Agenda:

AGENDA

7:45-8:15	Registration & Coffee (provided by BMC Software )
8:15-8:30	Introductory Remarks & Business Agenda
	Mainframe Track	Open Systems Track
8:30-9:45	*LPAR Weight – No Dieting Here* John Parla - CIGNA *LSPAR Benchmark Converter* Charles Hackett - IBM	*Server Virtualization – Measuring Up* Pete Weilnau – Information Systems Manager
9:45-10:15	Break – Refreshments (provided by BMC Software )
10:15-11:30	*Mining Performance Gold From CICS* *Statistics* Ivan Gelb – Gelb Information Systems	*Wholesale Distributed Capacity Planning* Irving Smith - Bank of America
11:30-12:45	Lunch (Provided)
	Combined Sessions
12:45-2:15	Through the Prism of Fractals: Why SOA Should Reflect the Natural Order Annie Shum, BEA
2:15 - 2:45	Break – Refreshments (provided by BMC Software )
2:45 – 4:00	*Bandwidth and Latency: Their Changing Impact on Performance* Yiping Ding - BMC Software
	Closing Remarks

Connecticut Computer Measurement Group
Autumn CCMG Membership Meeting Agenda
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell - Friday, October 14, 2005

About the Speakers:

Pete Weilnau is currently Chief Operating Officer of The Information Systems Manager software company after several years as Director, Research & Development. With over 25 years of industry experience, Pete has held management positions in Networking, Operations and Advanced Technology in Fortune 200 Corporations. Over the past 16 years he has been involved in the development and support of ISM’s PerfMan solutions for performance management and capacity planning.

John Parla (aliases – “Coupon John”, “Uncle Coup” and “Papa John”) has accumulated over 30 years of data processing experience from a variety of major corporations including Aetna, Coca Cola, Emery Air Freight and currently with CIGNA, just to name a few. His primary expertise is with mainframes in the Performance Management and Capacity Planning area. His outside interests include Pool (pocket billiards), Toastmasters and coupon shopping of course.

Chuck Hackett has 19 years experience as a capacity planner and performance analyst, working primarily in the financial industry in NYC. He has recently joined the Washington Systems Center as a JAVA programmer on the Tools team.

Ivan Gelb, President of Gelb Information Systems Corp., is a recognized expert in the fields of performance management and capacity planning for IBM zSeries, UNIX, and WinTel environments. His technical background includes (a) determination of hardware and software requirements for high-performance and high-availability systems; (b) effectiveness evaluations and optimization of computer systems performance; (c) data base and data communications systems design, implementation, and performance improvements; and (d) capacity requirements forecasting and development of proprietary analysis techniques and software packages.

Annie Shum was appointed Vice President, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Strategy at BEA Systems in August 2005. Prior to this appointment, Annie served as Vice President for Science and Technology at BGS Systems and as Corporate Architect at BMC Software. Annie was the creator of the Visualizer product at BGS Systems, where she also played a major role in the development of BEST/1. Annie’s contributions to performance modeling and analysis were recognized by CMG in December 2004 when she received the A.A. Michelson Award.

Dr. Yiping Ding has been with BGS Systems and BMC Software for more than 14 years as a scientist, member of technical staff, technical leader, software development manager, Sr. manager and architect. He has authored and coauthored over 50 papers in various technical journals and proceedings and holds patents in the performance management area. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Connecticut in 1991.

Connecticut Computer Measurement Group
Autumn CCMG Membership Meeting Agenda
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell - Friday, October 14, 2005

Agenda

07:45-08:15 Registration and Coffee (provided by BMC Software)

08:15-08:30 Introductory Remarks

Mainframe Performance Track

08:30-9:45 LPAR Weight – No Dieting Here

John Parla - CIGNA

Do you have trouble sleeping at night wondering if you have calculated the correct weights for your LPARs? Let me take you through a step by step approach to simplify this process. Whether you use MIPS or MSUs the process and outcome is still the same. Whatever base you use 100%, 1000%, 100% times the number of engines or something else, the process and outcome is still the same.

LSPAR Benchmark Converter

Charles Hackett - IBM

This presentation uses a pair of trained neural networks as mapping functions to translate the published LSPR benchmarks between the zOS 1.4 and OS/390 v2.10 benchmark sets. The z890 and z990 machines are not represented in the OS/390 v2.10 benchmarks, and the neural networks provide an estimate of the z890 and z990 machines' performance under the old benchmarks. Capacity planners can provide a capacity estimate of these processors directly comparable to the older pre-zSeries machines that are being replaced by using previously validated LSPR workload distributions along with these neural networks. The z800 and z900 machines are present in both sets of benchmarks and are used as the training sets for the neural networks.

9:45 – 10:15 Break – Refreshments provided by BMC Software

10:15-11:30 Mining Performance Gold From CICS Statistics

Ivan Gelb – Gelb Information Systems

This session includes presentation of the essential CICS statistics for performance management and capacity planning activities. For maximum effectiveness on the job, attendees will learn (a) important considerations for parameters affecting the data collection, (b) the minimum set of reports required to support a particular activity, (c) what are the important fields on the key reports, and (d) how to avoid some potential pitfalls. Samples of the most useful reports will be presented. The emphasis will be on quick techniques that help us “mine” the mountain of information collected by CICS.

Open Systems Track

08:30-9:45 Server Virtualization – Measuring Up

Pete Weilnau – Information Systems Manager

Server virtualization is one of the hottest topics for the capacity planner in 2005. How does a hardware virtualization environment like VMware ESX impact the performance measurements we’ve been accustomed to getting from Windows and Linux? We all know that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, so how are we going to measure and understand this new environment? This paper presents a lab based study designed specifically to aid in the understanding of performance measurements available directly from VMware ESX. The study also sheds light on the impact of virtualization on traditional Windows performance information.

9:45 – 10:15 Break – Refreshments provided by BMC Software

10:15-11:30 Wholesale Distributed Capacity Planning

Irving Smith – Bank of America

In today's multi-tiered mass server infrastructure, it is highly desirable to be able to provide capacity reports in a timely, proactive and cost effective manner. This paper presents a methodology for producing a level one automated capacity plannning report for a large heterogeneous, distributed systems server population. The paper describes the forecasting techniques employed to generate the report and the capacity planning process that it supports.

11:30-12:45 Lunch (Provided)

Combined Sessions

12:45-2:15 Through the Prism of Fractals: Why SOA Should Reflect the Natural Order

Annie Shum, BEA

Service Orientation is emerging as the fourth wave of the computing paradigm shift because it promises to enable broad-scale interoperability and unprecedented business agility in a service value-net (ecosystem). Containing IT complexity and aligning IT with business through a set of sound and robust design principles are pivotal to the transformational power of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This paper looks for insights into containing IT complexity by studying the time-tested tenets and dynamics of complex fractal-like forms that abound in Nature.

02:15 – 2:45 Break – Refreshments provided by BMC Software

02:45 - 4:00 Bandwidth and Latency: Their Changing Impact on Performance

Yiping Ding - BMC Software

Bandwidth and latency are familiar topics for IT. Both relate to system performance, but in a different fashion; both have improved significantly over the years, but at a very different pace. Their performance impact is also changing as hardware and software technology progresses. We may have to update design strategies in hardware,

software, and protocols to cope. This paper examines their impact to response time from a performance analysis perspective and sheds some new light on how to manage the bandwidth imbalance at different devices and imbalance between bandwidth and latency.

Connecticut Computer Measurement Group

Old State House Square, P.O. Box 230453, Hartford, CT 06123-0453

Autumn 2005 CCMG Membership Meeting, Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center / Cromwell

Friday, October 14, 2005

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

Because of the successful responses in recent meetings, the Autumn meeting will again utilize an e-mail registration, in addition to the regular mail registration. Pre-registration fee is $55.00, which includes lunch.

*** If you use the email pre-registration process, normal pre-payment is not required until Friday, October 14 *****

Simply e-mail your intention to attend, to ctcmg@yahoo.com no later than October 7, 2005, to qualify for the pre-registration fee. You should receive an acknowledgement within 24 hours. Remember payment is required at the door. On-site registration fee is $65.00. PLEASE NOTE: We will once again be at the Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center in Cromwell, CT. This was formerly known as the Cromwell Radisson until last month. Directions can be found on the attached Directions Sheet or on our web site http://www.cmg.org/regions/ctcmg .

We must receive completed registration form and payment (if regular mail registration) by Monday, October 3, 2005. Make check or money order payable to Connecticut CMG.

Mail registration and payment to:

Connecticut CMG

Old State House Square

P.O. Box 230453

Hartford, CT 06123-0453

If you have any questions at all, please call Co-Chairs Steve Marksamer (860) 636-2254 or Patrick Hayes (860) 636-6808.

______________________________________________________________________

Connecticut Computer Measurement Group

Old State House Square, P.O. Box 230453, Hartford, CT 06123-0453

Autumn 2005 CCMG Membership Meeting, Crowne Plaza (formerly Radisson) Cromwell

Friday, October 14, 2005

REGISTRATION FORM

Name: ________________________________________________________________

Company: ________________________________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Phone: ____________________________ E-mail address: ____________________________

o Occasionally, CCMG shares our mailing list with other organizations. Please check this box if you DO NOT wish to have your name released to other computer related groups.

Connecticut Computer Measurement Group

Old State House Square, P.O.Box 230453, Hartford, CT 06123-0453

Autumn 2005 CCMG Membership Meeting

Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center

Cromwell, Connecticut

Friday, October 14, 2005

MEETING PLACE

Please note: in August 2005 the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center re-opened under the Crowne Plaza banner. The Cromwell Crowne Plaza is the same hotel that has hosted CCMG for several years.

Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center / Cromwell

100 Berlin Road

Cromwell, CT 06416

Phone: (860) 635-2000

Message Center: (860) 635-2000 specify CCMG meeting

DIRECTIONS

( FREE PARKING )

Traveling North: (From New York City)

Interstate 95 North to Interstate 91 North (junction in New Haven, CT).

Interstate 91 North to Exit 21 - Rte 372. Turn Left.

Traveling South: (e.g. from Boston)

Interstate 90 Massachusetts Turnpike to Interstate 84 West.

Follow I-84 West to Interstate 91 South (Junction in Hartford, CT).

Interstate 91 South to Exit 21 - Rte 372. Turn Left.

Traveling East:

Follow Interstate 84 East to Interstate 91 South (Junction in Hartford, CT).

Interstate 91 South to Exit 21 - Rte 372. Turn Left.

Traveling West:

Follow Interstate 84 West to Interstate 91 South (Junction in Hartford, CT).

Interstate 91 South to Exit 21 - Rte 372. Turn Left.

From the airport:

Follow signs to Hartford - Route 20 East to I-91 South.

Follow southbound directions above.

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http://www.cmg.org/regions/ctcmg