RE: V5R2 Quality - Notes from the field needed

>From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
>...and a crash (casters-up being an interesting term - does this mean a 
>front-panel halt?  If so, which one?), we're now worrying 
>about quality control?

Specifically, APAR MA27098, with PTF MF30555 to fix it. I don't see that PTF
on the support site, so it must be one of those "internal only" PTFs.
Something I find interesting, in OS/400 where one job "can't possibly effect
another job" it's two jobs doing the same thing that cause the problem.

I know this might not happen to anyone else (actually per IBM we were the
3rd to report it) but when it happens to a customer that customer doesn't
like it. On a macro-level it's ok to say "sure there are bugs. But it
doesn't effect many people" and I agree with that on a macro level. However,
for a specific customer when it happens to them it matters, when it happens
to anyone else it doesn't.

Oh, and in the APAR where it says "...and possibly the system to stop" we've
experience this condition once and we've stoped once, so "possibly" means
100% in our client's case <G>

To quote from the APAR:

Problem Summary
There is a database race condition that exists when multiple
jobs run the same SQL query at the same time AND that query is
producing data mapping errors.  Data mapping errors occur when
either the query is performing an operation whose result may be
in error, for example a divide by zero, or if some numeric data
in the underlying file is not valid numeric data.  The race
condition occurs when 2 or more jobs attempt to get the mapping
error information at the same time.  Encountering the race
condition can cause queries to fail and possibly the system to
stop.
Additional Symptoms:
SRCB6000317 SRCB4604491

Problem Conclusion
This ptf eliminates the race condition by gating access to the
information needed for the mapping error to one job at a time.

-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
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WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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