Re: need to learn AS/400 hardware & OS features

If the VP is willing, you might angle for IBM Education Card in which you 
basically pay one time the price for like 3 classes & then get to go to 
unlimited number, provided you able to get away from the company to attend 
them.  Alternatively there is COMMON & the IBM Hosted AS/400 technical 
conferences.

http://www.training.ibm.com/ibmedu/spotlight/as400.html
http://www.common.org
http://www.ibmguide.com/k0fe2b/as400/?1F2X804DNE6
http://www-3.ibm.com/services/learning/lsweb/educationcenters/

Review current security policies 
http://www.as400.ibm.com/tstudio/secure1/index_av.htm

Review current workload & performance
http://www.as400.ibm.com/configure/Welcome.htm

See if you can find corporate sizing questionairres & bring them up to date

What kind of downtime are you now suffering & what tech support places do you 
use to react to that downtime.  We have IBM CE support on core IBM resources, 
like the hard drives, but we are using non-IBM communications gear & have in 
the past had an extra modem in closet, so when modem goes down, plug in the 
extra & send the busted one off to the warranty shop for alleged 48 hour 
turn-around but in reality a bit longer.  Our philosophy is zero downtime ... 
unplanned downtime is not tolerated, except when it is on cheap PC junk that 
some management decided we needed.

Locate IBM home pages & documentation sites for each of the major application 
areas relevant to you
http://www.as400.ibm.com/clientaccess/
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com
http://www.as400.ibm.com/db2/db2main.htm

Review http://www.midrange.com what other lists you might want to be on & do 
not forget the archives http://archive.midrange.com of past postings

Visit AS/400 network & check out the communities other than programming.
Visit AS/400 network compettion such as 
http://www.as400magazine.com
http://www.midrangecomputing.com/forums/
http://www.as400journal.com/
aol://5863:126/comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

Somewhere there should be a subscription to back issues of News/400 at your 
site, but all those articles are accessible on-line ... you might start with 
what has been added with each release.  Another release announcement is 
imminent.  Your local IBM partners should be doing some kind of seminar to 
explain the significance of those new things ... see if you & the VP can 
attend such overview seminars so that you stay current with knowledge of 
state of AS/400 (i Series) technology & capability advances, so you can pick 
& choose which of them are important to your company.

Is there an AS/400 user group in your neck of the woods?

> From: danda400man@yahoo.com (DanDaFourOOMan)
>  
>  I have decided to accept an offer to change from my
>  current P/A position to a Sys Admin position within my
>  company.  There are several reasons for doing so, but
>  primarily, they have offered me to take "ownership" of
>  the AS/400 environment.  Through some new, fresh blood
>  in the management team partly due to a reorg, they are
>  looking to do a clean sweep of all our "old" AS/400
>  equipment and replace with new AS/400s.  Currently, we
>  have a development AS/400 and a QA/Production AS/400
>  in our corporate headquarters and one AS/400 in each
>  of our four plants.  (We are also an IBM mainframe and
>  Unix-Oracle shop.)  The VP (new to the company) in
>  charge of this aspect of our company has voiced
>  concerns regarding the reliability issues of old
>  equipment and our ability to get replacement parts on
>  a TIMELY basis so that we suffer only minimal
>  downtime.  He is vaguely familiar with the AS/400 and
>  in his previous employment managed a shop that
>  included AS/400s; he has a good impression of the
>  AS/400 and knows generally of the reliability of the
>  platform that most of us take for granted.
>  
>  Personally, I see this as an opportunity to champion
>  the AS/400 and promote new uses that were either
>  unavailable or not well suited with the old equipment.
>   The lowest common denominator has been our V3R2
>  development box, which has been a real PITA as far as
>  trying to exploit current AS/400 features.
>  
>  While I have other questions that I will ask in
>  separate postings, I would like to hear your
>  suggestions as to how I might get up to speed on the
>  latest AS/400 technologies, both hardware features and
>  OS features.  I have been out of that loop since I
>  have had no responsibilities over the past several
>  years involving AS/400 hardware and OS issues,
>  strictly in a P/A role.  Now I need to catch up.  Oh,
>  BTW, I have been in the IBM midrange for over 15 years
>  and have been on the AS/400 since its inception.  I
>  subscribe to AS/400 network, but, to tell the truth,
>  have paid most of my attention to the programming
>  articles.  Guess I better get to reading my old
>  issues, eh?

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
AS/400 Data Manager & Programmer for BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 mixed mode (twinax 
interactive & batch) @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies - fax # 812-424-6838

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