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  • Subject: RE: System IPL
  • From: "Gary S. Lagarde" <gslagard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 15:30:12 -0400
  • Organization: Reynolds Metals Company

I usually enjoy scanning the mail from the AS/400 list server 
and rarely comment but this thread touched on of my hot buttons. 

There are only five reasons to IPL a system.  Three of these 
reasons have become extinct on V3R7 RISC systems. The five 
reasons to IPL for CISC systems are listed below.

One -- Hardware additions.
Two -- PTFs that require IPL to become active.
Three -- Jobs that become hung in the system or hang the system 
and require IPL to recover.
Four -- Running out of temporary or permanent addresses.
Five -- System automatically does main store dump (MSD).

For companies still on CISC, you have very few options--you need 
to IPL when one of the above events occur.

We have been running V3R7 since early GA on our 530 4 ways.  One 
of these systems has 4500 users, 500 GB mirrored, 2GB memory and 
very heavy communication requirements (TCP/IP and SNA).  There 
are no locally attached users.  The system runs about 15 million 
transactions monthly.   This particular system ran for five 
straight months without an IPL.  We finally IPLed last weekend 
to put on a PTF cum package and enabled support for network 
computers, etc... I had IBM analyze our address usage before the 
IPL and the prediction is that we will last for 25 YEARS without 
running out of address space.  We have scheduled our next IPL 
for October.   We have other systems similar to this system with 
the same results.

Our new paradigm is to not IPL unless absolutely necessary.  We 
do not accept IBM PTFs that require IPL unless there is 
positively no other way to get the code on the box and 
activated.  In fact, when plotting our problem history, we can 
look to IPLs and PTF cum packages as the main cause.  Yes, our 
feeling is that IPLs have the potential to introduce more 
problems than they correct. Of course, we do believe in PTFs and 
we do expect some additional IPLs early in a release cycle to 
put cum packages on.  But as a release matures, we feel the need 
for cum packages decreases and the problems affecting the 
systems also decrease.  Then the cycle starts again at GA for 
the next release.

By the way, clean up at IPL is minimal.  You can do most of it 
through the use of APIs and commands.  WE DO NOT DO RECLAIM 
STORAGE .  WE WILL NEVER RUN RECLAIM STORAGE.

I ask you to consider the next time you feel the need to IPL on 
a V3R7 RISC box, ask yourself "Why am I doing this?"  IPLing for 
IPL sake is not necessary.  Think about it.

The only reasons to IPL on a V3R7 RISC system are listed below.

One -- Hardware additions other than DASD.  DASD can be added 
dynamically.
Two -- PTFs that require IPL to become active.  Still a problem 
but very few require this on V3R7.
Three -- Jobs that become hung in the system and require IPL to 
recover.  Almost every job can be cancelled or eliminated from 
the system with KILL Job PTFs.
Four -- Running out of temporary or permanent addresses.  You 
will never run out of addresses again.  Don't even bother 
looking at the statistics anymore.  You will be on another 
Rochester architecture long before you ever hit a quarter of 
total addresses.
Five -- System automatically does main store dump (MSD).  This 
can still occur but the system will IPL to MSD screen on V3R7 
and in a soon to be announced (V4R1) release the system will IPL 
through MSD, dump, and bring the system back up.

Of course, there is always the Oops IPL--usually this is a 
problem between keyboard and chair.  This will only happen once 
in my company and there is an employment PTF for that.

If you like to get more info on our IPL strategy, please drop me 
a note.

*****************************************************
Gary S. Lagarde
Senior Technical Specialist
Reynolds Metals Company
6605 West Broad Street
Richmond, VA  23230
Phone:  804-281-4419   Fax:  804-281-4149
E-mail: gslagard@rmc.com
*****************************************************

On Friday, July 25, 1997 7:03 AM, Tim Shepherd [SMTP:tshepher  
d@lia.co.za] wrote:
> >Currently my company (bank) is having AS/400 model 530 
running
> >v3r6.
> >Every week my system guy will perform system IPL on Sunday 
and
> >which
> >will require to stop  running the machine for about 1- 1.5
> >hours. My
> >question is "is it necessary to perform IPL every week ?"  My
> >DASD
> >utilization is about 60% of 60GB storage and temp. address is
> >about
> >0.126 and 2Gb of memory.
>
> I ipl our machine every Monday at 04:30. I don't really need
> to, but it
> keeps the system tidy.
> I would suggest that you ipl at least once a month though, or
> if the temp
> addresses start to rise too high.
>
> Tim Shepherd
>
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