Help/Systems, developer of the Robot Automated Operations Solution for the System i, announces the release of Robot/LPAR 2.0, the software tool that allows users to move memory, processor, and device resources across partitions, either interactively or in batch. Robot/LPAR communicates with the Hardware Management Console (HMC) from an i5/OS partition in a partitioned System i environment to help manage System i resources.

Robot/LPAR offers both a green screen and a command line interface that lets users set a base level for memory and/or processor resources in a partition, move memory and processors between partitions to adjust levels and fine tune settings, and display the current resource levels and settings.

Robot/LPAR also moves IOA and IOP devices, including tape drives and optical drives, between partitions. Users can move these resources interactively using the Robot/LPAR green screen menus, in batch, or schedule the movements using a job scheduler such as Robot/SCHEDULE, the System i batch job management software. Because Robot/LPAR interfaces directly with the HMC, response is fast and movements occur quickly. Add Robot/NETWORK, the System i network management software, and users can automate the entire process of resource adjustment and movement throughout a network of managed systems.

Robot/LPAR is easy to configure, set up, and maintain. Users can activate or shut down partitions, view the current status of the managed system and its partitions, and maintain audit log file data of resource movement activities. Robot/LPAR can be installed on multiple partitions within a managed system at no additional cost.

New Robot/SCHEDULE GUI provides drill-down access and more!

Have you had a recent business audit on the production control (job scheduling) area of your computer operations? Is your management team asking for reports detailing who changed what batch job for night processing? Did the auditor ask about who has access or authority to change the jobs in the schedule? Did the auditor ask for a report that lists all the jobs that ran last night?

Manual or semi-automated schedules
If you are running a manual schedule, it is very difficult to provide timely and accurate information. It is even harder if you have written your own utility to run your schedule! The auditor has no sympathy about how much work you will need to do manually to provide the answer to his or her questions.

There are many ways to submit jobs to batch on the System i platform. You can use the IBM SBMJOB command; you can use the built-in job scheduler (WRKJOBSCDE); and there many job schedule software packages for sale. The problem is that most of these options provide very little, if any, historical information about the changes to the schedule or the actual running of the jobs. The auditor still needs the information.

Automated schedules
If you have Robot/SCHEDULE, these questions are not hard to answer. And, if you have Version 10.02, it is even easier. The new graphical user interface makes it easy to cut and paste information into Excel. You can provide answers in minutes, if not seconds. The following Robot/SCHEDULE features typically are used by those who must comply with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) audits:

1. The Good Morning Report. Robot/SCHEDULE’s Good Morning Report summarizes your night batch processing. It shows the number of jobs that finished normally and the number that finished abnormally. It also provides a list of the jobs that did not complete normally.
2. Security. Robot/SCHEDULE has its own security system, above and beyond i5/OS object-based security. Its job security controls who has access to the job schedule and you can produce a report that lists access control.
3. Job Completion History. Every batch process that runs on your system is tracked in job completion history, including jobs submitted by end users and those submitted by Robot/SCHEDULE. The history provides information about start/end times and dates, as well the duration of the job.
4. Audit Logs. Robot/SCHEDULE maintains audit logs that track schedule changes and actions on the schedule. It even tracks when an operator forces a job to run immediately.
5. Product Master. The Product Master allows you to create jobs on one partition and send them to another. Many people use this as a change control mechanism for batch jobs. You can create a job on the development partition, test it, and then send it to the production partition. These activities are logged in Robot/SCHEDULE (10.02 or higher) and Robot/NETWORK 10.0.

Capture changes to production control schedule
So, how easy is it to get this information? Using Robot/SCHEDULE’s new graphical interface, open the Audit Log window, shown in Figure 1. Highlight the data you want to show the auditor. Right-click and copy this information to the clipboard. In seconds, you have captured the changes to your production control schedule!

Once the entries are on the clipboard, simply open Microsoft Excel, your e-mail client, or another program and paste your data, as shown in Figure 2. Most auditors seem to prefer receiving information in Excel format.

Capture job history
Robot/SCHEDULE Job Completion History is another handy list of data for auditors and managers. Most of the time, you don’t think about this data, but when you need it, it’s really great to have. The Job Completion History is revolving group of records about your batch processing. The Good Morning Report, job schedule forecasting, and other reports get information from the job history. You can easily copy this information to Excel, just as in the Audit Log example above.

Robot/SCHEDULE makes it easy
As many of you have learned, Robot/SCHEDULE helps you take the final step toward providing the information management and auditors need for your production control environment.

Contributed by Tom Huntington, Vice President of Technical Services

Yes! Here’s how to set up business intelligence quickly and cost-effectively.

During the development of a typical business intelligence solution, you gather user requirements, catalog existing data elements, identify the new data elements for the data warehouse, and make your hardware selections. You create procedures and programs to reformat, redefine, summarize, and transfer the data to data warehouse files. You define dimensions and drill pathways to structure your data warehouse properly. You hire additional staff to manage the new environment. Typically, the project timeline expands as new requirements surface and original specifications change. Finally, often months after the original target date and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, your business intelligence system may be ready.

Data Warehouse: The real costs
What are the real costs of the traditional data warehouse for the System i-centric customer? It’s a lot because you are used to managing a technology that has consistent processing, security, operations, and system availability. The traditional data warehouse usually runs on another platform that brings new management challenges: new staff, new vendors, and new operational requirements. Change is often a good thing, but in this case, at what cost? System i customers cannot continue to lose time to these large-scale, out-of-scope projects.

Data Warehouse: The better way
There is a better way—business intelligence centered around the System i using SEQUEL. The information is there, waiting for you to extract it directly from your transaction database without data warehouse files or additional hardware. In less than five minutes, you can use SEQUEL to create a view and perform “drill-down” analysis of a transaction database containing millions of records. There’s no need to define “drill paths,” create data warehouse files, or perform any other setup. Users can view data at a summary level and drill down into the details that make up the summarized information, all on the fly. And, if you need to modify the view, you can make changes in minutes.

With a System i-centric solution like SEQUEL, you can deploy a business intelligence solution faster and more effectively than with any other approach. The argument that you need to off-load the data to achieve performance just doesn’t make sense. With the System i, you can leave the data where it is and access it in real time. The benefits are enormous. No out-of-sync databases, and no questions or skepticism from the end users on the validity of the data. If running a business intelligence solution does impact your performance, you can upgrade your System i. Chances are the upgrade is far less expensive than setting up a traditional data warehouse.

You might think that an upgrade is too expensive. But, it shouldn’t be if you do a real cost-of-ownership analysis. Consider the cost to build the data warehouse: new hardware, new staff, new BI software, new operations software (anti-virus, security, backup, scheduling), and more. Factor in the costs of waiting 9 to 12 months to put a non-System i-centric solution to work and it becomes an extremely expensive sell to upper management. Contrast this with investing in a System i-centric solution that can be available within days of receiving some training.

What about the performance on the production System i? How will this impact your environment? Starting with V5R3, enhancements to i5/OS allow the System i to crunch millions of data records in a fraction of the time previously required. Business intelligence tools written specifically for the System i use IBM APIs and the i5/OS query processor, allowing you to retrieve database information in the fastest, most efficient ways. Instead of investing in a staff of data warehouse professionals, consider training your current System i staff to better understand database access processes.

Data Warehouse: An easier implementation
Sound too good to be true? It’s not. With System i-centric tools like SEQUEL, you avoid the time-consuming and costly process of defining a data warehouse. With the enhanced query processor, you can run requests directly over transaction files or extract files, eliminating the need to create separate data warehouse files. If database files are extremely large, you can refine access paths, indexes, and JOIN relationships to fine-tune and improve performance. And, if summary files are required, it’s easy to create them directly on the system.

Do you have old native queries that you want to convert? It’s simple with a System i native business intelligence tool. SEQUEL can read those definitions and, in a matter of minutes, your old query is an object on a multi-panel dashboard. Your old query has just been given new life as a summary table ready for management to drill into against the live data. A range of industry-standard formats are supported.

Because native BI tools can access the native file definitions, they have an advantage over other solutions. All field definitions, file layouts, and relationships are readily available within seconds. There’s no need to redefine your database on another platform.

Count on your System i
What about your data on other platforms? If you have DB2/400 along with other databases such as SQL server on Windows or an Oracle database on AIX, your System i can link this data, too. Your executive dashboard or key performance indicators can include data from all of your databases. And, you can access this information from a single query engine centered on System i.

Using the System i, you can quickly and easily set up a powerful, cost-effective, and flexible business intelligence solution at your site, without a time-consuming, expensive data warehouse development project. Every user—from executives to managers to end users—can enjoy fast, easy access to the information they need to make better-informed business decisions. It’s never too late to pull the plug on your traditional data warehouse project.

Contributed by Tom Huntington, Vice President of Technical Services

Is there a way to submit the RBT650 report from a CL program? I run this report as part of my yearly Sarbanes-Oxley audit and it would be great if I could automate it.
The Completion Message Listing report (RBT650) prints all the completion messages that have occurred on the system. You can run it from a CL program by doing a call with the correct parameters, as follows:

CALL RBT650 Parm(’caaaaaabbbbbbjjjjjjjjjjggggggggggX’)

Where:

c = completion code

a = beginning date in system date format (000000 for no beginning date)

b = ending date in system date format (000000 for no end date)

j = job number (10 blanks for no job number)

g = group name (10 blanks for no group name)

X = required end marker

Note: If you plan to set this up as an annual job, you might want to replace the dates with reserved command variables. If you do this, when you edit the call command on the Command Entry panel, be careful to keep the same number of spaces within the parameter string as shown above.

How can I easily enter a new license code for the Robot products?
If you have the most current version of the RBTSYSLIB library, it’s easy. From a command line, type RBO, press Enter, and press function key 10. The panel lists all of the Robot products you have installed and their current release and modification levels. Choose option 1 for License Code Entry. Press function key 11 to display the entry panel in “Cut and Paste Mode” to easily paste in the license code. You don’t need to worry about which program or library needs this information, you just need to remember RBO, F10.

(By the way, RBTSYSLIB updates itself automatically any time you install, update, or convert any Robot product.)

If you are wondering what release and modification level of a product is currently shipping, visit www.helpsystems.com/support/releases.html.

Year in and year out, the Robot products earn their keep

Rugged climbs up soaring mountains. Peaceful hikes through quiet woods. Gliding gently over lakes and rivers. If your plans include the outdoors, REI has everything you’ll need to make your adventure a success. And, when REI wanted to make sure their computer operations could keep up with their business responsibilities, they turned to Help/Systems and the Robot products.

REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated) was founded as a cooperative in 1938 to sell outdoor gear and clothing to members. Members pay $15.00 for a lifetime membership and receive a dividend each year on their purchases.

Today, REI operates more than 80 stores throughout the U.S., and has a thriving online and direct sales business. “We’ve been around a long time, and we have a lot of satisfied customers and members,” says Rod Williams, IS Manager for Service Assurance, at REI headquarters in Kent, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.

REI began using the IBM AS/400 as its business computer in the late 1980s, when it was first introduced. Since then, they’ve acquired several more iSeries and System i systems. Most are located at the Kent location.

One System i is located at REI’s distribution center, a few miles away in Sumner. The company first began using the Robot products when they purchased this system for the distribution center.

Automation journey began with a job scheduler
“We were opening the new distribution center in about 1990 and needed to purchase a scheduler to run a set of batch jobs. We looked at a couple of different products and chose the Help/Systems products,” says Rod. “Prior to that time, we were primarily a mainframe shop. This was our first foray into automation products for the System i.”

Today, the company uses Robot/CONSOLE for message management, Robot/SCHEDULE for job scheduling, and Robot/SAVE, for backup and recovery.

Says Rod, “We found these products very easy to install and set up. Especially in the case of the distribution center. We were able to do the things we wanted to straightforwardly and simply with the Robot/SCHEDULE package. Fifteen years later, the applications have changed, but we still have a lights-out data center and we rely on Help/Systems products to maintain that.

Another big payback came from Robot/CONSOLE
“The other big savings came when we put Robot/CONSOLE in our Kent data center, which is staffed 24 hours a day. We really didn’t have a message management system, so operators were constantly having to answer inquiry messages. Robot/CONSOLE allowed us to manage that. Our operators were doing things that the software does better and it frees them to do other things.”

REI automated their message processing by creating message sets. For example, they created device failure messages that break to the operator and let them know when there’s a problem. Says Rod, “We had a problem with a credit authorization that was going to another company. As part of troubleshooting that problem, we created some message sets to monitor for those messages, and now we’re alerted (to problems) much sooner.”

Other messages are suppressed so operators never have to see them. Adds Rod, “We’ve written some in-house programs for different applications so that they create a unique message and we monitor for that message ID. Then, we give the operator specific instructions on what to do, or just automate a recovery action.”

Flexible implementation for each system
REI runs the same message sets on different systems whenever it’s appropriate to do so. Other message sets are unique to each system based on the applications they run.

As Rod explains, “We have nine operators staffing the data center 24/7. Not all came to REI with extensive System i experience. But no matter their level of experience, they can monitor messages through Robot/CONSOLE. The night operators are monitoring the batch schedule, looking for errors, and watching the timeliness of the schedule to meet our service level agreements with REI customers.”

The future ties into enterprise monitoring
Currently, REI’s systems are independent of each other, but each system has Robot/CONSOLE installed. Adds Rod, “The next step in monitoring and message management is to integrate Robot/CONSOLE messages and automation into enterprise monitoring systems. Our aim is to monitor for the availability of business services, the way the customer sees them, not the way IT sees them.

“We haven’t had the resources to really fully explore these products. There’s a lot of other things we could be doing if we had more resources.”

Rod sums it up, “It’s never been a goal to eliminate staff through automation. Instead, it’s the challenge of absorbing the work and responsibility that results from business growth. It would just be a lot more difficult, and I probably wouldn’t sleep as well.

“These products have helped us achieve our business goals, beginning in 1991 with a new data center in a new REI distribution center. They continue to be an important part of our business strategy and achievement of goals.”

by Kiki Koras, Technical Writer