Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2019-08-11.) I wrote the last blog post on my way to my first SHARE conference. I’m writing this one on the way back. So a big thank you to all who made me feel so welcome in Pittsburgh. In many cases it was good to meet up with long standing friends; In someContinue reading “Making The Connection?”

(Originally posted 2019-08-04.) I hope the term “Going Native” isn’t considered offensive. If it is my defence is that I didn't coin the term “Native Stored Procedures” and that’s what I’m alluding to. This post is about realising the benefit of Native Stored Procedures for DDF callers. Most particularly, assessing the potential benefit of convertingContinue reading “Going Native With Stored Procedures?”

(Originally posted 2019-08-02.) (I’m indebted to Howard Hess for the title. You’ll see why it’s appropriate in a bit.) Since I wrote Engineering – Part Two – Non-Integer Weights Are A Thing I’ve been on holiday and, refreshed, I’ve set to work on supporting the SMF 99 Subtype 14 record. Working with this data isContinue reading “Engineering – Part Three – Whack A zIIP”

(Originally posted 2019-06-18.) In Automation On Tap I talked about NFC tags and QR codes as ways of initiating automation. This post is about a different initiator of automation. I recently acquired the cheapest (and least functional) Elgato Stream Deck. This is a programmable array of buttons. My version has 6 buttons but you canContinue reading “Buttoned Up”

(Originally posted 2019-06-18.) You’ll have to pardon the pun in our latest podcast episode’s title. We were also somewhat delayed in getting this out – due to our busy schedules and a few technical gremlins. Hopefully it’s worth the wait. It’s also quite a long episode so if you listen to it on your commuteContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 24 “Our Wurst Episode””

(Originally posted 2019-06-08.) Students of English literature won’t be alone in recognising the allusion in this post’s title.But this post isn’t about literature.[1]. Sherlocking, as described here is a phenomenon where a developer ships something – typically an app – but then Apple comes along and announces its own version of it. In very recentContinue reading “Elementary My Dear Sherlock”

(Originally posted 2019-06-01.) A rather obscure pun, but I hope it’ll make sense. Not “Pi” by the way but “PI”. Though this post contains arithmetic, it’s not a mathematics post. To be honest, I never knew how we calculated Performance Index (or PI) for Percentile goals before. But now I do, so I’m sharing itContinue reading “A Slice Of PI”

(Originally posted 2019-05-27.) It seems to be in the nature of my code development work that I revisit things over and over again. You could call it “agile”, you could call it “fragile”. 🙂 I prefer to think of it as being inspired by each fresh set of customer data. And so it is withContinue reading “What’s In A Name? – Revisited Again”

(Originally posted 2019-05-26.) Maybe you’ve never thought much about this but aren’t weights supposed to be integer? Well, they are at the LPAR level. But what about at the engine level? Let me take you through a recent customer example. The names are changed but the numbers are real, as the one graphic in thisContinue reading “Engineering – Part Two – Non-Integer Weights Are A Thing”

(Originally posted 2019-05-25.) In Engineering – Part Zero I talked about the presentation that Anna Shugol and I have put together. That post described the general sweep of what we’re doing. This post, however, is more specific. It’s about Vertical Medium logical processors. To keep it (relatively) simple I’m describing a single processor pool. ForContinue reading “Engineering – Part One – A Happy Medium?”