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Connecticut Computer Measurement Group
Summer CCMG Membership Meeting Agenda
Courtyard by Marriott, Cromwell - Friday, June 12, 2009

Summer CCMG '09 Agenda The Speakers

The Connecticut Computer Measurement Group announces its Summer Conference. We have speakers for both mainframe and technology tracks as well as combined sessions. Mullen award winner, John Van Wagenen will present two sessions. The first session on practical hints and tips on the use of Pivot Tables and Charts for quick analysis will be presented to a combined audience. The second session on how to manage zSeries MIPS by detecting and controlling application variance will be presented in the Mainframe Track. Newcomer, Alon Ben-Shoshan will give his session on Business Transaction management – the next generation of IT performance in what we are calling the Technology Track. After lunch we will continue the Mainframe track with Peter Enrico and his session on zOS System Logger, what it can do for you and how to optimize its performance. Peter is always an engaging and dynamic presenter. In our Technology track we will bring you something of interest on the Green Data Center initiative, one company’s experiences. And last, but best is Dr. Jeff Buzen who will present to the combined audience on “Variability, Uncertainty and Workload Characterization” using the umbrella problem to illustrate the main points in suggesting an alternative to random variables and standard probability concepts. Jeff has a way of making the complex easy to grasp and apply. For those of us who know Jeff to those of you who might not have had the pleasure, you are in for a treat.

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We have invited speakers from our own regional CCMG as well as National CMG. Today’s speakers are experts in their fields and outstanding representatives of CMG.

Agenda:

8:00-8:30	Registration & Coffee
8:30-8:45	Introductory Remarks & Business Agenda
	Combined Sessions
8:45-10:00	Pivot Tables/Charts – Magic Beans without living in a fairy tale John S. Van Wagenen* – Caterpillar, Inc.
10:00-10:15	Break
	Mainframe Track	Technology Track
10:15-11:30	So you want to manage your Z-series MIPS? Then detect & control application workload variance! *John S. Van Wagenen – – Caterpillar**	Business Transaction Management - The Next Generation of IT Performance Management Alon Ben-Shoshan - Correlsense Ltd
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11:30-12:30	Lunch
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12:30-1:45	z/OS System Logger - Understanding, Measuring, and Tuning Peter Enrico – Enterprise Performance Strategies, Inc.	Cloud Computing - where are we and where are we going Chuck Rexroad - IBM
1:45 - 2:00	Break
	Combined Sessions
2:00 - 3:15	Variability, Uncertainty and Workload Characterization Dr. Jeffrey P. Buzen** - Consultant
	Closing Remarks
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About the Speakers:

Alon Ben-Shoshan is the Marketing Manager at Correlsense Ltd. working out of New York City; he previously filled a number of roles at Applied Materials and received his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Tel-Aviv University.

Dr. Jeff Buzen* has been a prominent figure in the analysis of computer performance for nearly four decades. His early research was instrumental in establishing the theoretical foundations for queuing network models. Then, as an entrepreneur, he co-founded BGS Systems and led the development of the BEST/1 family of software products for performance modeling and capacity planning. BGS Systems operated independently from 1975 to 1998 and was then acquired by BMC Software. Since that time, Dr. Buzen has been a consultant, researcher, author and lecturer, and has served a term as President of the Computer Measurement Group. Dr. Buzen has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a recipient of CMG’s A.A. Michelson award. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard.

Prior to co-founding BGS Systems, Dr. Buzen was a member of the Harvard faculty where he supervised the Ph.D. dissertations of Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe, Internet pioneer John M. McQuillan, and CMG Director Annie Shum. He also co-taught a popular course on Operating Systems and Computer Performance attended by several students who have had a profound impact on the computer industry, most notably Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

*Albert Abraham Michelson was known for his technical accomplishments in measuring the speed of light and for his role as teacher and inspirer of others. CMG presents this prestigious award to recognize and encourage the same combination of technical excellence and professional contribution found in only an exceptional few.

Peter Enrico has strong and diverse experience with the IBM zArchitecture platform, and a solid background in z/OS, Workload Manager, J2EE, WebSphere, Web Services, e-business applications, application architecture, Parallel Sysplex, and z/OS UNIX System Services. He also has a good deal of experience with a variety of UNIX platforms, ERP applications, and distributed application architecture.. Peter Enrico now works as an independent systems and software performance consultant, seminar instructor, benchmarker, and software project manager and designer. Due to his diverse and unique set of skills, on a regular basis many customers, vendors, and even IBM, tap Peter's Workload Manager, WebSphere on z/OS, e-business, Parallel Sysplex, and UNIX Systems Services performance knowledge. Peter has published a variety of presentations and papers on these subjects.

Chuck Rexroad is an IBM Executive Service Management Solution Architect, working with customers to develop and manage large scale data centers, including cloud. He currently serves on a national team, working with customers who are moving to cloud as well Green initiatives. Chuck has an extensive background in Information Technology having worked in Capacity Planning and Performance Management for mainframe and distributed environments as a vendor and also as a customer.

John S. Van Wagenen* has 30 years of experience in the IT industry, 21 years of which are at Caterpillar. He has completed assignments in both distributed and mainframe computing environments. In his current assignment he is responsible for enterprise capacity & performance management for the z-series mainframes. He recently won the Mullen Award at CMG2008 for best paper and presentation after previously presenting at CMG2007. A lifelong learner, John shares his wisdom telling great stories about a great company.

*The J. William Mullen award is given in memory of past CMG president Bill Mullen. This award recognizes his contributions to CMG and the profession of information technology. The award recipient is an individual who exhibits both technical excellence and an engaging presentation style.

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Agenda:

Combined Systems

Mainframe Track

Technology Track

Mainframe Track

Technology Track

Combined Systems

8:00-8:30	Registration & Coffee
8:30-8:45	Introductory Remarks & Business Agenda
8:45-10:00	Pivot Tables/Charts – Magic Beans without living in a fairy tale John S. Van Wagenen, Caterpillar, Inc.
This presentation will show how one analyst uses the pivot table feature of Microsoft EXCEL to arrive at a quick performance analysis for DB2 and BATCH mainframe applications. At our enterprise, we use pivot tables and charts as monitoring tools, performance analysis, and management communication. An explanation of the basic concepts to create and manipulate pivot tables will be combined with a real-time demonstration of the tables and charts. At times in your career you find a tool that is truly worth learning about. This is one of those times and one of those tools!
10:00-10:15	Break - Refreshments
10:15-11:30	So you want to manage your Z-series MIPS? Then detect & control application workload variance! John S. Van Wagenen, Caterpillar, Inc
Workload analysis on the mainframe can be complicated if your business runs operations 7/24 with hundreds of applications. At our enterprise, we have a success story where the Z-series MIPS capacity has been held flat for more than two years. Each month every application is measured for current activity and compared to a baseline. Those applications that exceed a variance threshold are detected as “out of standard” or OOS for short. The OOS applications receive scrutiny to determine a named cause of the variance. This paper provides basic instruction and lessons learned.
10:15-11:30	Business Transaction Management - The Next Generation of IT Performance Management y Alon Ben-Shoshan - Correlsense Ltd
Remember the good old days where all you had to deal with was the Mainframe? You had 100% visibility into everything that was going on; who was accessing what, what performance they were experiencing and when problems arose, you could pinpoint its root cause rather rapidly. With distributed systems today, things have really gotten out of hand; complex multi-tiered applications have become too tough to manage with traditional tools. Business Transaction Management seeks to provide "good old Mainframe visibility and reliability" to distributed systems. The concept is simple: track every single transaction from the moment it is initiated by the end user, through the proxy, web server, load balancer, application server, message broker, all the way to the database and mainframe. When this is done 24x7, any service degradation or outage will be identified and along with it - its root cause. Think about it - in this way every single IT process that is running in your datacenter is linked to the business service that it supports. The presentation will cover a short history, an overview, the different implementation approaches and the future of this initiative.
11:30-12:30	Lunch (Provided)
12:30-1:45	z/OS System Logger - Understanding, Measuring, and Tuning Peter Enrico – Enterprise Performance Strategies, Inc.
The z/OS System Logger provides for single system or multi-system logging. Exploiters of the System Logger no longer have the responsibility to maintain logging functions. Instead the System Logger does it for them. Exploiters of System Logger include Operlog, Syslog, subsystems such as CICS for recovery, and now even SMF data can be maintained by the System Logger. During the presentation, Peter Enrico will provide an introduction to the System Logger, its components, and how it is used by its exploiters. Peter will then show how to measure, monitor, and tune the System Logger for optimal performance.
12:30 - 1:45	Cloud Computing - where are we and where are we going Chuck Rexroad – IBM
This presentation will focus on the Cloud Computing paradigms of public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. It will provide information on what has led to current cloud computing initiatives as well as the reasons why organizations have decided to move into cloud computing. It will discuss the many ways in which cloud may be much closer to you than you think. It will also cover the future of cloud computing.
1:45 - 2:00	*Break*

2:00 - 3:15	Variability, Uncertainty and Workload Characterization Dr. Jeff Buzen
The performance of computer systems and communication networks depends on the speed of individual hardware components and the processing demands of user workloads. Most user workloads fluctuate unpredictably. These fluctuations are traditionally characterized by random variables, leading to stochastic (probabilistic) models of system performance. This talk presents an alternative characterization of uncertainty that does not employ random variables or other standard probabilistic concepts. The approach provides a new way to separate risky predictions from safer predictions derived from the same model. For example, response time distributions are riskier to predict than throughput and queue length distributions. A very simple and easily understood example (the “umbrella problem”) is used to illustrate the main points.
3:15	Closing Remarks
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