I'm sure that we can all agree that customers *SHOULD* be doing PTF and
other maintenance on some regularly scheduled basis. The question is:
Why do they not think this also?
Why does a company with a "staff" working on their Windows servers and
another "staff" working on their M/F think that they can run an i with
no admin at all and no one even looking at it for three years? IMO that
is both our blessing and our curse.
I assume everyone here has heard of "Patch Tuesday." PCI requirement
6.1 is: "Ensure that all system components and software have the latest
vendor-supplied security patches installed. Install critical security
patches within ONE MONTH of release." Why do we have so much trouble
getting i users to accept what the rest of the industry considers to be
a Best Practice?
In our previous discussion we had an intelligent System i Admin calling
a problem updating a system that had not been touched in three years
"IBM's mistake." I would argue that the mistake was not updating PTFs
for three years. Letting them blame IBM just helps the decision makers
decide that it's time to scrap that "old legacy system."
Regards,
Scott Ingvaldson
Senior IBM Support Specialist
Midwest Region Data Center
Fiserv.
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Massiello [mailto:pmassiello-ml@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 7:22 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: IPL hangs at C900 2967, PTF SI30387 on a V5R4 system
I have to agree with Lukas that you can tell the customer they SHOULD be
doing PTF maintenance perhaps on a quarterly, semi-annually, or
annually. But at the end of the day, it's the customers decision to
have the work performed (You can lead a horse to water, but you can't
make him drink).
I know I would like all my customers on the latest cumulative or latest
release, and most of our customers are on our quarterly maintenance
program so they are, but we are constantly getting customers that have
been neglected by their BP and they are on the same release & PTFs as
when the machine was originally installed. Others say it's not broke,
don't fix it.
Pete
Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lukas Beeler
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 3:45 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IPL hangs at C900 2967, PTF SI30387 on a V5R4 system
On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 22:40, Ingvaldson,
Scott<scott.ingvaldson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's a different world now. Your customer can't sell that philosophy
to his auditor, PCI, SOX or HIPAA either. That's why he's calling you.
Yep, but i'm not in the US. PCI doesn't apply since credit cards aren't
common here. We have no aequivalent to SOX, and what is HIPAA in the US
isn't as formalized here.
Certainly this is true, but I think that it's premature to call this
one IBM's mistake.
I don't think it is.
See Chuck's very detailed explanation for details of some
possibilities, but the vast majority of PTF installation issues are user
issues rooted in things that may have been done incorrectly (or simply
in a "non-supported" way,) years previously.
Back in 2006, i setup and deployed that machine. Installed OS and latest
CUM, both according to IBM documentation - no test PTFs, or PTFs that
were marked as defective were installed. Since then, nobody has touched
it. Then, i tried installing the latest CUM according to IBM's
documentation. It didn't work.
Again: I don't think it's a big deal. Mistakes happen. It would be
foolish to expect that everything coming from IBM just works flawlessly.
Just look at the troubles the IBM i on JS12 Users face.
midrange.com
