Episode 29 "Hello Trello"
This episode is about how to be a better z/OS installation specialist, z/OS capture ratios, and a discussion on using Trello. We have a special guest joining us for the performance topic, Miroslava Barahona Rossi. Long show notes are found here . Mainframe - Being a Better Installation Specialist "Better" here means lessons learned, not competing with people. "Installation Specialist" might just as well have used "System Programmer" or another term. There's definitely a reason to be optimistic about being a person that does that Installation Specialist or System Programmer type of work: There will always be a need for someone to know how systems are put together, how they are configured, how they are upgraded, and how they are serviced...how to just get things to run. Consider the new function adoption needs too. There are so many "new" functions that are just waiting to be used. A really good installation specialist would take information they have and use it in different ways. Knowing parmilb really well. You can't be better by only doing things yourself, no one can know everything. You've got to work with others who are specialists in their own area. Last but not least, learn how to teach yourself. Know where to find answers (and that doesn't mean asking people!). Learn how to try out something on a sandbox. Performance - Capture Ratio Our special guest is Miroslava Barahona Rossi, a technical expert who works with large Brasilian customers. Capture Ratio - a ratio of workload CPU to system-level CPU as a percentage. Commercial considerations when billing for uncaptured cycles. You might worry something is wrong if the capture ratio is low. Reasonable value is usually 80 - 90. Seeing more like 85 - 95 these days. It has been improved because more of I/O-related CPU is captured. Summary: Don’t be upset if you get a capture ratio substantially lower than 100%. That's normal. Understand your normal. Be aware of the relationship of your normal to everybody else’s. But, be careful when making that comparison as it is very workload dependent. Understand your data and causes. See if you can find a way of improving it. Keep track of the capture ratio over the months and years. Topics - Hello Trello Trello is based on the Kanban idea. Why are we talking about Trello? We moved to it for high level podcast planning. Template used for hatching new future episodes. We move cards around sometimes between episodes. Marna uses it to organise daily work, with personal workload management and calendaring. But it is not a meetings calendar. Probably with Jira will be more useful than ever. We'll see. Martin uses it for team engagements, with four lists: Potential, Active, Dormant, Completed. Engagement moves between lists as it progresses Martin's blog Marna's blog So It Goes.