RE: IPL frequency (was Who has a big QTEMP?)

Just to throw gasoline onto the fire ...

The current IBM recommendation stated by no less an authority than Chuck
Stupca is something like "IPL when you must and at no other time".

According to Chuck, the reasons that existed five years ago have been found
and eliminated.  IPLs for PTF apply have been greatly reduced.

I am familiar with a site running payroll for one of the very large
retailers.  About 6 years ago, on a CISC machine, they had a problem burning
through temporary addresses.  They had to IPL more than once per day.  There
was a long period of searching for the problem - then 9 months later, one of
the programmers found a program containing a bug so that it opened every
spool file every few minutes at certain times.

In the past, IBM implicitly forced IPLs.  Certain kinds of temporary storage
cleanup were only done at IPL.  Most of this has been fixed.

In short, today there is no need.

Is there anyone reading the midrange list that can contribute a story about
not IPLing for a couple of years?  Does anyone have a horror story about
being forced to IPL daily?

Richard Jackson
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com
Voice: 1 (303) 808-8058
Fax:   1 (303) 663-4325

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Jim Langston
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 5:57 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: IPL frequency (was Who has a big QTEMP?)


The discussion I refer to took place approximately 5 years ago at the Helms
Group (an AS/400
teaching facility) where I was taking classes when I first started on the
AS/400.

The discussion had come up about why do we IPL and how often should we do
it?  At that time
weekly was the suggested time frame (From IBM or Helms, not sure) and it was
discussed that
we actually IPLed every day.  That's when the discussion moved to the fact
that IPLing every
day was like turning a light bulb on and off.  If you leave a light bulb on,
they'll last a very, very
long time.  It is the shock of turning them off and on that actually blow
them out (I once saw a
TV news program about a light bulb that had lasted like 20+ years because
they never, ever
turned it off).

Regards,

Jim Langston

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 15:36:08 -0400
From: Buck Calabro <buck.calabro@aptissoftware.com>
Subject: RE: IPL frequency (was Who has a big QTEMP?)

Jim Langston wrote:

>I know that it has always been
>suggested that you IPL once a week.

The System Operation guide suggests that you should IPL daily if your DASD
is at 95%, weekly is at 90% and as necessary below 90% used.  This is in the
section on "Cleanup activities you should do"  Is this the suggestion you
are referring to?

>Which we do.  Anything more than this
>and you are putting unneccessary
>strain on the AS/400 hardware.

I have never heard this before!  Where did you see/hear/read about this?

Buck Calabro
Aptis; Albany, NY
"We are what we repeatedly do.
 Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle


Billing Concepts Corp., a NASDAQ Listed Company, Symbol: BILL



+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator:
david@midrange.com
+---

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---