http://www.cmg.org <---Link to CMG.org
here (CMG is the national Computer Measurement Group.)
Welcome to the Greater Atlanta - Computer Measurement
Group (GA-CMG)
website!
General Information:
We are a group from the
Typically, we sponsor two regional conferences a
year, one in the spring (mid-April), and another in the fall (mid-October).
(Note that the
National CMG conference is
usually held during the first week of December. It is an incredible learning
opportunity for both newcomers to the field and experienced staff.)
We invite all to the conferences who wish to come,
and we encourage participation. We share best practices with one another, learn
about others in the computing field, and discuss problems and possible
solutions. You do not need to write a 'formal' paper to make a presentation to
the group. Vendors products may often be showcased with the perspective of
learning more about computers and measurement. To be placed on our email list, send a request to Bob.Chaney@Delta.Com.
Information on
the NEXT conference:
GA-CMG 2009 Fall Conference !!!
Date: October 21, 2009
Time: 8:30 am -3:30 pm
Join us for the Fall 2009 GACMG conference, sponsored
by NEON systems, hosted by Bank of
Our information-packed agenda will both excite and awe
you. Here’s what we have so far:
From NEON we’ll hear about: “zWhole
Wide World of Specialty Processors”. Come and hear first hand about
their zPrime software that is creating quite a stir in the mainframe community.
John Crunk
will present his CMG2009 paper: “Reporting
Performance Test Results: Qualitatively
and Quantitatively.”
Charles Foy will
present his CMG2008 Mullen Award winning paper: “Say goodbye to post-mortems, say hello
to Effective Problem Management and Increased Availability.”
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The conference fee is $25,
payable via PayPal, which can be accessed on our web site at:
Cost: $25
(Link to PayPal ***here***)
Location: Bank of
General Location: The Bank of America building is at the corner of
Rapid Transit: The closest MARTA stop is the
Driving Directions: If you are travelling from the North of Atlanta to downtown, take the
I-85/I-75 Connector exit to
If you are travelling from the south of
Parking: A
building-connected parking deck is available on the east side of the building.
Access to the parking deck is from
-One is accessed from
-The other is accessed at
-There is also surface street parking at Bellsouth's
parking lot adjacent to the Fox Theater.
-If you are feeling lucky, and enjoy walking, there is
a small amount of free parking that may be available one block further
east on Third and Fourth Streets. This parking lot involves navigating the
adjacent one-way streets.
Building and Room Access: We meet on the third floor in a conference area. From the elevator, look
for signs posted on or near the doors. All building entrants will be required
to sign in at the security desk in the front lobby of the building. Upon
signing-in, you be provided with a temporary access badge for the day from the
security guard. Please remember that after the meeting has concluded, you must
return the badge to the security area when departing from the building.
Information on
the LAST conference:
GA-CMG 2009 Spring Conference Report:
On April 22, 2009, we had a great conference
that included presentations from two invited speakers. IBM Tivoli was our
sponsor.
In the morning, Peter Sevcik, the
inventor of the Apdex score spoke. Peter also the executive director of
the Apdex Alliance and a principal in the NetForecast website. He is a
leading authority on measuring, assessing, and improving the performance of
networked applications. He has contributed to the design of more than 100
systems and to the success of more than 25 application management products. He
has pioneered several performance management techniques that are in common use
today.
The Apdex score is the open standard numerical measure
of application performance satisfaction. Essentially, the Apdex score is a
number between 0 (Zero) and 1 (One). Zero represents an
application performance that is rated by the user community as being a disaster
and one represents application performance perfection. The base idea of
the scoring system is to achieve a rating, such as point five nine's as
defined by the user community. A user score example would be described as being
an "F" (frustrated with the application) , "T"
(tolerating the performance), or "S" (satisfied
with the performance) of the application. The strength of the Apdex scoring
system is that it discovers hidden problems. The use is not 'one time', but is
a periodic trend that can be used to help find capacity problems during the
time addressed. The important part of the system is that the score is linked to
the business needs. John showed the group his 'formula' and used a case study
of a business-to-business commercial website as an example of use. He explained
some of the different metrics selected as the measurement markers. The
Apdex score is used by many large companies and government web sites.
Peter's presentation may be viewed at http://www.apdex.org. He suggested further
study at the following site: http://kpilibrary.com.
(This contains Key Performance Indicators used by the scoring system.)
Also, others may be interested in the web-site http://www.netforecast.com where
Peter is a frequent contributor to the blog area.
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In the afternoon, our second presenter was John Van
Wagenen. John works with a team of performance analysts at Caterpillar,
Inc. The company is a large producer of diesel engines that includes
the ones used in ships, trains, and trucks. He attended national CMG for the first time in 2006 and presented his
first paper in 2007. Following that experience, he decided to write three
papers, in hopes of having another accepted. Well, all three were
accepted and at the national CMG 2008
conference, he presented his papers and was selected as a Mullen Award
winner! With this award, comes a stipend that allows him to travel to
regional meetings and present his papers to others. He is an engaging speaker
and is truly interested in helping others learn from his experience. We
are grateful to John for coming to visit us. John didn't spend much time in
John presented two papers. His first paper was: “So you want to manage your
z-Series MIPS? Then detect and control application workload variance!” He has an outstanding
success story from Caterpillar where they have not upgraded the mainframe
capacity for two years, in spite of doubling growth in sales. He explained
how his team was able to find code inefficiencies by analyzing usage and
comparing the baseline measure of an application to recent growth, or variance.
They look for applications that exceed a 20% monthly threshold and target that
application for more analysis. Many times, a deeper dive into application
performance yields finding code that can use less computer cycles if it is
changed to be more efficient. His paper was the result of lessons-learned and
instructions on how others may measure their usage. He creates a daily/hourly
file for about 700 applications that run on the mainframe. He noted that they
execute 10,000 batch jobs an hour. The team looks at schedules that can shift
and many factors of how the mainframe can be more effective.
John's second paper was titled: “Pivot tables/charts - magic beans
without living in a fairy tale". This
presentation was one where ‘you had to be there’. John was both entertaining and educational with a live demonstration of
the creation and use of Microsoft Excel Pivot tables. The take-home use of this
information is invaluable to those who have not experienced ‘pivoting’. He has found where
delineation of functionality creates better diagnostics. He used a DB2
Authid/CorrelationId pivot chart as an example for the web activity at
Caterpillar. He said that they have found that sizing workloads can improve
application forecasts. They use a technique called "Pad Management"
where they follow application growth patterns, and tune, when possible, to protect
the white-space. (The area on a graph above actual usage and below the maximum
capacity of the machine.)
His papers may be found at http://www.cmg.org in the national CMG 2008
papers and ***here***.
<--- Click to go to John's presentation.
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We had a self-serve, light breakfast, and a self-serve
BBQ Buffet lunch from Slope's sponsored by IBM Tivoli.
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GA-CMG
2008 Fall Conference Information <--- Click for information on the
GA-CMG 2008 Fall Conference
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Information on
Board Members:
President: Kevin Mobley Email: gacmg@cmg.org
The
Ian Thomas Group http://www.IanThomasGroup.com
Business:
404-993-5698 Fax: 404-949-5936
An article about the Ian
Thomas Group was published in the TechJournal South, Technology Business News
March 18,2009.
Vice President: Juliana Hughes Email: Juliana. Hughes (at) Macys.com
Mainframe Capacity Planning, Macy's,
John's Creek, GA
Business: 678-474-2708
Secretary: Bob
Chaney Email: Bob. Chaney
(at) Delta.com NOTE: Bob was a previous CMG Mullen
Award winner.
Delta Technology, LLC,
Business: 404-242-4117
Treasurer: Charles Savage Email:
Charles. Savage (at) BankofAmerica.com
NOTE: Charles is the current National CMG treasurer
Mail Information: Greater Atlanta Computer Measurement Group
%Charles Savage (Resiliency and
Availability Services)
Board of Director Member: Prentice Frazier
Email: Prentice.
Frazier (at) Comcast.Net
Experient
Group, Inc.
(Note: The (at) name in all the previous email addresses is to be replaced
with a "@" symbol in the address field of the email. The '(at)'
coding here is to prevent webcrawling software from collecting email addresses
and sending spam.
Occasionally,
GA-CMG learns of open positions in the field. When we do, emails may be sent to
the list on file to notify others of the opportunities