RE: Getting storage info from multiple LPARs

Hey Kelley,

I was a software developer for the bulk of my long career on the IBM midrange. As many of us who have done time in smaller shops know, a lot of the admin/hardware falls on us as well. I was hired in my current role as a systems engineer for my programming skills, and it is a great fit for me.

I had never before developed a stored procedure that had logic like this, and debugging was a bear. Trial by fire. I was fortunate to have the leeway to spend time learning.

While learning to develop stored procedures can only benefit you and your company, with as many LPARs as you have, I strongly suggest you take a look at IBM's Administration Runtime Expert (ARE). It is a no-charge LPP.

- Dan Bale

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Kelley Shaddrick
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2025 5:49 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Getting storage info from multiple LPARs

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the info, greatly appreciated. While I've been on the iSeries longer than I care to admit (I'm in more of a hardware role now), I haven't worked with stored procedures, so a new adventure. I have a couple of hundred LPARs that I want to gather info on without having to sign into each one of them. I'd like to run it the process maybe once a week and have the info available to the other tech support folks.

Thanks,

Kelley

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Dan Bale
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2025 4:08 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Getting storage info from multiple LPARs

Three-part naming is the secret sauce. I have a table on the host system called, wait for it, LPARS, and it has a record for each system, including the host. In addition to the system name, it includes a sequence number used for sorting the results that get pasted into a spreadsheet. So, in my stored procedure, I loop through the LPARS table, then prepend the system name to '.QSYS2.ASPINFO' (or any other SQL service I'm using).

When I first started in this role a year ago, our twice weekly "admin checks" called on the on-call person to sign on to every LPAR and run a series of commands to collect info that would be pasted into the spreadsheet. (The ASP_INFO query replaced TAATOOL's WRKASP.) We have enough active LPARs that it would take 2 - 3 hours to do all those checks "manually". Now, with the stored procedures, I can open up a script, "Run all", do some other task for 30 minutes, come back, and paste results to the spreadsheet.

Based on your OP, Vern identified the service more appropriate for your needs, QSYS2.SYSTEM_STATUS_INFO. We needed to track changes at the ASP level, thus, we use QSYS2.ASPINFO.

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