Re: AS/400 Systems Programming

>Hello

>I'm new to the list, just got signed up today.

>I'm an old mainframe systems programmer, been working with IBM 
>mainframes since 1970. Our present system is a 9672-R21 (about 29 
>MIPS) with 512M of main storage.

>The powers that be have decided to down/right-size us to an 
>AS/400, model not determined yet but at least as powerful a 
>machine as our present 9672. The cut-over will be phased in over 
>the next 2 years.

This was my situation also back in the early 90's.

>My function in all of this is as yet uncertain, but it appears as 
>though I will be doing essentially the same functions I perform now, 
>installing new releases of the operating system, putting on PTF's, 
>tuning, backups, supporting the programmers. In addition, we will be 
>phasing out the operations department, and so I will be taking over 
>their functions, mounting tapes, setting up the schedule for batch 
>jobs, etc.

>My question is, are there any of you that have gone this route? 
>What difficulties/obstacles did you encounter? Do you have enough 
>to do now to keep you busy? What training did you have?

The AS/400 was sold to my company as a machine that didn't need any systems 
programmers.  But we rapidly found out that if you were large enough to 
require systems programmers for the mainframe, you'll need the same type of 
expertise for the AS/400.  We are *never* bored.  

Some of what I do:

OS (and vendor software) installs, installing PTF tapes, problem 
diagnosis/resolution with IBM, performance tuning, some network stuff, 
capacity planning, work management (i.e., what jobs run in what subsystems and 
in what job queues at what priority and with what storage and with what run 
characteristics), security, PC interfaces (terminal emulation, ODBC, etc).  
Sounds really familiar, I hope!  

>There are some functions we perform now that I am not sure how we 
>will be able to do on the AS/400. For example, we have a product 
>called DFHSM, which migrates files to tape if they have been unused 
>for a given length of time. Is there a facility to do this on an 
>AS/400? Also, how do you handle report distribution? We presently 
>have a product called INFOPAC (from Mobius) that handles this.

I have not seen anything like DFHSM.  Most shops run the AS/400 as a disk only 
system except for backups.  The concept of reading/writing a tape in a program 
is almost unheard of.  Maybe something like DFHSM exists (or should exist) if 
you have a lot of unused data, but this is not usually a big problem. 

There are quite a few report distribution packages (by Help Systems, Broderick, 
etc).  Mobius is getting into the market, but last time I saw their Infopac/RDS 
product it really had no AS/400 interface; you were expected to get your output 
from the AS/400 to a LAN yourself, and then it would take it from there.

>Thanks much for your help.
>Garnet MacPhee
>Senior Systems Programmer
>Kansas City School District


Scott Lindstrom
Zenith Electronics
+---
| 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
+---