RE: Test Development System Survey

Mike - 

Due to budget constraints we live on a single system environment too. 

We have helped disk utilization performance by separating test data into a
separate ASP. We are fortunate enough to have a large enough machine (8 way
with 16GB of RAM) that CPU and memory performance issues aren't currently a
problem as long as QPFRADJ is set to '3', enabling auto tuning. This works
very well for us.

Developing a good data security access plan acceptable to all, was a
challenge though. Defining and enforcing a separation between the
development and production environments is very important when they coexist
on the same system. Sometimes this is more of a political issue than a
technical one too. It is easy to define authority to keep one group of user
out of an environment. However, we have found that some of the developers
feel threatened when you suggest that their access be limited to the
development environment. After all, they feel this is "their" application!

We also have a well define change control procedure for promoting changes
from development to production. Developers argued at first that is slowed
them down, but of course the auditors love it.   

It is quite possible to run development on a production machine if you pay
attention to all the details.

Kenneth

****************************************
Kenneth E. Graap
IBM Certified Specialist 
AS/400e Professional System Administrator
NW Natural (Gas Services)
keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: 503-226-4211 x5537
FAX:    603-849-0591
****************************************


-----Original Message-----
From: Condon, Mike [mailto:M1C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 6:28 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: Test Development System Survey


We are currently using our AS400 production box for development as well (the
test/production systems are separated by logins/environment variables). How
many of you all also combine both on one machine, and has this caused
performance problems for you? Or do you use a test machine for development
specifically because of this (or wish you had one)?