One thing lacking that exist for Java, Perl, Ruby, and other such 
> languages is a HUGE support library. CPAN has so much good stuff in it

> that writing something like a browser in Perl is simple. Try it in
COBOL. 
> What COBOL needs is something equivalent to CPAN or the other user and

> vendor supplied support routines. I would shudder to try to write a 
> browser in COBOL. Because I would have to do it ALL myself. And for 
> "browser" substitute any advanced "Internet aware" functionality. 

Wait a minute. Remember I said COBOL is good at what it's designed
for: automating business rules. It was never designed to be a
language for creating a browser or similar application.

That being said, I agree a good support library would be nice to
have. Something richer than the LE library of routines.

As far as "Internet aware" functionality, I've mentioned in the
past you can write COBOL CGIs, and we have a course on how to
do this, including accessing VSAM files and DB2 database data
to display on a website hosted on z/OS, without using WebSphere
or even CICS/TS.



> Perhaps RDz (or whatever it's called) has advanced functionality for 
> COBOL in it. I don't know. But writing a TCP/IP program in Java is, 
> relatively, simple. It's even easier in other languages.

Again, I don't consider a TCP/IP program to be "business rules". Other
languages are better for that kind of code.

> 
> In terms of the "base" language itself, I can use most anything. 
> OK, on Linux, I use Perl a LOT. Because I know it and love regular 
> expressions and it's acceptably easy to use and fast (running and 
> writing). 
 >
> I'm probably one of the few people who think that APL2 is interesting.

I remember the first (only) APL class I attended, when I was still
with IBM. The class challenge was always to solve a lab with a
single APL statement. Pretty bizarre stuff came out of that!


> 
> --
> John McKown 
> Systems Engineer IV
> IT
> 



-- 

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The Trainer's Friend, Inc.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Good meaning programmed well? Easy to read? Easy to understand?

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Scott
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:33 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Well, I've got an opinion on just about everything.  I haven't seen good
COBOL code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  To me that's enough evidence
of
some tremendous failure, somewhere--organizational or design.  That
isn't to
suggest that bad code is exclusively in COBOL's domain.  I've seen
exponentially more code in C, Perl, Ruby, etc.  Plenty of stuff
resembled
what you might find in a Roman Vomitorium, but it's been very easy to
find
some beautiful, modular, well-crafted stuff at any company.

Unless it's being managed by CIS majors and a dozen Indian VB.NET
lackeys.
Then the stuff should be nuked from orbit.

If you have some "what jesus would write if he used cobol" then I'm
happy to
see it.  My big motive for advocating Java is the Object-Oriented
libraries
that you can build and your ability to export that to other systems if
the
business case ever presents itself, with only minor changes necessary.

Scott

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Steve Comstock
wrote:

> Scott wrote:
>
>> I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning
up the
>> dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.
>>  Accenture
>> is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook
your
>> books
>> while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just another
batch of
>> MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or decent in the
world.
>>
>>
> Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I
> think that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language
> for what it's designed to do: automate business rules.
>
> Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run
> as CGIs on the web. And well written COBOL is easier to
> read than almost any other programming language.
>
>
> I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out
> there (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many
> languages). Frankly, with the training business down so badly
> I would be interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
> modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern
> COBOL capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the
> code.
>
> Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kind regards,
>
> -Steve Comstock
> The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
>
> 303-393-8716
> http://www.trainersfriend.com
>
>  z/OS Application development made easier
>* Our classes include
>   + How things work
>   + Programming examples with realistic applications
>   + Starter / skeleton code
>   + Complete working programs
>   + Useful utilities and subroutines
>   + Tips and techniques
>
> ==> Ask about being added to our opt-in list:  <==
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Good point and I agree with you.

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Veilleux, Jon L
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:04 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Well I have to pipe up and respond to this remark. There are a TON of
COBOL programs here that have been running for years and years with no
problems and reasonable performance. Once they get replaced by JAVA,
etc, they abend constantly and perform horribly. I have yet to see
'good' JAVA code. 
If COBOL was still taught in the Colleges, then you would see the
function libraries being built by the same folks who are now building
the JAVA,etc, functions (with better performance...my $.02).

Jon L. Veilleux 
veilleu...@aetna.com 
(860) 636-2683 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Scott
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:33 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Well, I've got an opinion on just about everything.  I haven't seen good
COBOL code (and I've seen a lot, so far).  To me that's enough evidence
of some tremendous failure, somewhere--organizational or design.  That
isn't to suggest that bad code is exclusively in COBOL's domain.  I've
seen exponentially more code in C, Perl, Ruby, etc.  Plenty of stuff
resembled what you might find in a Roman Vomitorium, but it's been very
easy to find some beautiful, modular, well-crafted stuff at any company.

Unless it's being managed by CIS majors and a dozen Indian VB.NET
lackeys.
Then the stuff should be nuked from orbit.

If you have some "what jesus would write if he used cobol" then I'm
happy to see it.  My big motive for advocating Java is the
Object-Oriented libraries that you can build and your ability to export
that to other systems if the business case ever presents itself, with
only minor changes necessary.

Scott

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Steve Comstock
wrote:

> Scott wrote:
>
>> I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning 
>> up the dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for
that.
>>  Accenture
>> is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to cook 
>> your books while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just 
>> another batch of MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or

>> decent in the world.
>>
>>
> Well, I know that you and I disagree on this somewhat, but I think 
> that COBOL has evolved to be a pretty nifty language for what it's 
> designed to do: automate business rules.
>
> Modern COBOL can handle Unicode, ASCII, and XML. It can run as CGIs on

> the web. And well written COBOL is easier to read than almost any 
> other programming language.
>
>
> I know we do agree that there's plenty of ugly COBOL code out there 
> (and there is plenty of ugly code out there in many languages). 
> Frankly, with the training business down so badly I would be 
> interested in looking at doing some COBOL code
> modernization: updating existing code so it follows modern COBOL 
> capabilities. Not automated, just manually fixing the code.
>
> Guess there's no accounting for taste! :-)
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kind regards,
>
> -Steve Comstock
> The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
>
> 303-393-8716
> http://www.trainersfriend.com
>
>  z/OS Application development made easier
>* Our classes include
>   + How things work
>   + Programming examples with realistic applications
>   + Starter / skeleton code
>   + Complete working programs
>   + Useful utilities and subroutines
>   + Tips and techniques
>
> ==> Ask about being added to our opt-in list:  <==
> ==>   * Early announcement of new courses  <==
> ==>   * Early announcement of new techincal papers <==
> ==>   * Early announcement of new promotions   <==
>
>
> --
> 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
>

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Guy Gardoit

What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt
wrote:

...snip
IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
...snip

> Cheers
>
> Roy
>
>
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-- 
Guy Gardoit
z/OS Systems Programming

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Paul Gilmartin

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:

>What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
>this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
>excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
>IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
>until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
>
Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
its done.

With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?

>On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt wrote:
>
>...snip
>IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
>...snip

-- gil

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread P S

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:

> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> its done.
>
> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
>

I see both sides of this. Yes, it's easy with Firefox and friends; no, it's
not very granular or controllable. Do you analyze the list of fixes before
you upgrade Firefox? Do you analyze the list of fixes before you upgrades
z/OS? If a Firefox update breaks it, what will you do about it? Etc.

When it works, &Firefox is better; when it doesn't...

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread John McKown

I somehow missed the original message. SMP/E has some warts. But with
ShopzSeries and the RECEIVE FROM NETWORK or NTS, it is much easier to
order and RECEIVE maintenance. In fact, I had problems with the tapes
when installing z/OS 1.10, due to tape I/O errors. Instead of reordering
the tapes, I did a network order. I downloaded z/OS and installed from
there. Which was wonderful because we don't have any tape operators any
more. So, with the old way, I'd be stuck in the machine room (which has
no TSO terminals available), doing my own tape mounts. The biggest
problem is with DASD space. I needed to grab 10 3390-3 volumes for the
z/OS 1.10 install. And our management here is looking at "wasted" DASD
space, so I can't keep the volumes around very long.

CA is adopting this type of process as well with their Mainframe 2.0. I
was at the demo and was impressed.

Now, if SMP/E could work a bit more like CA-Mainframe 2.0, which is
basically browser based with "point and click", it would be even simpler
to apply maintenance. Especially for the n00bs  The SMP/E ISPF
dialogs are better than hand coding JCL, but not as simple as "point and
click" in a browser.

On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 16:04 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
> What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
> this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
> IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
> until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> 
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt
> wrote:
> 
> ...snip
> IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
> ...snip
> 
> 
> > Cheers
> >
> > Roy
> >

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread John McKown

On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 19:04 -0600, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
> 
> >What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
> >this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> >excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
> >IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
> >until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> >
> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> its done.
> 
> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
> 

I really think you'd like CA's Mainframe 2.0. It is more like Firefox.
Of course, when it comes to SMP/E, I want to be able to review all the
various holds. Because they sometimes require actions which SMP/E cannot
take for me. Such as when a message changes and I might need to change
my automation rules. Firefox is "so simple" that updating it does not
affect other applications. Updating Windows is more likely to screw up
something that currently works. Linux, with rpm and/or apt, is less
likely due to its validation of compatibility between packages. Which is
based on the programmers' specifying it correctly in the packages. But
that assumes that you can get the application you want in a package
which is compatible with your Linux distribution and other packages. If
you every install a Linux app manually, they "you're on your own" about
making sure it will still run when you update something. Which really
beats Window's "DLL Hell".

-- 
John McKown
Maranatha! <><

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Timothy Sipples

Steve Comstock writes:
>That being said, I agree a good support library would be nice to
>have. Something richer than the LE library of routines.

Aren't there many COBOL-callable library routines? Wouldn't the following 
be some common examples?

CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
IMS Transaction Manager
WebSphere MQ for z/OS
WebSphere Transformation Extender for z/OS (Application Programming 
Edition)
Migration Utility for z/OS
DB2 for z/OS
IMS Database

- - - - -
Timothy Sipples
IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect
Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan / Asia-Pacific
E-Mail: timothy.sipp...@us.ibm.com

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Edward Jaffe


Paul Gilmartin wrote:


Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
its done.
  


You're updating a live system; you suffer some downtime; sometimes some 
of the fixes don't work and you're screwed. This paradigm could be a 
total disaster if applied to mission-critical applications and systems 
in a production business environment. Indeed, it would be irresponsible 
to expose  the business in this way.


--
Edward E Jaffe
Phoenix Software International, Inc
5200 W Century Blvd, Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-338-0400 x318
edja...@phoenixsoftware.com
http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Chase, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
> 
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
> 
> >What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the
point of
> >this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> >excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and
maintaining
> >IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh -
wait
> >until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> >
> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> its done.
> 
> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?

Isn't that a bit like comparing, say, changing the oil in your car to
changing the airspace around O'Hare airport?

-jc-

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Ron Hawkins

Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> P S
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:14 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
according
> to Accenture
> 
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Howard Brazee
wrote:
> 
> > People don't need college to learn Java.   Java's available for free,
> > it handles the kind of applications an amateur knows & likes to play
> > with, and it is easy to find help on the Web.
> >
> 
> People don't need college to learn brain surgery, either, though the
results
> MAY be better. I'd actually not argue for "college", but for mature,
skilled
> OJT. The problem with all too much code on all sides of the fence is folks
> who have no training and just hack things together.
> 
> CoBOL is designed to handle business needs.   Hobbyists not only don't
> > have those needs on their PCs, they don't really understand them.
> >
> 
> Strewth!
> 
> I have seen posts on both sides of this thread saying that they
> > haven't seen any "good code" on the other side.I suspect that
> > these are based upon incompatible definitions of "good code".
> >
> 
> Mmm...not necessarily incompatible, but definitely different perspectives,
I
> imagine!
> 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Ron Hawkins

Gil,

Updating Firefox is a bit luck updating a program. IEBCOPY and possibly an
LLA refresh and your done. Applications are generally easy to maintain on
all platforms - even my Blackberry.

I think comparing an upgrade from 1.9 to 1.10 with an upgrade from XP to
Vista would be more appropriate.

Ron

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Paul Gilmartin
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 5:04 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
according
> to Accenture
> 
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
> 
> >What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
> >this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> >excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and
maintaining
> >IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
> >until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> >
> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> its done.
> 
> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
> 
> >On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt wrote:
> >
> >...snip
> >IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
> >...snip
> 
> -- gil
> 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-11-30 Thread Ron Hawkins

Should be "Updating Firefox is a bit like..." Damn Spellcheckers - I should
go back to school and learn to type correctly in the first place :-)

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Ron Hawkins
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
according
> to Accenture
> 
> Gil,
> 
> Updating Firefox is a bit luck updating a program. IEBCOPY and possibly an
> LLA refresh and your done. Applications are generally easy to maintain on
> all platforms - even my Blackberry.
> 
> I think comparing an upgrade from 1.9 to 1.10 with an upgrade from XP to
> Vista would be more appropriate.
> 
> Ron
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
> Behalf Of
> > Paul Gilmartin
> > Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 5:04 PM
> > To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> > Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
> according
> > to Accenture
> >
> > On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
> >
> > >What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point
of
> > >this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> > >excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and
> maintaining
> > >IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh -
wait
> > >until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> > >
> > Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> > needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> > it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> > I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> > its done.
> >
> > With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
> >
> > >On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt wrote:
> > >
> > >...snip
> > >IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
> > >...snip
> >
> > -- gil
> >
> > --
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread R.S.


Kelman, Tom pisze:

Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
off the mainframe.   comments?


Comment: Their banking system (Alnova, formerly Altamira) is mainframe 
based. Actually z/OS.
I strongly doubt they want to convince their own customers to get rid 
off their product.


Q: Why do you think that new technology means non-mainframe?


--
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Roy Hewitt

Guy Gardoit wrote:

What?!? Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
this statement at all. ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
excellent products. If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt
wrote:

...snip
IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
...snip

Guy,

Perhaps I didn't explain it very well, I wasn't talking about the tools.. I
think SMPE does an
excellent job and wouldn't want to switch to anything else (not sure about HCD
tho.. but lets leave
that aside). Same goes for not updating the live system, I wouldn't even
consider it..

My point was about the structure of the way the system is set up, names etc..
I mentioned the fact
that IBM took years to finally get rid of version numbers in dataset names.
Anyone who knew what
they were doing never used them as it was just a complete pain to do an upgrade
and have to go and
change all that JCL. But if you were new to MVS, and that is how the system
came shipped from IBM,
then you're bound to use it - "hey this is the system default by IBM it must be
good" wrong.. Same
for indirect cataloging. And what about the whole process of replacing master
catalogs as part of an
upgrade.. I could go on, but these have all been addressed by IBM. I lost
count of how many sites
I saw where the running system was exactly just how it came out of the
CBIPO/ServerPac, because they
were new sites and didn't know any better - they took the defaults. The
defaults might get you a
system up and running but they sure don't usually help when doing upgrades. As I said some of it has
been addressed - just took a long time

But lets take a more recent example of HFS/ZFS updates. Yes, SMPE allows
overriding the path - as
you'd expect, because we don't want to update the live system. But what do IBM
recommend - /Service
.. Seems harmless as it doesn't update the live system, except it is the
default for *EVERYTHING*...
whether it's your z/OS, CICS, DB2, IBM defaults to /Service. Again if you're smart enough, you use
/Service/zos/ or some other structure. I know you can override the default but why doesn't IBM
recommend something more usable, perhaps /Service/zos/ordrno/, and then those not so clued up
wouldn't risk the chance of updating the wrong HFS (I believe there was such a post about this
recently).

As I said I think SMP/E is excellent, especially with all the new gadgets for shopz retrieval,
basically I don't think anything beats it in being able to very accurately track a service level of
an individual module..but.. I think it is let down by some of the choices around the ServperPac
process, and especially the defaults provided. The ServerPac process does its job - it has to cope
with all this flexibility, but look how complicated and unwieldy it is. Yes, you get to find you way
around it eventually, but it must be a nightmare for 1st time users to try and decide what to use
for names and they have no idea if what they choose is going to make it difficult next time around.
But what can IBM do now? They have allowed all this flexibility, and now need to support all the
plethora of dataset names at each and every site. And remember that was my original point.. too much
flexibility, so much so that it can become a burden. Wouldn't it be so much easier to know that
ISP.SISPPENU (et al for the other ~1000 datasets) were called that always and everywhere and you
didn't have to even think about setting most of the ServicePac options.

Take a look at other OS, and I'm not saying their install process is necessarily good, but..and its
a big but, they each use a standard layout. Maybe it's because nearly every other OS uses a
hierarchical directory structure, but it certainly makes it a hell of a lot easier to know that when
your looking for xyz, you'll find it in /usr/lib ..etc.. (no pun intended ;-) ) or wherever its
supposed to live.

Cheers

Roy

Cheers

Roy

Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Terri E Shaffer

Ahhh yes,  Lets treat z/OS like windows, then when you get the "blue screen" of 
death I will just tell management to re-ipl and hope it works correctly this 
time, and the error messages are really descriptive on other platforms. But hey 
this logic works for them.  What your discussing is philosophy, knowing how a 
system works and is put together and the pieces that make the os work from nip 
until the first online system comes up is what makes a good system programmer, 
but then in some people eyes they don't want to know as long as it ipl's, not 
all that great for when things don't go perfect.  Gooey and clicky applications 
have their place, but sorry I want total flexibility to place datasets where I 
want and call them fred if I desire.  And then maybe catalog some in the 
mastercatalog and others in the usercatalog's on different volumes even. How 
many times have we heard, IBM cannot design for every application and 
environment. So at best they give guidelines and basic rule!
 s of thumbs.  Your mileage may vary depending on MANY things, so if you took 
defaults w/o understanding shame on you. If someone doesn't understand all the 
pieces, stay out of the kitchen or ask and learn. Also understand every install 
doesn't work in every company... in my 25yrs and 7 different companies Ive 
worked at, small to very large, you have to have that flexibility and having 
150K mips and 110 lpars with a plethora of applications running the world 
doesn't always turn correctly.

Thanks

Ms. Terri E. Shaffer 
terri.e.shaf...@jpmchase.com
Engineer
J.P.Morgan Chase & Co.
GTI DCT ECS Core Services zSoftware Group / Emerging Technologies 
Office: # 614-213-3467
Cell: # 412-519-2592 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of 
Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 8:04 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:

>What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
>this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
>excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and maintaining
>IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
>until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
>
Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
its done.

With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?

>On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt wrote:
>
>...snip
>IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
>...snip

-- gil

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Kelman, Tom

I just believe that's the way CEOs and CIOs will read it.  Most of them really 
think that the mainframe, especially using z/OS, is old technology even with 
the changes that have been put in place.

I really love this board.  I post a link to a article about Accenture 
recommending that banks retool their core system to new technology and we get 
into a discussion of COBOL vs JAVA and other areas and finally get back to the 
original topic.  Mind, I'm not complaining.  It's all been a fun read.

Tom Kelman
Enterprise Capacity Planner
Commerce Bank of Kansas City
(816) 760-7632
> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
> Behalf Of R.S.
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 3:44 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
> Accenture
> 
> Kelman, Tom pisze:
> > Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
> > their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
> > say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
> > off the mainframe.   comments?
> 
> Comment: Their banking system (Alnova, formerly Altamira) is mainframe
> based. Actually z/OS.
> I strongly doubt they want to convince their own customers to get rid
> off their product.
> 
> Q: Why do you think that new technology means non-mainframe?
> 
> 
> --
> Radoslaw Skorupka
> Lodz, Poland
> 
> 
> --
> BRE Bank SA
> ul. Senatorska 18
> 00-950 Warszawa
> www.brebank.pl
> 
> Sd Rejonowy dla m. st. Warszawy
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> NIP: 526-021-50-88
> Wedug stanu na dzie 01.01.2009 r. kapita zakadowy BRE Banku SA (w
> caoci wpacony) wynosi 118.763.528 zotych. W zwizku z realizacj
> warunkowego podwyszenia kapitau zakadowego, na podstawie uchway XXI WZ
> z dnia 16 marca 2008r., oraz uchway XVI NWZ z dnia 27 padziernika
> 2008r., moe ulec podwyszeniu do kwoty 123.763.528 z. Akcje w
> podwyszonym kapitale zakadowym BRE Banku SA bd w caoci opacone.
> 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread P S

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Ron Hawkins
wrote:

> Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...
>

And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. What's your point?
Sensitive much? Sheesh.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread McKown, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Ward, Mike S
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 5:25 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 
> Good meaning programmed well? Easy to read? Easy to understand?
> 

The modern day Pilate? What is "good"? How I define it is likely different from 
programmers, which is different from management.

Me: Reliable - it gives the right answer. If you don't care about the answer 
being right all the time, I can write it faster.
Available - it doesn't abend or program check.
Maintainable - can it be modified.

Programmer: Is it simple to write, understand, and modify?

Management: Is is cheap?

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Chase, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of P S
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Ron Hawkins
> wrote:
> 
> > Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...
> >
> 
> And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. 

I took three "swings" at an MBA and "struck out".  Be retiring soon

-jc-

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Pommier, Rex R.

I think a solution lies somewhere in the middle.  Of course z/OS will
never be as simple to upgrade as Firefox.  We are talking an operating
system versus an application.  But IBM could take some lessons from,
ahem, IBM or (gasp) HP.  Upgrading either AIX or HP-UX, the upgrade task
scans through many of the configuration files and alerts me as to
changes between what I have and what the shipped version of the file
looks like.  Or to take it one step further, compare the shipped
versions of the config files between the two levels of OS, then compare
the old level of the shipped version with my customized version, and
apply the same customizations to the new version.  That way I would have
a running start at a running system.  As it is, right now I'm in the
middle of the throes of comparing parmlib, proclib, and the like to see
what is new and enhanced and I need to change.

Rex

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:04 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:

>What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point
of
>this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
>excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and
maintaining
>IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh -
wait
>until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
>
Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
its done.

With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 15:30:42 -0800, mw...@ssfcu.org (Ward, Mike S) wrote:

>> One thing lacking that exist for Java, Perl, Ruby, and other such 
>> languages is a HUGE support library. CPAN has so much good stuff in it
>
>> that writing something like a browser in Perl is simple. Try it in
>COBOL. 
>> What COBOL needs is something equivalent to CPAN or the other user and
>
>> vendor supplied support routines. I would shudder to try to write a 
>> browser in COBOL. Because I would have to do it ALL myself. And for 
>> "browser" substitute any advanced "Internet aware" functionality. 
>
>Wait a minute. Remember I said COBOL is good at what it's designed
>for: automating business rules. It was never designed to be a
>language for creating a browser or similar application.

I find that it is hard to nail two boards together with a hacksaw
blade.And using a hammer to turn one board into two leaves
something to be desired.

All-in-one tools are compromises as well.

The days when a programmer can expect a career using one tool are
past.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 30 Nov 2009 14:28:26 -0800, ibm-m...@frozen.eclipse.co.uk (Roy
Hewitt) wrote:

> But what gives the mainframe such a bad name is usually the pile of 40 year 
> apps 
>stuck together running on top of it and our resistance to change.. (oh,  and 
>our morbid fascination 
>with 3270!!)  And why did we get this way?.. well it's what I call the pair of 
>"IBM's double-edged 
>swords".

The new paradigm is that we will always be able to shoehorn objects
into new environments, write once, use forever.

Sometimes we should just start over - but don't believe for a moment
that whatever we start over with will be optimal decades in the
future.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 1 Dec 2009 01:44:52 -0800, r.skoru...@bremultibank.com.pl (R.S.)
wrote:

>Q: Why do you think that new technology means non-mainframe?

I suppose because IBM hasn't done a very good job of marketing itself
to compete with Oracle/Sun/HP/Windows server farms.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Pommier, Rex R.

Ron,

I think your first response was more appropriate, with luck instead of
like.  Freudian slip or finger check or spell checker, the outcome is
still the same.  Running these upgrades on "Winders" is a bit of a cr**
shoot and a whole bunch of luck is involved in making it all work
together at the end.  How many times do we hear horror stories of the
next Windows upgrade or service pack breaking a bunch of applications or
losing video drivers or somehow else making many machines unusable.  Oh
yeah, every time there is an upgrade...

Rex

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Ron Hawkins
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:46 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Should be "Updating Firefox is a bit like..." Damn Spellcheckers - I
should
go back to school and learn to type correctly in the first place :-)

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Ron Hawkins
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
according
> to Accenture
> 
> Gil,
> 
> Updating Firefox is a bit luck updating a program. IEBCOPY and
possibly an
> LLA refresh and your done. Applications are generally easy to maintain
on
> all platforms - even my Blackberry.
> 
> I think comparing an upgrade from 1.9 to 1.10 with an upgrade from XP
to
> Vista would be more appropriate.
> 
> Ron

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

ibm-m...@frozen.eclipse.co.uk (Roy Hewitt) writes:
> applications and systems strung together over 30 or 40 years. The z10s
> are probably one of the most hi-tech bits of kit you'll have in your
> machine room, and z/OS is pretty good too ;-).. But what gives the
> mainframe such a bad name is usually the pile of 40 year apps stuck
> together running on top of it and our resistance to change.. (oh,  and
> our morbid fascination with 3270!!)  And why did we get this
> way?.. well it's what I call the pair of "IBM's double-edged swords".

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

we had been called in to consult with small client/server startup that
wanted to payment transactions on their server; the startup also had
this technology called "SSL" that they wanted to use. the result
is now frequently called "electronic commerce". 

part of the deployment was something called a "payment gateway" ... some
past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway

... which acts as intermediary between electronic commerce webservers on
the internet and the payment infrastructure. The original "payment
gateway" ... was an ha/cmp setup.

at the time, although we had left ... we were still involved in various
aspects of the ha/cmp product
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... in fact, two people at the startup, responsible for the "commerce
server" ... we had worked with earlier during our ha/cmp days ...
this old post mentions a meeting in ellison's conference room that
they were at
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13

In any case, both for ha/cmp product ... some aspects of the payment
gateway deployment ... and various of the large electronic commerce
webserver farms ... that we were brought in to review ... we would
comment that there had to be compensating procedures ... some of which
would have been already there as part of a mainframe infrastructure.

the description that we used was that many of the platforms in use had
evolved up out of interactive environment and tended to default to
presenting an error message to the user whenever anything went wrong
... and relied on the user to take corrective action. the platforms with
a "batch" heritage ... tended to have a higher upfront learning curve
and less user friendly ... but it was part of a paradigm ... that
assumed that the person responsible for the program wasn't there ... and
that there were a lot of heuristics which evolved over a 40yr period to
automagically try and handle all possible things that might go wrong.

there is a marine bumper sticker that is a take-off on "if it has to be
positively, absolutely, delivered overnight" ... but "if it has to be
positively, absolutely, destroyed overnight" ... this is things like
large payrolls and other things ... "if it has to be positively,
absolutely, run overnight" (and repeatedly, time-after-time).

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Paul Gilmartin

On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:29:08 +, Roy Hewitt wrote:
>
>My point was about the structure of the way the system is set up, names etc..  
>I mentioned the fact
>that IBM took years to finally get rid of version numbers in dataset names. 
>Anyone who knew what
>
Java is still burdened with version numbers.  At least they could
support a symlink, without version numbers, to the production version.

>with all this flexibility, but look how complicated and unwieldy it is. Yes, 
>you get to find you way
>  around it eventually, but it must be a nightmare for 1st time users to try 
> and decide what to use
>for names and they have no idea if what they choose is going to make it 
>difficult next time around.
>But what can IBM do now? They have allowed all this flexibility, and now need 
>to support all the
>plethora of dataset names at each and every site. And remember that was my 
>original point.. too much
>flexibility, so much so that it can become a burden.  Wouldn't it be so much 
>easier to know that
>ISP.SISPPENU (et al for the other ~1000 datasets) were called that always and 
>everywhere and you
>
And yet it has been argued here, foolishly, IMO, that site naming
conventions must take priority over vendor naming conventions.
(I believe the argument was, "One must have standards.")

>Take a look at other OS, and I'm not saying their install process is 
>necessarily good, but..and its
>a big but, they each use a standard layout. Maybe it's because nearly every 
>other OS uses a
>hierarchical directory structure, but it certainly makes it a hell of a lot 
>easier to know that when
>
Heck, levels in data set names could be used to simulate a
hierarchy.  Might require JCL symbols to achieve the effect
of "current working directory".

>your looking for xyz, you'll find it in /usr/lib ..etc.. (no pun intended ;-) 
>) or wherever its
>supposed to live.
>
I'll moderate my Firefox example.  Periodically, I go to mozilla.com
and fetch the install package and archive it.  And I do have a few
generations of bootable whole-drive backups.

I'm pondering how to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard because I
now have 3 applications I can't upgrade because of downlevel OS.

-- gil

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Ron Hawkins

Sarcasm - I use heading next time :-)

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> P S
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 6:06 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Now is time for banks to replace core system
according
> to Accenture
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Ron Hawkins
> wrote:
> 
> > Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...
> >
> 
> And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. What's your point?
> Sensitive much? Sheesh.
> 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Guy Gardoit

"stay out of the kitchen" - very well put. Any moron can load Windows,
or update "Firefox" so let's try to make z/OS that way.   Ridiculous and
irrelevant comparison.

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 4:51 AM, Terri E Shaffer <
terri.e.shaf...@jpmchase.com> wrote:

> Ahhh yes,  Lets treat z/OS like windows, then when you get the "blue
> screen" of death I will just tell management to re-ipl and hope it works
> correctly this time, and the error messages are really descriptive on other
> platforms. But hey this logic works for them.  What your discussing is
> philosophy, knowing how a system works and is put together and the pieces
> that make the os work from nip until the first online system comes up is
> what makes a good system programmer, but then in some people eyes they don't
> want to know as long as it ipl's, not all that great for when things don't
> go perfect.  Gooey and clicky applications have their place, but sorry I
> want total flexibility to place datasets where I want and call them fred if
> I desire.  And then maybe catalog some in the mastercatalog and others in
> the usercatalog's on different volumes even. How many times have we heard,
> IBM cannot design for every application and environment. So at best they
> give guidelines and basic rule!
>  s of thumbs.  Your mileage may vary depending on MANY things, so if you
> took defaults w/o understanding shame on you. If someone doesn't understand
> all the pieces, stay out of the kitchen or ask and learn. Also understand
> every install doesn't work in every company... in my 25yrs and 7 different
> companies Ive worked at, small to very large, you have to have that
> flexibility and having 150K mips and 110 lpars with a plethora of
> applications running the world doesn't always turn correctly.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ms. Terri E. Shaffer
> terri.e.shaf...@jpmchase.com
> Engineer
> J.P.Morgan Chase & Co.
> GTI DCT ECS Core Services zSoftware Group / Emerging Technologies
> Office: # 614-213-3467
> Cell: # 412-519-2592
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
> Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 8:04 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
>  Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
> Accenture
>
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:04:44 -0800, Guy Gardoit wrote:
>
> >What?!?   Not sure how'd you define "decent" but I don't see the point of
> >this statement at all.   ServerPac and SMP/E (not to mention HCD) are
> >excellent products.  If you're trying to compare installing and
> maintaining
> >IBM mainframe software to say, Windows, please don't make me laugh - wait
> >until Friday to make nonsense statements like this.
> >
> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
> its done.
>
> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
>
> >On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Roy Hewitt wrote:
> >
> >...snip
> >IBM come up with a decent design on how to install and maintain z/OS
> >...snip
>
> -- gil
>
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> intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of
> any financial instrument or as an official confirmation of any
> transaction. All market prices, data and other information are not
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Paul Gilmartin

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:58:23 -0600, John McKown wrote:
>
>problem is with DASD space. I needed to grab 10 3390-3 volumes for the
>z/OS 1.10 install. And our management here is looking at "wasted" DASD
>space, so I can't keep the volumes around very long.
>
Less than two decades ago, I had to work overtime and save money
to afford a 200 MB external SCSI drive, and I had to ride my
bicycle two miles, uphill both ways, to CompUSA to buy it.
You should be grateful that your management allows you to use
150 times that storage capacity, even temporarily.

>CA is adopting this type of process as well with their Mainframe 2.0. I
>was at the demo and was impressed.
>
I saw their demo at SHARE.  I was impressed particularly that it's
SMP/E under-the-covers, giving the systems programmer access to all
the facilities and artifacts of SMP/E.  I wonder whether they market
it to support IBM and ISV products, also?  Likewise, I wonder whether
the client interface is an off-the-shelf HTTP client, not requiring
installation of an agent on the desktop?

-- gil

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

paulgboul...@aim.com (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
> Less than two decades ago, I had to work overtime and save money
> to afford a 200 MB external SCSI drive, and I had to ride my
> bicycle two miles, uphill both ways, to CompUSA to buy it.
> You should be grateful that your management allows you to use
> 150 times that storage capacity, even temporarily.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#69 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

early days of 3380 ... there was a study that showed if full/active
3350s were moved to same amount of space on 3380s ... it would degrade
system thruput. the issue was that 3380 space increased by a factor
larger than the increase in 3380 arm performance.

there was a suggestion floated around SHARE to have a special "fast"
3380 that sold at higher price ... which only had half as much disk
space (reducing the amount of space under an arm). it was actually a
standard full-sized 3380 with special microcode load that limited access
to only half the cylinders. the share claim was this was solution
targeted at the bureaucrats that didn't have the discipline to do it on
their own (and if they weren't required to pay more ... they wouldn't
appreciate it as much).

internally we had an application that would take activity profile of
existing installation (3330, 3350, etc) and produce a migration strategy
that would load-balance the data across pool of 3380s. for 3350
installation ... it was fairly consistent that the 3380s were only
loaded to about 80% full ... in order to have the same thruput as the
3350 environment. there was then a bunch of work about doing such
activity collection all the time as part of real-time load-balancing
allocation & re-organization.

my brother recently needed to mail me a large amount of data ... and
went out and got a USB terabyte external drive for under $100. I just
did quick online check and there are external USB 1.5terabyte drives on
sale for $99.

-- 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 1 Dec 2009 07:12:07 -0800, rex.pomm...@cnasurety.com (Pommier, Rex
R.) wrote:

>Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
>needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
>it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
>I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
>its done.

And if there is a problem with this upgrade, I can run Safari or
Opera.My work isn't dependent upon Firefox (nor its plug-ins)
working correctly.

I have had troubles upgrading Opera though on my Mac, and I have had
Windows machines at work where I did not have sufficient upgrade
privilege.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Ted MacNEIL

>And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. What's your point?
Sensitive much? Sheesh.

It was sarcasm!
-
Too busy driving to stop for gas!

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread McKown, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Guy Gardoit
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:35 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 
> "stay out of the kitchen" - very well put. Any moron can 
> load Windows,
> or update "Firefox" so let's try to make z/OS that way.   
> Ridiculous and
> irrelevant comparison.

Also, IBM is not in the "mass market" for z/OS. If they were, there'd be a 
"hobbyist" license which allow use of Hercules/390. IBM doesn't want this, for 
whatever reason. Windows attempts to be all things to all people. So there is 
the Enterprise versions all the way down to the home version (which nobody in 
their right mind would consider).

"Any moron can load Windows ...". This is somewhat true (I've heard of people 
who can't!). And what disappoints me is that Linux is trying to be as 
moron-friendly as well (sorry, Ubuntu). They want computers to be like (they 
envision) cars. Anybody who is not mentally challenged can get a drivers 
license. As can any drunkard. Does that mean that they should really be 
driving? I don't think so, but I'm an "elitist snob".

--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV
IT

Administrative Services Group

HealthMarkets(r)

9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010
(817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com * www.HealthMarkets.com

Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain confidential or 
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the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. 
HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten and issued by the 
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MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company.SM

 

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Ed Finnell

 
In a message dated 12/1/2009 12:29:52 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com writes:

Anybody who is not mentally challenged can get a drivers license.  As can 
any drunkard. Does that mean that they should really be driving? I  don't 
think so, but I'm an "elitist snob".


>>
Think it's Bulgaria, first offense for DUI  is Death by firing squad. Just 
have to get their  attention
 
Anybody that's fool enough to think  there's only one way these days is
fairly illiterate or covertly biased.  Guess it was Ted that reminded us 
the one thing we have in common is we're all  different.
 
If you're data processing requirements/IT  plan is not under constant 
review and modernization you probably won't be here  very long.
 
I can still remember staying up weekends  putting on ZAPS from uFiche. And 
I've seen very current MACs that could  talk to every body in the world 
except the adjacent  computer.
 
Anyway, education, imagination, knowledge,  innovation whatever is our
motivation to succeed and make it better.  I love to listen to Marissa 
Mayer at Google. Doesn't look she's old enough to  be a barista but once she 
gets cranking on the 'Omnivorous search engine' it's  pretty impressive.  





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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread HUTCHISON Gregory

Accenture is out for Accenture. 


Hutchison, Gregory A. 
Oregon DOT DMVIS
phone:503-945-7081 
fax:503-945-5220 
gregory.hutchi...@odot.state.or.us 


-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Scott
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 9:58 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

I'm not necessarily arguing for leaving the Mainframe, but cleaning up
the dungheap of COBOL is long overdue and now *is* the time for that.
Accenture is only a company you hire if you want an offshore entity to
cook your books while you bankrupt your stockholders.  Accenture is just
another batch of MBA salesmen, out to plunder anything that's good or
decent in the world.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 9:52 AM, McKown, John
 wrote:

> Well ..., if somebody really wanted to do this, then I'd really 
> recommend the CobolRecordGenerator that comes with z/OS Java SDK 
> (written by the geniuses at Dovetailed Technologies - yes, I'm 
> impressed). Compile your COBOL with ADATA. Use the aforementioned 
> program to read the ADATA and create a Java class with get and set 
> methods to access the fields defined in your COBOL program. I've used 
> the AssemblerRecordGenerator to generate 433 Java classes to access 76

> different SMF records. It was a bit confusing to this Java novice to
learn how to properly use this, but it works for me.
> 
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf 
> Of Scott [sc...@aitrus.org]
> Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:30 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to

> Accenture
>
> With a cheaper job market, now is the time to hire hands to go through

> your massive libraries of copy-and-paste COBOL and begin some initial 
> design/development of Java libraries.
>
> Scott
>
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

howard.bra...@cusys.edu writes:
> And if there is a problem with this upgrade, I can run Safari or
> Opera.My work isn't dependent upon Firefox (nor its plug-ins)
> working correctly.
>
> I have had troubles upgrading Opera though on my Mac, and I have had
> Windows machines at work where I did not have sufficient upgrade
> privilege.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#69 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#70 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

I'm not so much tied to Firefox ... but do have procedure that has
knowledge of Firefox files and uses sqlite to process them. I don't
particularly like system/network latencies.

way back when, I was one of the people that did hardware mods to 3277.
while 3270x were "fast" ... they were still half-duplex (and could have
other processing issues). In "real" interactive paradigm ... it was
possible to be typing concurrently with the screen being written; if you
happen to hit a key while the 3270 screen was being written, the
keyboard would lockup and have to be reset (there was FIFO box that
could be inserted between the keyboard cable and where it plugged into
the 3270 head, that was workaround to keyboard lockup). it was also
possible to do some soldering inside keyboard case to adjust repeat
delay and repeat rate (it was possible to adjust the repeat rate
... like for moving the cursor around the screen ... so it was faster
than the screen refresh rate ... i.e. the cursor could continue moving
after stopped pressing key ... took a little practice to get use to).

and then there was big performance hit moving from (local channel
attached) 3272 to (local channel attached) 3274s; old post with 30yr old
data:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#19 3270 protocol

Using the 3272 and 3274 hardware service numbers and adding them to
typical system service times for the end-user perceived response.

   hardware TSO 1sec.CMS .25sec. CMS .11sec.
3272/3277.0861.086 .336.196
3274/3278.5301.530 .78 .64

... snip ...

there was somebody in the company claiming that they had the best
internal vm/cms service with quarter second response ... I pointed out
to them that I had service with .11sec response and still under quarter
second when taking into account 3272/3277 processing (they were most
unhappy).

in any case, i have line-mode process that uses wget to retrieve pages
from 70-80 news websites ... it then does diff on the previous retrieval
and current retrieval and extracts any remaining URLs. It then double
checks the URLs against the firefox SQLite file to see if the URL has
been retrieved before. Previously unretrieved URLs are sent to firefox
for retrieval in background tabs (there are some heuristics about
time-delays between URLs for the same webserver). I then can browse thru
400-500 tabs w/o annoyance of network latency ... much more akin to
turning pages in a newspaper. I've been doing this from just about the
time of original tab introduction ... back when everything was flat files
... but had to adjust when move was made to SQLite.

Note that firefox has significantly improved its efficiency of using
storage ... but I still have to be careful about going over 100 tabs on
a 1gbyte laptop.

-- 
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Thompson, Steve

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of HUTCHISON Gregory
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:48 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Accenture is out for Accenture. 



I am so glad you brought this up.

Does anyone remember who Accenture was?

And since this is a consulting company, telling people that they need
to... isn't this a bit self-serving? Something akin to Airline
magazines?

Regards,
Steve Thompson

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread R.S.


Guy Gardoit pisze:

"stay out of the kitchen" - very well put. Any moron can load Windows,
or update "Firefox" so let's try to make z/OS that way.   Ridiculous and
irrelevant comparison.


It is simply part of truth. It's not "any moron's" job, rather it's 
being done automatically - any moron only (sometimes) decides to start 
the process.
IMHO z/OS installation is harder than Firefox update on single station, 
but definitely much simpler than upgrade Windows on office workstations. 
Yes, it is more time consuming than single workstation upgrade, but it 
is simpler (for me).
Any moron can run Setup.exe and block ENTER key (to answer Next/Yes). 
What can he do in case of any trouble? What can and admin do in such 
case? (Hint: almost the same as any moron).


My €0.02
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland

P.S. Usually I'm being criticized for expressing criticism of mainframe. 
I think the above is not criticism of mainframe 



--
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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Chase, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Thompson, Steve
> 
> 
> 
> I am so glad you brought this up.
> 
> Does anyone remember who Accenture was?

Arthur Andersen, IIRC.

-jc-

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)

In <4b143c91.2000...@frozen.eclipse.co.uk>, on 11/30/2009
   at 09:43 PM, Roy Hewitt  said:

>I mean, how many times on this list do we keep harping on about how 
>wonderful it was when we had to handcraft our own  IO routine 
>etc etc!!

Who is we? I don't believe that I'm the only one one this list to write
that I would never want to go back to the "good old days."
 
-- 
 Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
 ISO position; see  
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

On 1 Dec 2009 12:03:50 -0800, steve_thomp...@stercomm.com (Thompson,
Steve) wrote:

>I am so glad you brought this up.
>
>Does anyone remember who Accenture was?
>
>And since this is a consulting company, telling people that they need
>to... isn't this a bit self-serving? Something akin to Airline
>magazines?

Oh, yes.   And I remember how I felt about working with them under its
old name.   

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Scott Fagen

On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 10:51:53 -0600, Paul Gilmartin  wrote:

>On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:58:23 -0600, John McKown wrote:
>>CA is adopting this type of process as well with their Mainframe 2.0. I
>>was at the demo and was impressed.
>>
>I saw their demo at SHARE.  I was impressed particularly that it's
>SMP/E under-the-covers, giving the systems programmer access to all
>the facilities and artifacts of SMP/E.  I wonder whether they market
>it to support IBM and ISV products, also?  Likewise, I wonder whether
>the client interface is an off-the-shelf HTTP client, not requiring
>installation of an agent on the desktop?

CA Mainframe Software Manager is entirely resident on your z/OS system.  You
interact with it through IE or Firefox.  There is no client side software to
be installed.

CA MSM can be used to manage any z/OS software delivered through SMP/E that
follows the IBM packaging standards.  That being said, to perform the actual
install of a product (appropriately munge the MCS and RELFILEs into global,
distribution, and target zones) one needs a bunch of data that describes the
end state of the product install.  Typically this is described in JCL used
to drive SMP/E and other utilities.  For CA MSM, we've extended the OASIS
SDD standard to be able to describe the z/OS artifacts so that we can
perform a complete end to end install (for 2009) and deployment (for 2010).
 We are in the process of putting this information together to donate it
back to the standards body.  So, for today, CA MSM can only install the set
of products that we've instrumented with this new "metadata".

This doesn't prevent CA MSM from being able to manage products already
installed in the environment.  You can migrate the CSI into CA MSM and
perform ongoing maintenance to your products.  Additionally, there's nothing
that prevents you from doing "SMP/E in the raw" on CSIs that are also
managed within MSM without causing issues; as stated in previous posts, CA
MSM uses SMP/E to get the job done.

There's more information here (warning that the link also contains pointers
to marketing information): 
http://www.ca.com/us/solutions/collateral.aspx?cid=208504

Scott Fagen
Chief Architect
CA Mainframe Products

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Thomas H Puddicombe

IIRC, Arthur Andersen's consulting group.

Tom Puddicombe
Mainframe Performance & Capacity Planning
CSC

71 Deerfield Rd, Meriden, CT 06450
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From:
"Thompson, Steve" 
To:
IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Date:
12/01/2009 03:03 PM
Subject:
Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture



-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of HUTCHISON Gregory
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:48 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

Accenture is out for Accenture. 



I am so glad you brought this up.

Does anyone remember who Accenture was?

And since this is a consulting company, telling people that they need
to... isn't this a bit self-serving? Something akin to Airline
magazines?

Regards,
Steve Thompson

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Schumacher, Otto

That was the company that recommended the worlds largest Textile firm JP 
Stevens divide up into divisional companies. There are only a one or two of 
those companies left the rest when bankrupt. They really hurt a large number of 
people. 

Regards

HP Enterprise Services 
Infrastructure Specialist 
Ahold Account
CICS & Capacity Technical Support
P.O. Box 6462
2000 Wade Hampton Blvd.
LC1-302 
Greenville,  South Carolina, 29606
Cell: 864 449 1755
Tel: 864 987-1417
Fax: 864 987-4500
E-mail: otto.schumac...@hp.com
 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of 
Chase, John
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 15:32
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Thompson, Steve
> 
> 
> 
> I am so glad you brought this up.
> 
> Does anyone remember who Accenture was?

Arthur Andersen, IIRC.

-jc-

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-01 Thread Thompson, Steve

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Chase, John
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 2:32 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to
Accenture

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Thompson, Steve
> 
> 
> 
> I am so glad you brought this up.
> 
> Does anyone remember who Accenture was?

Arthur Andersen, IIRC.


Arthur Anderson Consulting, and one should then ask/remember why they
changed their name. Then look at their recommendations accordingly.

Regards,
Steve Thompson

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture


-

<><>People don't need college to learn Java. Java's available for 
free, it handles the kind of applications an amateur knows & likes to 
play with, and it is easy to find help on the Web.


<><>People don't need college to learn brain surgery, either, though 
the results MAY be better. I'd actually not argue for "college", but 
for mature, skilled OJT. The problem with all too much code on all 
sides of the fence is folks who have no training and just hack things 
together.


--
I studied brain surgery once, but never figured out how to get my chain 
saw into those exceeding small spaces where most politicians store what 
passes for brains. :-)


Considering what we've got here in Illinois, I'm not sure a needle could 
find the "Sense of Integrity" center; I'm sure the "Ethics gene" is 
completely absent. :-)


Rick

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture


--:


Accenture is saying that now might be the time for banks to replace
their core systems and retool to new technology.  They don't actually
say it, but it sounds to me like their saying that big banks should get
off the mainframe.   comments?



Comment: Their banking system (Alnova, formerly Altamira) is mainframe 
based. Actually z/OS.
I strongly doubt they want to convince their own customers to get rid 
off their product.


Q: Why do you think that new technology means non-mainframe?



Whether "new technology" means new software, or a complete "sweep the 
floor" exercise, massive changes in business-critical applications and 
support code should be made incrementally. There's just no sense at all 
in putting the entire business at risk by making massive changes. Any 
changes need to be planned carefully, with backout and contingency 
plans, including "disaster recovery" plans.


Just my opinion..

Rick

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture


-


I just believe that's the way CEOs and CIOs will read it.  Most of them really 
think that the mainframe, especially using z/OS, is old technology even with 
the changes that have been put in place.

I really love this board.  I post a link to a article about Accenture 
recommending that banks retool their core system to new technology and we get 
into a discussion of COBOL vs JAVA and other areas and finally get back to the 
original topic.  Mind, I'm not complaining.  It's all been a fun read.
 


--
Tom, in one sense you may be right; CEO's and CIO's usually, though not 
always, think of "new technology" as the latest upgrades for that box on 
the desk; you know, the one with the keyboard, mouse and monitor plugged 
into the back. And unfortunately, all too often they owe their positions 
to another position: kneeling behind someone else. But remember that the 
term "new technology" can cover a whole ocean of changes, some good and 
others not so good. It's the technicians, like us, that have to try to 
educate some of these overpaid fools.


Rick

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture





Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...
   



And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. What's your point?
Sensitive much? Sheesh.
 


---
I gave up a promising(???) career in Physics to follow this trade. I 
think I made a better choice here; I sure had a lot more fun!


Rick

P.S. Anybody doing any linked-list processing in 64-bit space? Having 
trouble comparing link keys to find insertion points.


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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture


-

I mean, how many times on this list do we keep harping on about how 
wonderful it was when we had to handcraft our own  IO routine 
etc etc!!
   



Who is we? I don't believe that I'm the only one one this list to write
that I would never want to go back to the "good old days."
 



I wouldn't mind looking back at the "good old days", but only for 
hysterical purposes. SIO/TIO/HIO are NOT areas I would care to revisit 
for any productive purpose. :-)


Rick


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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread R.S.


Chase, John pisze:

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Thompson, Steve



I am so glad you brought this up.

Does anyone remember who Accenture was?


Arthur Andersen, IIRC.


No. Former name of Accenture was Andersen Consulting (www.ac.com), not 
Arthur Andersen.

It was separate entity lng time before Enron bankrupcy.

--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland


--
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nr rejestru przedsibiorców KRS 025237

NIP: 526-021-50-88
Wedug stanu na dzie 01.01.2009 r. kapita zakadowy BRE Banku SA (w caoci 
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podwyszenia kapitau zakadowego, na podstawie uchway XXI WZ z dnia 16 marca 
2008r., oraz uchway XVI NWZ z dnia 27 padziernika 2008r., moe ulec 
podwyszeniu do kwoty 123.763.528 z. Akcje w podwyszonym kapitale zakadowym 
BRE Banku SA bd w caoci opacone.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread McKown, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 9:38 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 
> In <4b143c91.2000...@frozen.eclipse.co.uk>, on 11/30/2009
>at 09:43 PM, Roy Hewitt  said:
> 
> >I mean, how many times on this list do we keep harping on about how 
> >wonderful it was when we had to handcraft our own  IO routine 
> >etc etc!!
> 
> Who is we? I don't believe that I'm the only one one this 
> list to write
> that I would never want to go back to the "good old days."
>  
> -- 
>  Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT

What! You don't fondly remember the joys of running a Stage 1 / Stage 2 sysgen? 
How you could be productive for HOURS by just sitting and monitoring their 
execution? Or doing an EDT gen by "throwing away" jobs and steps from the Stage 
2? HCD makes that "so easy a caveman can do it" (sm). That was when "men were 
men" and grrls weren't allowed into the sanctified areas of DP.  (please 
don't kill me, ladies! It was a joke, honest.)

--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV
IT

Administrative Services Group

HealthMarkets(r)

9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010
(817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com * www.HealthMarkets.com

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Mark Yuhas

While this discussion has evolved into a discourse on HLLs and library
support, I would like to make an observation.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Accenture was Arthur Anderson
Consulting.  My company contracted with them to assess the status of our
technology and its direction.  While it was a foregone conclusion they
would recommend a shift to UNIX, I was totally underwhelmed by the
'mainframe acumen' of their staff.  Arthur Anderson used this venture as
an OJT exercise for their staff.  Their staff probably just finished
their BA and or equivalent thereof which included a working knowledge of
Windows and the Internet.   Further, the vast majority of their survey
and results came from cutting and pasting from articles on the Internet.

My conclusion is that Accenture probably doesn't has a dwindling staff
to support a mainframe system and/or application.  But, what it does
have is a group of young, eager non-mainframe people and if they can
convince banks to move off of the mainframe, they've got business. 

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread McKown, John

> -Original Message-
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List 
> [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Fochtman
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 6:55 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system 
> according to Accenture
> 
> 
> 
> >>Gee, I didn't finish High School. Better slit my throat now...
> >>
> >>
> >
> >And I dropped out of college, twice, never finished. What's 
> your point?
> >Sensitive much? Sheesh.
> >  
> >
> ---
> I gave up a promising(???) career in Physics to follow this trade. I 
> think I made a better choice here; I sure had a lot more fun!
> 
> Rick
> 
> P.S. Anybody doing any linked-list processing in 64-bit space? Having 
> trouble comparing link keys to find insertion points.

What kind of problems?

--
John McKown 
Systems Engineer IV
IT

Administrative Services Group

HealthMarkets(r)

9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010
(817) 255-3225 phone * (817)-961-6183 cell
john.mck...@healthmarkets.com * www.HealthMarkets.com

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Martin Kline

Mark Yuhas said:
>A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Accenture was Arthur Anderson 
>Consulting.  My company contracted with them to assess the status of our 
>technology and its direction.  While it was a foregone conclusion they would 
>recommend a shift to UNIX, I was totally underwhelmed by the 'mainframe 
>acumen' of their staff.  Arthur Anderson used this venture as an OJT exercise 
>for their staff.  Their staff probably just finished their BA and or 
>equivalent 
>thereof which included a working knowledge of
>Windows and the Internet.   Further, the vast majority of their survey
>and results came from cutting and pasting from articles on the Internet.

Wow. I don't recognize your name, but I went through exactly the same 
experience with the woefully inexperienced staff from AA. They burned $35M 
of the company's money before being booted out the door. Yet, they were 
such good salesmen, that management refused to listen to us techies when 
we complained about AA's incompetence.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

john.mck...@healthmarkets.com (McKown, John) writes:
> What! You don't fondly remember the joys of running a Stage 1 / Stage
> 2 sysgen? How you could be productive for HOURS by just sitting and
> monitoring their execution? Or doing an EDT gen by "throwing away"
> jobs and steps from the Stage 2? HCD makes that "so easy a caveman can
> do it" (sm). That was when "men were men" and grrls weren't allowed
> into the sanctified areas of DP.  (please don't kill me, ladies!
> It was a joke, honest.)

undergraduate in the 60s ... i worked out being able to do sysgen in
production jobstream ... it required some stand alone fiddling and some
other stuff. I took the output of stage1 sysgen and reworked the steps
into individual jobs (and other stuff). I also re-arranged the steps and
frequently move/copy statements within steps ... in order to optimally
place datasets & members within PDS ... for optimized arm motion.  for
typical student academic workload ... I was able to increase thruput by
a factor of three times (in large part because of reduced arm
motion). problem was that typical system maintenance over period of six
months or so ... "replacing" (critical) PDS members (and messing up
careful ordering) ... would reduce increased thruput to less than two
times ... sometimes eventually motivating a careful rebuild.

the problem was that univ. student workload had run tape-to-tape on 709
ibsys monitor. moving to 360/65 (actually 360/67 but running
non-relocate) under os/360 ... went from subsecond per student job to
over minute per student job (unit record & multiple step job scheduler).
installing hasp got it down to something over 30 seconds (effectively
multiple step job scheduling ... extremely disk i/o intensive).
eventually when 360 watfor became available ... the issue was
significantly improved.

part of old presentation at '68 boston share:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#18 CP/67 & OS MFT14

(virtual machine) cp/67 had been installed at the univ. jan68. I got to
play with it on weekends ... but the univ. continued to run "bare
machine" os/360 production during the week. between jan68 and the boston
share meeting ... i was able to rewrite large portions of cp/67 during
my weekend play periods (although that was also when I had to some
amount of support & maint for the production os/360 system).

the above presentation mentions thruput improvement of os/360 under
cp/67 (mostly because of cp67 pathlength reductions part of my cp/67
rewrites) ... but also mentions some of the stuff I was doing for
os/360. other stuff done for cp/67 was things like ordered arm seek and
lots of algorithm work (it made little difference for os/360 batch
process ... but contributed to handling multiple cms workload).

misc. other posts in this thread:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#69 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#70 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#72 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)

In <52bc4b80912010934w67887d68u6cc96a670a3ac...@mail.gmail.com>, on
12/01/2009
   at 09:34 AM, Guy Gardoit  said:

>Any moron can load Windows,

Any moron can buy a box with windoze preinstalled. Loading it yourself is
another matter.
 
-- 
 Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
 ISO position; see  
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread P S

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Martin Kline  wrote:

> Wow. I don't recognize your name, but I went through exactly the same
> experience with the woefully inexperienced staff from AA. They burned $35M
> of the company's money before being booted out the door. Yet, they were
> such good salesmen, that management refused to listen to us techies when
> we complained about AA's incompetence.
>

And this differs from most (NOT all) consulting experiences how?

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Howard Brazee

On 02 Dec 09 08:18:10 -0800, "Charlie Gibbs" 
wrote:

>This is why I tell people that "interactive" is a synonym for "manual".
>It stops a lot of GUI enthusiasts dead in their tracks, at least for
>a few seconds.

I'll have to remember that.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

rfocht...@ync.net (Rick Fochtman) writes:
> I wouldn't mind looking back at the "good old days", but only for
> hysterical purposes. SIO/TIO/HIO are NOT areas I would care to revisit
> for any productive purpose. :-)

part of the redo of sio/tio/hio for xa (aka "811" for the nov78 date on
the documents) was the enormous pathlengths in mvs ... being able to
redrive queued i/o after completion of previous i/o.

this showed up when i redid i/o supervisor for disk engineering labs.
the disk engineering labs had tried doing development work under mvs
... but found that it was a 15min mean-time-to-failure ... even with
single testcell. i redid i/o supervisor to never fail ... so that
multiple testcells (disk development) could be exercised concurrently
... happen to mention the MVS 15min mtbf in purely internal report which
brought down the wrath of the mvs organization on me (when I 1st took
the call, i thot it was going to be about helping fix all the problems,
but it was one of those calls getting told that I wasn't allowed to even
mention such things in purely internal discussions).

in any case, i got a call one monday morning asking what did i do to the
3033 system in the disk product test lab (bldg. 15) over the weekend
... that their performance went all to pieces. turns out i did nothing
... but they had replaced a 3830 controller (for 16 3330 drives) with
brandnew 3880 controller over the weekend. diagnosing the problem turns
out that the increased pathlength in the 3880 was so long ... that the
3880 (in order to meet performance specs) was presenting operation
finished interrupt slightly early (before everything was completely
clean up). My redrive pathlength was then so short ... that I was
hitting the 3880 controller with the next queued request ... while it
was still busy finishing cleaning up the previous operation. it was then
forced to present CC=1, SM+BUSY (controller busy) to the SIO ... and
then later present CUE interrupt (and the system had to requeue the
operation and wait for the CUE). This drove up system overhead and
reduced overall system thruput (by enormous amount ... compared to 3830
which I was running at very high rate).

all of this was because I had been able to move the (stand-alone) disk
testing in bldgs. 14 & 15 ... into operating system environment ... and
since the testing only accounted for 1-2% cpu utilization ... they then
started also using the machines for lots of other stuff. misc. past
posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs. 14&15
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

the 3880 had already passed its performance/thruput acceptance tests
when this occured ... but fortunately it was still 6months before
first-customer-ship ... so there was time to do additional fiddling in
the 3880 controller.

the other issue with the SIO/TIO/HIO and asynchronous interrupt paradigm
... besides wanting to quickly being able to do device redrive as
quickly as possible (after completion of previous operation) was the
havoc that asynchronous interrupts had on cache hit ratios (high
interrupt rates could cut some cache hit rates significantly
... swithing back and forth between interrupt processing and application
programming). I was also providing highly specialized systems for HONE
(internal vm370 online system provided world-wide sales & marketing
support). Large percentage of the applications were implemented in (cms)
APL and as result were fairly processor hungry (in addition to doing
lots of I/O). At one point they had opportunity to upgrade their
loosely-coupled (single-system image) 370 operation to APs
(multiprocessor configuration with 2nd processor that didn't have any
channels). Normal 370 multiprocessor slowed the processor cycle by 10%
for part of the (multiprocessor) cross-cache interactions. So a
two-processor 370 ... started out as 1.8 times that of a single
processor (multiprocessor software overhead could cut actual thruput to
1.3-1.5 times that of single processor).  misc. past posts mentioning
multiprocessor support
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#smp

For the AP multiprocessor support, I did some slight of hand ... and was
getting better than twice the thruput of single processor ... because of
significantly improved cache hit ratio of the processor w/o channels
... which way more than compensated for reduction of cache hit ratio of
the other processor attempting to do twice as much I/O on single set of
channels. misc.  past posts mentioning online world-wide marketing &
sales support 
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

Jan75 ... company was starting to deal with future system being failure
... and 370 wasn't going to be killed off
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I had continued to do 360/370 stuff all during the future system period
... I was caustic of their ability to pull stu

Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Howard Brazee

On 1 Dec 2009 13:59:08 -0800, shmuel+ibm-m...@patriot.net (Shmuel Metz
, Seymour J.) wrote:

>Who is we? I don't believe that I'm the only one one this list to write
>that I would never want to go back to the "good old days."

I don't know of anybody who wants everything that went with those
days.

But we do complain about how complex things have gotten, how we have
far more people working on infrastructure instead of applications, and
how vulnerabilities have increased.

This is kind of wishing we could work on our cars the same way as we
worked on the 1958 Chevy.That way of life for teens is pretty much
gone - but our cars are better now.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Howard Brazee

On 2 Dec 2009 00:17:46 -0800, r.skoru...@bremultibank.com.pl (R.S.)
wrote:

>>> Does anyone remember who Accenture was?
>> 
>> Arthur Andersen, IIRC.
>
>No. Former name of Accenture was Andersen Consulting (www.ac.com), not 
>Arthur Andersen.
>It was separate entity lng time before Enron bankrupcy.

If Accenture was Anderson Consulting and Anderson Consulting was
Arthur Anderson, then Accenture was Arthur Anderson.

I've worked with people who said they were one, and with people who
said they were the other.

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.

Pierre Fichaud  writes:
> Most banks have SLAs with acquiring institutions like FirstData,etc as 
> far as transaction turnaround times are concerned. The acquirer gets the 
> VISA transaction and hands it off to VisaNet. VisaNet routes it to your 
> bank. Your bank processes the transaction and returns a yea or a nay to 
> VisaNet. VisaNet gets it to the acquirer and the acquirer eventually 
> returns the transaction to your terminal. There are SLAs covering all 
> aspects of this itinerary. Most  banks are NOT going to switch from 
> mainframes to mid-range machines.  The banks must meet their SLAs. 
> Otherwise, penalties are involved.
>
> I can't see the largest banks in the world switching. They are 
> processing thousands of transactions per minute.
>
> Inherent in all of this processing and communications is cryptography. 
> every is supposed to be sent securely. So each participant that touches 
> the transaction is required to do crytpographic processing. This adds to 
> the path length substantially.

the card associates put in "value-added-networks" in the early days of
plastic magstripe payment cards ... to interconnect a huge assortment of
processors (with lots of non "on-us" transactions between merchant
acquirers and consumer issuers).

by the early part of this decade, there was some comment that 90% of the
transactions (in the US) were being done in six datacenters (combination
of bank consolidations and outsourcing) ... which had their own direct
interconnects. this resulted in some legal action between the parties
and card associations ... which had somewhat moved from being a brand to
using their "value-added-networks" as profit making operation. part of
the merchant interchange fee is for use of the association networks to
interconnect institutions when it isn't an "on-us" transactions ... even
when the acquiring institution processing has been outsourced and is
running on the same exact computer as the "outsourced" issuing
institution processing ... and never even remotely touches an
association network).

old reference (just the first data part of the overall issue):
http://www.paymentsnews.com/2006/08/visa_usa_first_.html
another reference:
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=1009

as referenced in previous post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#69 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

we had been brought in to help do what has come to be called "electronic
commerce". somewhat as a result, in the mid-90s we were asked to
participate in the x9a10 financial standard working group ... which had
been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial
infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments (*ALL* as in credit, debit,
ACH, stored-value, giftcard, point-of-sale, internet, face-to-face,
unattended, low-value, high-value, transit turnstyle, aka *ALL*). as
part of that we did some detailed end-to-end threat & vulnerability
studies of the various environments ... as part of coming up with the
x9.59 standard ... some refs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

one of the things observed in the x9a10 detailed studies was that
account numbers and transaction details are required in possibly dozens
of business processes that go on at tens of millions of locations around
the world ... and any approach to "hide" such information can never be
completely succesful.  So x9.59 transaction standard slight tweaked the
paradigm and eliminated (crooks) being able to use account number and/or
information from previous transactions, for fraudulent transactions
(x9.59 does nothing to encrypt or hide the information ... it just
eliminates the requirement to encrypt or hide the information).

misc. other posts in this thread:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#67 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#68 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#70 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#72 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#73 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#74 Now is time for banks to replace core 
system according to Accenture

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Kim Goldenberg


R.S. wrote:

And Andersen Consulting is (was) not Arthur Andersen.

According to the Accenture item in Wikipedia, It was once part of Arthur 
Andersen. See the article for more information as to how the name became 
Accenture.


KG

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread HUTCHISON Gregory

You can change the name but crooks remain crooks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture

Accenture originated as the business and technology consulting division of 
accounting firm Arthur Andersen. 
.
.
In 1989, that division split from Arthur Andersen and began using the name 
Andersen Consulting. 

Hutchison, Gregory A. 
Oregon DOT DMVIS
phone:503-945-7081 
fax:503-945-5220 
gregory.hutchi...@odot.state.or.us 

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of 
R.S.
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 1:43 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

Howard Brazee pisze:
> On 2 Dec 2009 00:17:46 -0800, r.skoru...@would you snip my 
> address.com? (R.S.)
> wrote:
> 
>>>> Does anyone remember who Accenture was?
>>> Arthur Andersen, IIRC.
>> No. Former name of Accenture was Andersen Consulting (www.ac.com), 
>> not Arthur Andersen.
>> It was separate entity lng time before Enron bankrupcy.
> 
> If Accenture was Anderson Consulting and Anderson Consulting was 
> Arthur Anderson, then Accenture was Arthur Anderson.
> 
> I've worked with people who said they were one, and with people who 
> said they were the other.

My English is poor, but I strongly believe it is not something proper or even 
kind to change someone's name. Andersen is not Anderson.
And Andersen Consulting is (was) not Arthur Andersen.
Just like Amdahl/Oracle/Storagetek is not IBM. Puma is not Adidas.

Disclaimer: I just share information I have. I didn't say nothing good or bad 
about AC or any other company. I do not work for any of them.

-- 
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Ed Finnell

Depends on where the filler cap and timing chain is. I tried it on a 190d
and it was real messy. Guess if you were careful could pour it down the 
dipstick...

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture

2009-12-02 Thread Arthur Gutowski

On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:29:42 -0600, Chase, John  
wrote:

>> -Original Message-
>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
>>
>> Hardly nonsense.  On Win or Mac, when Firefox tells me it
>> needs an update, I click on "Update".  A few minutes later,
>> it tells me to restart Firefox to activate the update.
>> I click "Restart Firefox" to warmstart.  Two clicks and
>> its done.
>>
>> With ServerPac and SMP/E ... ?
>
>Isn't that a bit like comparing, say, changing the oil in your car to
>changing the airspace around O'Hare airport?

To me, more like trying to change the oil while the car is still running (the 
infamous "unpredictable results").  Though, my brother the mechanic tells me 
they do not turn off diesel engines in Alaska to perform an oil change...

Art Gutowski
Ford Motor Company

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Re: Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture