Detailed Agenda

 

CMG Canada Seminar:  April 17th – 18th, 2001 (Toronto)

 

*** Note ***

*** Location***

 
TIME: 8:00a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

LOCATION: SAS Canada Inc.

BCE Place

181 Bay Street, Suite 2220

 

Enter the Bay-Wellington Tower of BCE via the Bay or Wellington Street doors and take an elevator to the 22nd floor.

ATTIRE: Business attire or Business casual (hard-soled shoes, slacks, collared shirt)

 

If this program is not of interest to you, please pass it on to the appropriate group within your organization  ...  or have them visit

CMG Canada at www.cmg.org/regions/cacmg

 

FINAL Agenda:  Tuesday April 17th 2001

 

8:30 AM          Continental Breakfast

 

9:00 AM          President's Welcome - Anthony G. Mungal

 

9:20 AM          Workload License Charge and the XSLM Standard

John Anderson – IBM Corporation

 

IBM's new zSeries processor, together with the zOS operating system, offers a new tool to help with software asset management on the S/390 platform. The Open Group's XSLM standard is integrated into the system to provide a new level of software license management. This session will explain the XSLM industry standard and how, at a high level, that is implemented on the zSeries. IBM's new variable workload license charge (WLC) will be presented. Some ideas for getting your ISVs on board will also be discussed. This is a management session and will not be technical in nature. Come and hear how this technology enables better control of your S/390 software budget.

 

John Anderson has worked for IBM since the mid-70s in both product development and sales positions. He is currently a program manager in the Large Systems Market Support Center. John does consulting, and teaches classes, in the software asset management (SAM) area. He is a frequent speaker on this topic both within IBM and at industry events. John also runs an Internet discussion group on the topic of ISV software asset management for IBM clients. To learn more about SAM, and to see a picture of John, please visit www.softwareassetmanagement.com. John is a graduate of the University of Waterloo and is a licensed professional engineer

 

10:20 AM        Coffee


 

10:35 AM        The zSeries 900:  The 390’s Last Hurrah or New Beginning

Dr. Douglas MacKinnon – BMC Corp

This presentation will discuss the status of the OS390 market and the future enhancements we will likely see over the next 3 years.  He will draw on his experience and background developing OS390 strategies for BMC Software, and share his vision of what is in store for the OS390 world over the next few years.

 

Dr. Douglas MacKinnon is past President of the Southern California chapter of CMG.  In addition, he has published several papers at the National CMG.  For the past eight years he has been working with BMC Software in Houston and is currently their Director of OS390 Performance Strategy.  Prior to this, he worked seven years at Candle Corporation as one of their first Product Managers and subsequently as Director of Marketing.  He has additional experience in Performance Management and Capacity Planning at Rockwell International and Hughes Aircraft.

                                                                                                                                                                                               

11:45 AM        Lunch (on your own)

 

1:00 PM           Annual General Meeting

 

1:20 PM           Is Data Mining Merely Hype?

David Yeo – SAS Institute

 

Massive data sets are a fact of life in most organizations.  Data mining claims to be able to help companies stay afloat in this flood of data.  But what, exactly, is data mining?  Perhaps more important, does it offer anything new? This presentation examines a number of the facts and fictions surrounding the exploding field of data mining. It will also provide a critical review of a number of key data mining techniques to help you assess how, or if, data mining is appropriate for your organization.

 

David Yeo(Ph.D.) is an Instructor at SAS Institute (Canada) Inc., and the Sr. Business Solutions Specialist in data mining.  Dr. Yeo has worked in the decision-support field for over 17 years, with companies as diverse as CP Rail and IBM.  A graduate of the University of Toronto where he specialized in decision support applications of statistics, artificial intelligence and neural networks, Dr. Yeo’s responsibilities include providing guidance on the wide range of analytic techniques now available for the implementation of effective decisions.

 

2:20 PM           Insights into WWW Server Performance using Busy-Period Analysis

                        Pierre Fiorini – BMC Software

 

O

ver the last few years the growth of the World Wide Web has been enormous. The number of WWW sites is growing exponentially. WWW applications such as electronic commerce and video conferencing, etc., all increase Internet traffic. One problem faced by WWW server administrators is adequate sizing and planning of their facilities such that they can provide the Quality of Service (QoS) required by end-users. One issue concerning Web server planning arises when attempting to formulate a model that characterizes WWW server performance. The reason is that, in many instances, it has been empirically demonstrated that WWW server file transfer times and sizes are consistent with that of heavy-tailed or power-tailed distributions [2, 3]. A consequence of this high-variability is its potentially enormous impact on the performance of the WWW server. In this paper we discuss approaches on how to model this behavior. The models are subsequently analyzed using steady-state and busy-period analysis.  Finally, we conclude by arguing that when heavy-tailed or power-tailed behavior is observed in WWW servers, then busy-period analysis provides additional insight into system behavior; consequently, this aids in WWW server capacity planning.

 

Pierre Fiorini is a Principal Engineer at BMC Software. His duties at BMC include developing mathematical models for predicting computer system performance. He did his undergraduate work at Colby College and Trinity College, and holds the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Connecticut where he specialized in queuing theory and computer performance modeling.

 

3:30 PM           Break

 

3:45 PM           Benchmarking eSoftware

                        Brian O’Neill – TGT Software

 

This presentation will provide an overview of a benchmarking project conducted on Siebel Software for Sun Microsystems. The benchmark was conducted on Sun Enterprise 10000 hardware, using Mercury Loadrunner software. The presentation will concentrate on the methodology used to do the benchmark. This includes the goals of the test, the setup of the environment, the key measures and a summary of key indicators. The challenges associated with testing n-tier environments will also be reviewed.

 

Brian O’Neill is Director of New Technology at TGT Solutions Inc. a Canadian Systems Integration firm. He has over 15 years experience working on corporate information systems.  Brain has spent the last 6 years implementing client/server ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence systems in the Financial Services, Professional Services and Public Sector environments across North America.

 

5:00 PM           CMG Canada Members Reception

 

7:00 PM           Adjourn


 

FINAL Agenda:  Wednesday April 18th 2001

 

09:00 AM        President’s Remarks

 

09:10 AM        The Impact of the Itanium Processor on Server Capacity

                        Steve Shaw – Hewlett Packard (Canada) Ltd.

                       

Intel will be releasing the Itanium Processor later this year. This new architecture was co-developed by Intel and HP. Steve will provide an overview of this new chip, the impact on the server market and the markets that it will have the biggest impact upon release.  As the UNIX market continues to drive to higher and higher levels of capability, particularly in mission critical solutions, Steve will overview some of the latest operative system innovations and middleware that will be available.

 

Steve Shaw is the Solutions Marketing Manager with Hewlett-Packard Canada’s Business Customer Organization. He has 20 years of experience in the computer industry and was previously the Enterprise Systems Program Manager.  He does strategic presentations to key enterprise customers on topics including the HP9000 enterprise server product line and HP’s computing strategy for the future, particularly around the HP-UX operating system and PA-RISC and IA-64 technology environments. Steve is a member of the Conference Board of Canada’s Council for Information Technology Executives as well as being on the board of Directors of SMART Toronto.

 

10:15 AM        Coffee

 

10:40 AM        People, Places, Things: Web Presence for the Real World

                        Joseph Belsanti – Hewlett- Packard (Canada) Ltd.

 

Web technology, wireless networks and portable client devices are converging to provide new opportunities for computer communications systems designs. At HP Labs we have been exploring these opportunities through an infrastructure to support "web presence" for people, places and things. Our goal is a bridge between the World Wide Web and the physical world we inhabit. This bridge includes the ability to interact with devices such as printers from a browser using standard HTTP communication. It also includes the ability to provide people, places and things – electronic or otherwise – with a web resource that is used to store information about them and which is automatically correlated with their physical presence. We aim to provide users, particularly mobile users, with support for their everyday activities, which mostly concern physical objects other than PC’s.

 

Joseph Belsanti is the E-services Program Manager for Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Ltd. He is responsible for creating and implementing marketing programs that promote e-services solutions and strategies in the areas of: e‑commerce, e-business, customer relationship management, e-payments, e-procurement as well as the HP’s Garage Program. Joseph held many different sales and marketing roles relating to the selling and marketing of software connectivity solutions, IT products, and test & measurement equipment in Canada, USA, and South East Asia - where he managed a network of resellers and distributors.  He joined Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Ltd. with approximately 10 years of IT sales and marketing experience with organizations like Hummingbird Ltd., AT&T Capital, Xerox and Electro Rent Corporation.

 

11:45 AM        Lunch (on your own)

 

1:00 PM           Trials and Tribulations of Implementing a Virtual Tape System

Dick Arnold – BMC Corp.

 

This is a case study of implementing a Virtual Tape Subsystem (VTS).  It provides a tutorial of learning experiences of what may go wrong, and how to get it right. The paper points out the metrics the user should review for determining the performance and capacity issues of the VTS.  The case study proves that by going back to the basics and implementing some tried and true techniques, with a lucky guess or two, you can control the performance of the VTS. The paper demonstrates the importance of balancing file placement to take advantage of the VTS, SILOs and DASD.

 

Dick Arnold has been in the industry for more than 30 years, starting as an application programmer in the aerospace and banking industries.  He entered the performance and capacity management area in 1972 as a technical consultant with a hardware monitor vendor.  Moving into the customer area, he developed the performance and capacity functions at several large companies in the aerospace, paper products, insurance and banking industries.  He taught MVS tuning, workload analysis and capacity planning classes for Boole and Babbage for several years.

 

2:00 PM           Workload Manager (WLM) in Goal Mode – User Experience Update

Ted MacNeil – Bank of Nova Scotia

 

An update to reasons for, and implementation of, Goal Mode at the Bank of Nova Scotia's two Sites. The approach was to keep it simple and the implementation was not difficult, but there were some issues affecting this project. Some are resolved; some, not. This presentation is an update to the one he gave in February 2000. It will also include some ramblings & preaching on issues that have been around since the beginning of configuration/ performance management and now show up even more under Goal Mode.

 

Ted MacNeil is currently a Senior Technical Specialist in Mainframe Planning & Hardware Services at the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto. He has been working in SAS since Merrill's macros and pre-MICS. He was hired to get an Insurance Company, a Government agency, and two financial companies (one being ScotiaBank) get forecasting and tracking systems up and running through SAS, REXX and other forms of automation in order to reduce the grunge work thereby increasing the time available for analysis. He has intensively studied IO, CICS, MVS  from SE2 to z/OS V1R1, VM, IMS, DB2, IDMS, Model 204 (MVS), etc.  He graduated in Computer Science and Statistics from the University of Waterloo in 1981.

 

3:15 PM           Break

 

3:30 PM           FICON:  Not Your Father's ESCON

Darrell P. Faulkner - Computer Associates

                       

FICON channels promise to provide much greater capacity and performance over that from ESCON channels.  This presentation gives a very detailed, technical presentation of FICON architecture, followed by a discussion of the new RMF measurements available for measuring FICON channel performance, and how to use/interpret them.

 

Darrell Falkner has a wide range of experience in the resource management profession, having worked with MVS performance/analysis/chargeback prior to joining Morino Associates back in 1989 as the primary developer for the MICS SMF component and later the RMF component as well.  He currently manages the NeuMICS Data Integration Analyzer group in NeuMICS Development for Computer Associates, where he stays abreast of the latest releases of systems software/hardware from not only IBM, but other vendors as well.

 

 

4:30PM            Adjourn

 

 

 

 

 

Dates worth Remembering:

           

The CMG Canada dates for the 2001/2002 year are:

 

o       Tuesday November 6th 2001

o       Tuesday February 19th 2002

o       Tuesday April 16th & Wednesday April 17th 2002

 

·        CMG 2001  – Anaheim - December 2nd – 7th 2001

 

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