Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2014-05-17.) You can blame the weather for this post. 🙂 I’m writing it on a flight above thick cloud[1] on my way to Munich and then to Budapest for this year’s European System z Technical University. I like to see the complete picture when I’m examining systems: It makes getting it right soContinue reading “Hints Of Other Systems”

(Originally posted 2014-05-03.) Sometimes I’m in the mood to carefully peck at the text and sometimes I’m in the mood to just “splurge write”. And sometimes a bit of both. This post is a case in point: I just want to get the words out as fast as I can. Now, I do quite aContinue reading “Appening 4 – SwiftKey on iOS”

(Originally posted 2014-05-02.) If you have a large mainframe estate it can be difficult to keep track of when the various moving parts start and stop. For example, if you’re a Performance person it’s quite likely nobody bothered to tell you when the systems were IPL’ed. You might well know what the regime for startingContinue reading “Once Upon A Restart”

(Originally posted 2014-05-01.) Over a year ago I wrote about a couple of iOS applications I was enjoying using.[1] And now it’s time to write about a third, as it’s part of my authoring toolkit. In Recent Conference Presentations I showed off my then new writing rig: Byword (with MultiMarkDown) and my iPad Mini withContinue reading “Appening 3 – Editorial on iOS”

(Originally posted 2014-04-30.) I’ve been meaning to write about MEMLIMIT and its importance for some time.[1] But it’s a moving target. So either there’s no good time to talk about it or lots of good times. 🙂 So let me discuss it now and then again later as necessary.[2] So timing a post on MEMLIMITContinue reading “Setting MEMLIMIT”

(Originally posted 2014-04-26.) I’ll admit I’ve found regular expressions a bit of a struggle. I bet most people have. For me it’s a matter of lots of arcane symbols that don’t have any inherent meaning. Contrast with many programming languages, which do have some. It’s also not the case I don’t understand the concepts. AnyhowContinue reading “TSO Regular Expression Testing Tool”

(Originally posted 2014-04-14.) This post adds some additional DB2 Version 10 specifics to what I mentioned in New zIIP Capacity Planning Presentation. I said this would be a living presentation, and so it has proven to be. It’s had two outings so far and there are a couple more confirmed. First the times I’ve givenContinue reading “zIIP And DB2 Version 10 DBM1”

(Originally posted 2014-04-01.) There’s been some interest recently in whether a zBC12 as a standalone Coupling Facility would be a good idea. Having replied to one such question in email form I can count that as a draft for a blog post on the subject. It’s a complex question as are most about Parallel SysplexContinue reading “zBC12 As A Standalone Coupling Facility?”

(Originally posted 2014-03-23.) I’m writing about intervals again.[1] Two things have occasioned this: I’ve been updating my code for DB2 Versions 10 and 11[2]. I’ve dealt recently with customers with unhelpful SMF or RMF intervals. As I’ve said before it’s important to understand the provenance of the data you’re using. This would be true whetherContinue reading “After A Decent Interval”

(Originally posted 2014-03-15.) As you know I mainly deal in SMF data (and other machine-generated instrumentation). While I’m perfectly adept at conducting interviews and handling evidence from real live people there’s much merit in instrumentation. I’m also not keen on just replaying what you say back at you, with no value added in the process.Continue reading “Machines (Back To Humans)”