Re: Need for regular IPL's

Paul E Musselman wrote::
>Although our AS/400 seldom sleeps, I encourage all PC users to power off
>their machines.  My reasons:  (1) 8-16 hours of wear and tear on the
moving
>parts saved  (2) 8-16 hours of electricity saved (3) tends to avoid those
>lightning storms overnight (4) re-connects the PC to the AS/400 after we
IPL
>(weekly) and avoids all those "My PC is locked up / I can't sign on"  (5)
>Each PC powered off is one less left signed-on and open to the public.

One of my previous bosses told me he did an experiment within his company,
leaving PCs powered on all the time.  He found that not having them reboot
every day resulted in a reduction for repair needs (there is wear and tear
during boot up) which more than compensated for the small amount of
electricity used.  When the pc is not in use, I think there should be
little, if any movement of physical parts other than the cooling fan(s).

3) I think if the system is plugged in during a lightning storm or other
MAJOR  power surge,  it's at risk whether it's powered on or not. (Someone
correct me if I'm wrong here!)  Use good of a good power protection (UPS
etc) system or unplugging every night (but that's asking a lot of your
users) should provide protection.  One place I worked at had a vital part
of the AS/400's external UPS blown by a (non-lightning) huge power surge. 
The UPS was unusable for a few days (parts shortage-others had the same
problem!) but the AS/400 was fine, and we wound up bypassing the UPS and
using 'raw' power until it was repaired.

4) I can appreciate this point!
5) You can (and should) kill inactive interactive jobs.  It's not necessary
to rely on the PC users to do this.

-Ilena Ayala
Barsa Consulting Group
(The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employer,
except when they are ;-) .)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* This is the Midrange System Mailing List!  To submit a new message,   *
* send your mail to "MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com".  To unsubscribe from     *
* this list send email to MAJORDOMO@midrange.com and specify            *
* 'unsubscribe MIDRANGE-L' in the body of your message.  Questions      *
* should be directed to the list owner / operator: david@midrange.com   *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *