Re: IBM i for Wintel Hackers - Silent Signal TROOPERS24 Presentation

If we must fully-qualify all program CALLs by "hard-coding" the library
name, how can we "test" changes to those applications?

There are several possible approaches.

#1. create a separate LPAR for development and testing, and then only
promote changes to the "live" production LPAR after various Q/A testing and
approval processes have been performed.

This way, developers and testers sign-on to the "DEVTEST" LPAR, and use
those libraries and versions of the applications programs and data, while
"live" production users sign-on to the "LIVE" production LPAR to use the
applications.

#2. if your shop does not have a separate LPAR for development and testing
vs. production, use "Independent ASPs" (iASPs) or disk pools (available
since V5R2). With this approach, you can have the primary "live"
production libraries in a "master" iASP, and have an alternate set of
libraries with the exact same library names ,but in a "testing" iASP.

That way, library names can be "hard-coded" for each application, and yet,
when testing, your developers and testers would issue SETASPGRP to switch
to using that iASP (and those libraries), or have their *JOBD specify the
correct INLASPGRP, while all of the "live" production users all run with
their user profiles and job descriptions INLASPGRP set for the "master" or
"live" iASP (disk pool).

These approaches will require additional DASD space to contain all of the
LPARs or disk pools, with duplicate sets of all objects, files, etc. for
each application.

NOTE: iASPs also will likely require some change to your applications, as
their use is not 100% transparent or upward compatible with all possible
existing legacy applications. In particular, if you use vendor
applications software packages, and make "local" customizations or
modifications, you may need to discuss the use of iASPs with each of the
software vendor(s) to determine if those applications are compatible with
iASP use; ask for any special recommendations or considerations for setting
up and running those applications in an iASP environment.

See the following IBM Redbooks for a good overview of the requirements for
setting up and using Independent ASPs:

https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247811.pdf

https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246802.pdf

Hope that helps.

All the best,


Mark S. Waterbury
--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: https://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at https://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

Please contact support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for any subscription related
questions.