NEWSLETTER NUMBER 85, JANUARY 1997
TAPES WILL BE RACF PROTECTED AS OF APRIL
The Data Center will activate RACF tape dataset protection on April 6, 1997. That step will complete a year-long, multiphase project to secure all data - disk and tape - in the Data Center's custody. This is as much as can be done from the systems perspective.
We recently sent RACF coordinators lists of their respective agency's tape dataset names and existing generic dataset profiles. The coordinators need to review those lists and, where appropriate, create generic dataset profiles for tape datasets. In dealing with an existing generic dataset profile, a coordinator may need to connect additional users to the group permitted to access that profile.
If you have questions, call Ron McKnight at 558-89-2, or Claudia Morgan at 558-4366.
A (SOMEWHAT) FRESH FACE FOR IS&C MAINFRAME "OA"
IS&C has offered mainframe-based office automation (OA) for the better part of a decade. It's nature has changed little over the years, though with the advent, and proliferation, of LANS, servers, and smart office suites, office automation in general has changed a great deal. Lots of perple still use our mainframe OA tools: DisplayWrite/370, Personal Services/CICS, Personal Manager, and DISOSS.
IBM recently announced that technical support for Personal Services/CICS will be withdrawn on March 31, 1997. In place of Personal Services/CICS, IBM offers a new suite of mainframe OA products, called OfficeVision. IS&C had a decision to make: stay with OA, as we knew it, or move to OfficeVision. The decision was actually easy because it is not in the State's best interest to run unsupported products. We formed a taskforce to scrutinize OfficeVision and its components. DHHR joined in the effort.
The task force voted to move to OfficeVision before technical support fo the old product is withdrawn. OfficeVision ensures continued service, with the least disruption and learning curve. We hope to have it ready for you to use by sometime in March.
The task force syas that you should see little change in functionality - unless you go looking for it. There will be various options that you don't have with the current OA suite. Do note, though, that OfficeVision signon/password checking will be done strictly by RACF, our security package. No more having to synchronize OA passwords with RACF passwords. About time! Retraining is unnecessary, but call us if you get confused. This writer took a walking tour through a test version of OfficeVision. He found it self-explanatory, so unless he was having an unusually lucid day, you should find it easy, too.
If we hear more between now and the cutover, we will let you know.
"ERGONOMICS DAY" SLATED FOR MARCH
We recall that last year's inaugural "Ergonomics Day" was a smash. Sue Lore, of IS&C Planning and Control, sent us the following announcement of this year's event.
"In a continuing effort to educate the management and employees of State government, the Ergonomics Task Force is pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring another Ergonomics Day on March 4, 1997 in the Conference Center located in Building 7 at the Capitol Complex. Ergonomics Day will consist of a panel duscussion on the importance of Ergonomics, demonstrations of exercises to be used to decrease the risk of getting the ergonomic injuries, showings of prevention movies, and displays of furniture, office products and other tools that are ergonomically correct.
"Invitations will be sent to the Legislators, Department Heads, Division Directors, and employees involved in personnel, data processing, and purchasing-related functions. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for Ergonomics Day, please call Sue Lore of IS&C at (304) 558-1067. More details coming soon!!!"
CROSSING THE ELECTRONIC BRIDGE
Lugging data around the Capitol Comples, or anywhere else, when you don't have to, is a waste of time and show leather. There's a better way. Bits and bytes travel well electronically, They weigh less, go faster, and tend not to get misplaced. Recognizing this, the Auditor's Office and the IS&C Data Center joined forces recently to get extra mileage from the electronic interface that links their respective computer centers. That bridge, called the "RAPIDAI to Auditor Interface", was built a few years ago expressly to support the WVFIMS system.
We noticed that lots of people, from various agencies, were still crisscrossing the campus, toting armfuls of clunky nine-track tapes between buildings. This, on the verge of the 21st Century. Agencies somehow had to send financial data to the Auditor's Office for check-writing and other purposes. It seemed commonsensical to adapt the old habits to the new interface.
Data is already flowing: Tax & Revenue income tax returns and direct deposits; DHHR data; Workers' Compensation data; WVFIMS monthly balances; etc. The line will soon be boosted to keep up with the heavier data streams.
Claudia Morgan, one of our systems programmers, has been centrally committed to the project. Claudia provided the following view of how the process works.
"Upon receiving the cover sheet or other significant document from an agency, a computer operator in the Auditor's Office will perfom an online function on a mainframe terminal in the Auditor's Office computer room. The RAPIDAI to Auditor Interface will present the operator with a menu from which to select the type of agency data they wish to receive. Based on the selection that is made, the system will prompt the operator for further identifying information that is indicated on the cover sheet and invoke a job that transmits the specified data to the Auditor's Office computer.
"Agencies will continue to send the cover sheet or other significant document indicating their data is ready for transmission to the Auditor's Office. It may be necessary for agencies to modify their existing procedures to provide control or identification information for the dataset that is transmitted so that it may be distinguished from the last transmission of the same type of data. Agencies may select one or more of the following methods of dataset control:
unique system-generated file control number
date/time stamp
tape volume
"For agencies that are currently using the tape volume without a file control number to uniquely identify the dataset that corresponds to the documentation, method three requires minor modifications to the JCL to store data on square instead of round tape. Please note that continued use of method three must be considered a temporary solution since this method may not be available in the future due to advances in storage management technology. Even though methods one or two may require more system modification, these methods are more flexible in terms of advances in storage management technology.
"If you have any questions, please contact Claudia Morgan at the Data Center at 558-4366."
The Department of Health and Human Resources has kicked off another huge systems integration project. FACTS, short for Families and Children Tracking System, is sponsored by the Office of Social Services, part of the Bureau for Children and Families.
FACTS will be a Client/Server system, so its look and feel will be different than OSCAR and RAPIDS, which are essentially traditional mainframe systems. When it comes to boxes and wires, form follows function, or at least it should.
The DHHR FACTS team, and people who work for their contract vendor, Deloitte & Touche, have set up shop at the following address:
THE FACTS PROJECT
DHHR
KANAWHA VALLY BUILDING
300 CAPITOL ST STE 511
CHARLESTON, WV 25301
The goal of the project is to provide more efficient chold welfare services to West Virginia's children and families. FACTS will assist direct service workers by reducting paperwork and speeding access to critical information. They will be able to make informed decisions much faster than in the past. Their clients will naturally benefit, too. The scope of the project is as follows; we quote from The FACTS Newsletter:
"FACTS will automate all child welfare programs and functions for which federally enhanced funds are available, in a way that provides a flexible framework that can be extended into other program areas and functions supported by the Office of Social Services and the Bureau for Children and Families.
"The programs to be supported by FACTS are Child Protective Services, which includes services related to family preservation, Adoption, and Day Care. Foster Care is a service that can be provided in each of these program areas, to meet the unique goals of each program."
Kevin Henson, of DHHR, is the FACTS Project Director. If you have general questions about the project, we suggest you call Sandy Copenhaver at 357-5731. You can hitch onto The FACTS Newsletter, which is published monthly, by calling Carol Gardner at 357-5767.
The Data Center wished good fortune to everyone involved with FACTS.
UPS ANNOUNCES CHANGES IN SERVICES AND RATES
United Parcel Service has informed our Mail Services section that rate changes, and new and enhanced services, will go into effect on February 1. New rate charts, zone charts, and service bulletins are available by calling 1-800-PICK-UPS.
The following rates apply to packages shipped within the United States and Puerto Rico: UPS Ground will increase 3.6%; UPS Next Day Air, 2nd Day Air, and 3 Day Select will each increase 3.9%.
Rates will also rise for Next Day Early A.M., Call Tag, Air Hazardous Materials, and packages shipped internationally. The Weekly Service Charge for pickup service may change, depending on the customer's weekly billing activity.
UPS also announced new and enhanced services:
UPS 2nd Day Air A.M. For guaranteed morning delivery of two-day letters and packages to commercial addresses.
UPS Hundredweight Service. For multiple-piece shipments, with optimized rates, and without the need for a contract.
Enhanced UPS Ground Service. For "full-visibility" tracking of all you domestic UPS skipments. Provides up-to-the-minute package status information at no extra charge.
Again, the number is 1-800-PICK-UPS. You can also reach UPS at their web site: http://www.ups.com .
Our IBM rep. tipped us that IBM education offerings are now available on the Web. We checked. She was right. The URL is a mouthful:
http://issc2.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/edubin/edubin/1
It's worth it, though. Scads of information. Every kind of course imaginable. Even newish things like data warehousing, object technology, internetworking, and voice applications. You can point-and-click or do keyword searches. Once you find a course that tantalizes you, select a course date and location. You can even register online if you like.
See the sheet attached at the end of this newsletter for a more complete list of IBM web sites.
STERLING CUSTOMER CONFERENCE IN MAY
Sterling Software vends, among other things, VISION:Results (formerly DYL-280), a product used by several agencies. Sterling has announced that their Worldwide Customer Conference: Enterprise Strategies '97 - Redefining the Rules will be held May 19-22 in Miami. (Groupies and ordinary celebrity buffs should know that the keynote speaker will be none other than Henry Kissinger.)
The flyer touts, "From user insights on how Sterling products help solve real-life IS challenges to industry overviews from leading analysts to technical training on specific products - the choice is yours. In addition, the conference includes sessions that are specific to doing business with the federal government. Attend Enterprise Strategies '97 and you'll learn more about :
Integrating multiple platforms, applications and technologies
Coping with ever-increasing business and IS complexity
Managing distributed environments while ensuring data security and accessability
The "conference hotline" is 800-779-0513. Register by calling 800-883-7859. Sterling's web site is www.sterling.com.
By the way, we recently upgraded VISION:Results by installing the latest release of the the product, 4.0.
UPS CUSTOMER SERVICE DESK CLOSING
United Parcel Service regrettably announces that their customer service desk, located at the entrance to Building 6, will close effective February 18. UPS has stationed one of their employees at the desk, during the noon hour, to collect personal packages that State employees wished to send via UPS. Activity has been slow.
UPS and IS&C Mail Services thought that employees might like, and use, the service. And UPS provided if free of charge. It was worth a try. No one was hurt by it. Some were helped for a while. Not bad.
UPS will absolutely maintain their "Airwalker" service at the Capitol Complex. For quick pick-up service of your Next Day Air and 2nd day Air documents and packages, call the voicemail of DeAnn Stafford at 558-2338.
In its green years, this industry was commonly called electronic data processing (EDP). By and by, the cat, or something, got our tongues. Pressures grew. Attention spans shrank. We began speaking in short sentences. Like this. An adjective had to pull its weight or die. When the word electronic, in EDP, became redundant, it fell away. But computers still need electricity. Even laptops have to go to the well every so often.
The Data Center was rudely reminded of this last month. The only unscheduled downtime of IS&C mainframe systems in December was due to a power outage.
A transformer, located at the loading dock area in the rear of Building 7, failed at 11:05 p.m. on Monday, December 2. That tripped the power on the south side of Building 6, where our computer room is located. We shut the system down at 1:02 a.m. General Services restored electrical service. We brought the system back at 2:00 a.m. Let there be lights (and power).
YEAR 2000 COUNTDOWN
When we hanged fresh calendars, our short hairs stiffened at the thought that there are only two-plus years until two-digit dates come down hard. Two years and 356 days as of January 9, according to the www.year2000.com website.
IBM ADSM : http://www.storage.ibm.com/adsm
IBM AIX : http://aix.boulder.ibm.com
IBM Antivirus : http://www.av.ibm.com
IBM AS400 technical support line : http://AS400service.ibm.com
IBM AS400 news : http://www.news400.com
IBM AS400 Year 200 : http://www.softmall.ibm.com:80/as400/year2000.html
IBM Education catalog : http://issc2.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/edubin/edubin/1
IBM Global Network : http://www.ibm.com/globalnetwork
IBM Home Page : http://www.ibm.com/globalnetwork
IBM Image Software : http://www.software.ibm.com/workgroup/image/image.htm
IBM Internet Connection Products : http://www.ics.raleigh.ibm.com
IBM Internet Connection Secured Gatway : http://www.ics.raleigh.ibm.com/firewall
IBM http://www.ibm.net
IBM Networking http://raleigh.ibm.com/
IBM Network station http://www.internet.ibm.com/computers/networkstation
IBM Newsstand http://www.newsstand.lotus.com
IBM Open Blueprint : http://www.software.ibm.com/openblue
IBM OS2 http://www.os2bbs.com
IBM PC Servers : http://www.pc.ibm.com/servers/
IBM PC parts : http://www.ibm-direct.e-com.ibm
IBM Product spec sheets http://w3.isscfax.paloalto.ibm.cim/ibmfax/
IBM Redbooks : http://w3.itso.ibm.com
IBM RISC SYSTEM/6000 http://www.austin.ibm.com
IBM S/390 OS390 : http://www.s390.ibm.com/os390
IBM S/390 : http://www.s390.ibm.com
IBM Security : http://www.ibm.com/security
IBM Software : http://www.software.ibm.com
IBM Systems Management Tivoli : http://www.tivoli.com/products