The meeting started with a presentation by Martin Wills and Ted Dinkle from MVS Solutions concerning managing your batch solutions - automatically. His company provides software to manage batch processing and to speed-up initiation and balance initiators on the mainframe. The information for his company is available at http://MVSSolutions.com (the technology realization company).
Here is a link to Ted and Martin's Presentation:
(1) 2008-10-22_Dinkle,Ted_SysloadGACMG Presentation <---Click for link to Presentation (Microsoft Powerpoint)
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Our next presenter was Ted Scott from the US Army Reserve. He explained to the group the ITIL Service Catalog that they have developed for use of deploying new software and assuring its quality. He specifically pointed out great “do’s and don’t’s” the group has learned concerning when your service catalog needs more detail, (for example, connect server to users at location A) and when your catalog has too much information (location B has x number of users). It was noted that they are considering several vendor solutions to their expanding requirements, but that they designed their current internal catalog according to broad vendor recommended guidelines.
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Due to our morning sessions expanding the suggested time schedule, Tim said that
he didn’t mind us eating while he talked, so the group munched on a box lunch
while he spoke. Tim Browning works at Coca-Cola Enterprises
and taught us some new mathematical tricks. His presentation was titled “The
mathematics of Capacity Planning and Performance Management - Simplified” .
He had a spreadsheet sample containing a set of numbers and explained how
outliers can distort the number collection and cause the numerical average
that is presented to be wrong. The outliers can be deleted in order to preserve the numbers, or a
weighted-average methodology
can be used to make an effective solution for the
outlier problem. Tim’s presentation helped everyone re-visit mathematical
terminology not heard in normal, everyday conversations.
Note: Tim was able to eat during our next presentation from Emmanuel.
Here is a link to Tim's Presentation:
(1) 2008-10-22_BrowningTim_Math Example for Presentation
<---Click for link to Presentation (Microsoft Word)
(2) 2008-10-22_BrowningTim_Mathematics of CPE <---Click for link to Presentation (Microsoft Excel)
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After lunch, Emmanuel Sauvion from Sysload, told us about “Performance Management in a VM World”. The Sysload solution for server statistics starts with a collector on each machine. The information has a small footprint and machine load. The product strength involves identifying servers that can be virtualized. http://www.Sysload.com (Server Performance Management)
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Kevin Mobley, our GA-CMG president from the Ian Thomas consulting group, spoke about a recent success with a bank. His presentation title was “Removing a one lane bridge from an application to save $250M and using Six Sigma to prove it”. In particular, his company was able to find an application bottleneck, suggest and implement improvements and save a lot of money for the bank. Of course, someone had to ask Kevin how much he was able to take home. As our culture is used to political correctness, (especially these days near major elections), Kevin smiled and changed the subject. Way to go, Kevin and company! Save money - yeah! (Make money - yeah!) Note: Kevin's company specializes in improving application performance. http://www.IanThomasGroup.com
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Speaking of saving money, our wrap-up discussion included a survey of participants talking about the current fallen economy and how our employers can reduce spending. Current literature contains information about many companies saving by using less electricity and making other efficiency changes. Even changing to more efficient light bulbs can help reduce energy requirements.
The group wishes to thank MVS Solutions and Sysload for their sponsorship. The
free conference requested registration in order to plan for breakfast and lunch. Also,
thanks to Bank of America for the use of their facilities.