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----- Original Message ----- From: <RickCarter@holley.com> To: <bpcs-l@midrange.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 9:21 AM Subject: Re: Invoice Billing Process > > All of this sounds facinating if you've got time to anlayze every job in > the BPCS system or if you want to hire BPCS consultants on a full time > basis. <snip> ........................ > Whatever happened to the days when a job ran the most efficient > it could without worrying about all of the outside factors. I guess those > where the days when AS400 jobs were written in RPG or Cobol and not ASSET. .............................<snip> > I do remember > when this process ran in about 20-30 minutes but frankly I can't remember > the number of invoices that were being generated then. My point to this > email, is none, other than I get tired of seeing all the ' if this or > maybe that, or this could be.... or whatever. No one really knows how to > make this system perform all the time, its a constant effort to keep the > wheels on especially if you like to stay current with IBM updates, etc. Hello, I will assume you mean the underlying programs, rather than jobs, as regards the programming language. AS/SET is not a programming language. It is a development tool, rather than a programming language. BPCS application programs on the AS/400 are mostly generated into the RPG or ILE RPG language from the AS/SET tool. AS/SET has absolutely nothing to do with the method of database access for BPCS, as it is fully capable of creating native RPG file reads and updates in RPG. However, most file I/O statements in BPCS programs on the AS/400 were replaced from the native RPG file I/O to embedded SQL statements at V6.x. As I mentioned, if you have OGS support you are more than welcome to call in any specific program performance issues to the SSA GT Support Center and let them investigate. This would be considered a valid support issue if the time per-invoice has increased. You can also address performance changes which you feel are due to changes in operating system levels or PTFs, to the IBM Support Line. If you want overall system tuning, then call a consultant to come out and do that. Then you wouldn't have to take the time out of your schedule to read all the suggestions in response to your posting, the lack of which you at first complained about. The description of the problem you face is somewhat undefined, and you mentioned that you are not even certain if you have a performance problem, as you do not know how many invoices were processed in previous billing runs, when your total time was on average faster. I trust that somewhere you have stored history files where perhaps you could research this so that you know if you even have a problem to fix, or are simply doing better business and are processing more invoices? I often find that the desire for a 'magic bullet' answer to a very general question is an unreasonable expectation, and that could be why you have so many varied suggestions coming your way which are, apparently, frustrating to you. As regards the request for a 'base group of logicals' -- these exist already. They are delivered with BPCS at the time our product is released. If we are missing some commonly required logicals, we endeavor to identify and deliver those via performance enhancement BMRs. If the operating system changes after BPCS is released, and this causes a change in one or more of our programs' performance, we can either fix things via a BMR, or if we find that a bug was introduced into SQL at the new OS release, we can work with IBM to obtain a PTF to fix it. In this case, we ask IBM to post the PTF to the Info APAR for BPCS on the IBM web site so that all our customers can find and download it easily. However, if no one reports the performance (or other) problem into either the SSA GT or IBM Support Center for investigation, then the chances of getting a fix via BMR or a fix via PTF will become pretty slim. I find that many people do know how to do performance tuning quite well on the AS/400s both with and without SQL. If you lack such knowledge at your site, there are performance tuning classes (SQL and system level) that IBM and others offer if you do not want to have to hire someone from the outside to assist you with this. Additionally, some intelligent suggestions were made in response to your question that contained things to look for outside of SQL or system tuning. I take it you also do not have the time to look into these 'fascinating' suggestions? Any complex software package which updates/maintains huge number of files is going to appear at times to be a constant "battle of maintenance", as you put it, because the system contents change daily, if not every second, and therefore the way programs respond are going to change --- duplicate records could cause loops or hard-halts, larger files cause performance delays, garbage data (sometimes manually entered) in files causes bad output and in the midst of the millions and millions of lines of code which execute on that system each day, there are going to be bugs here and there which no one had designed a test to uncover and thus the problem went unnoticed until customer X happened to have the right combination of data or sequence of events to break that part of the code etc. etc. etc.. This is why there are, and will be for some time to come, jobs for programmers, analysts and system, database and ERP administrators. However, don't forget that even old-fashioned paper filing systems were a "constant battle of maintenance" and required many secretaries and a team of office administrators to run; they were only about maintaining physically different things - paper files would get mis-filed, filing criteria changed, forms changed over time, file cabinets become too full, copies would go missing, typos caused misunderstandings, math mistakes caused errors, bad handwriting or faded ink that no one could read became an issue, archives were lost, burnt or ruined in floods, mail delivery problems meant lost documents or delays in contracts etc. etc. etc.. Businesses planned for this or tried to, by making copies, inventing redundant cross-filing systems, storing in firesafe buildings and employing people with the skills required to get the job done in the most efficient manner. The same is true in the modern software world - an investment must be made in your operational systems and in the people who look after them, in order to get the most out of what you use to help your business run. I don't think there was any particular 'golden age' to day-dream about, and current software systems are much much faster and more accurate than older ones. And the amount of functionality available in today's manufacturing and financial software is quite astounding, really, especially considering the time scale on which this has all been developed. Software and hardware has constantly evolved and changed (and changed very quickly) to try to meet needs/demands from the current market place. And system administrators and all computer professionals (including software vendors) therefore need to constantly stay educated to keep up with the newest technologies -- which, in fact, they themselves have had a part in demanding or creating. Thanks, Genyphyr Novak SSA GT
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