Responsible for planning, installation, customization, debugging, maintenance, product support, customer support, and upgrades of the Global Maintech Virtual Command Center console consolidation, automation, and health monitoring solution. The Global Maintech VCC is a hardware/software solution which is comprised of a specialized Compaq (DEC) Alpha Server with proprietary hardware that connects system and hardware consoles from all major platforms (IBM 9021’s, 9121’s, 9221’s, 9672’s, Multiprise 2000’s, 3090’s, DEC Vax’s, Alphaservers, HP3000’s, HP9000’s, Windows NT servers, Sun Solaris, Amdahl mainframes, AS/400’s, RS/6000’s, etc.). Worked with customers on implementation of automation of operations through customization of the existing product and by writing scripts for shutdown, IPL, task monitoring, and event monitoring for VSE, OS/390, VM, AS/400, Vax, and Alphaserver platforms. Diagnosed hardware and software problems with the VCC product. Installed and customized the Compaq (DEC) Unix operating system (versions 3.2G and 4.0D) on the Alpha servers. Diagnosed problems with both hardware and software. Installed, customized, and debugged our WatchMVS (OS/390) software agent and our IBM HMC agent.

Responsible for maintenance and enhancement of the Candle End-to-End Response Time Building Block, and Omegamon/VTAM. In the time that I've been at Candle, the major contribution has been to fix and stabilize the End-to-End Building Block. There have been many problems with this product that have just been accumulating over the years that I have resolved. The basic response time calculation algorithm to take into consideration all scenarios of bracket and change direction protocol, chaining, pacing, etc., was done. Corrected methods of scanning VTAM's control blocks relating to VTAM resources and sessions. Corrected methods to obtain network addresses for resources that have multiple network addresses. On the Omegamon/VTAM product the major contribution was to significantly improve the performance of the NCP Source Scanner by converting it to cache NCP Source decks. Have worked both onsite at customer locations and in-house.

Started out maintaining their Network Access product - a VTAM session manager that ran from within TSO. Moved on to maintain their PIE/TSO product and their PIE/VM products in addition to Network Access. PIE/TSO could be defined as giving each TSO user multiple TSO sessions within each TSO address space. It was all system type code written in assembler. SVC front/back ends, SVC screening, basically supervisor state, key 0 code. The PIE/VM product was a session manager for VM using logical device support (similar to PVM - VM PASSTHRU). This product ran in its own virtual machine and was basically its own operating system performing its own dispatching, providing its own interrupt handlers, executing its own channel programs for terminal i/o, etc.

During this time I grew into performing the duties of MVS and VM systems programmer for the company. These duties were in addition to the software development duties.

I ended up being the Supervisor of Technical Support. My duties were to manage the PIE/TSO and PIE/VM developers, interface with customers for all of our products both on a support and a trial level. Would go on-site for trial support of all of our products. I became the only one at our company that knew all of our products: PIE/CICS, PIE/TSO, PIE/VM, and MAXICALC. I still provided technical consulting to the developers in regards to the TSO and VM products, and still performed VM and some MVS systems programming functions.

In 1988 I went back to development on our PIE/TSO and Network Access products and performing all the MVS systems programming for our system. Came out with releases 252 and 253 in 1989 and 1990 respectively.

In 1990 started on the redesign of our Network Access product to use a different method of obtaining notification that users had entered data from the terminal instead of the TGET NOWAIT/STIMER method. The new proprietary method reduced CPU utilization of our Network Access product by two-thousand percent. Development also involved the conversion of the VTAM code to use VTAM authorized path.

In 1991 our company was taken over and there was a push to get us as up to date as possible on our operating system software and hardware. I performed all the analysis and implemented our software and hardware migration. We initially converted from MVS/370 (on a 4341 with 3350 disk drives) to MVSXA 223 (on a 4381 with 3380 disk drives). Later that year I migrated us to an ES/9000 running MVS/ESA 420. In the course of time I migrated us to MVS/ESA 422, MVS/ESA 430, MVS/ESA 510, MVS/ESA 520, and MVS/ESA 522, and implemented RACF, SMS, HSM, and RMM.

A change was made in the development project for version 310 of PIE/TSO after the takeover of our company. Major new features and functions were to be added in addition to the enhancements to Network Access. This new version for the product went GA in January of 1992.

The most difficult development project was started in January of 1992. This was the development of MultiTask. This product would provide true multitasking in TSA. It went beta in December of 1992 and GA in January of 1994.

Development of Dynamic Steplib, which was really a dynamic steplib and dynamic ISPLLIB, along with a dynamic concatenation was started in September of 1993 and went GA in January of 1994. The second release of the product went GA in May of 1994.

A development project to clean up a tape stacking and TMM alternative product that our company acquired was begun in July of 1994 and continued past the time I left the company.

Maintained and enhanced an in-house TP system (PINS) and access method (HTAM) that was equivalent to CICS and VSAM respectively. PINS was a VTAM application that controlled terminals and printers and executed transactions that accessed HTAM files. PINS was written entirely in assembler and executed application transactions that were written in COBOL. The HTAM access method was also written in assembler, had its own SVC and executed its own channel programs.

Designed and wrote various software systems for their Financial and Actuarial departments. The system that I wrote for their Financial department was called FEARS (Financial Expense And Revenue System). It collected data from the various cost centers and reported on expenses and revenues, implemented chargebacks, calculated revenues on certain interest bearing accounts and distributed them to the cost centers, and did other financial functions.

The specialized software system that was written for their best actuary was designed to calculate the premium rates, profit, reserves, etc. for different lines of Life Insurance. The system took, into account the different mortality tables given the target group, the type of qualification done, type of life insurance, and other variables.

I also designed founts for their 3800 model 3 laser printer.

Worked on a conversion project at Lockheed California in Burbank. The project was to convert their APL systems which ran under VSPC on a 3033 to run as VS APL under VM/370 on a distributed 4341 environment. This project primarily involved searching out environment dependent interfaces and converting them to VM equivalents. Other conversion tasks required were to make the systems run more efficiently, because performance problems were readily apparent when running many of these systems on the slower 4341's (as opposed to the much faster 3033).

Worked on a project team for designing, and coding of Landing Fees Modeling system for San Francisco International Airport. Wrote specialized programs for analyzing world oil shipments, types of oil grades, and ports of entry. Performed other special ad hoc reporting for various customers to analyze and report on data in our various databases; stocks, bonds, and commodities on different exchanges around the world, OAG, DOE, etc. Provided other support duties for customer's custom software which ran on our system.

Programming Languages: REXX (10 years), APL (4 years), S/390 Assembler (Assembler H and the High Level Assembler - 15 years), Microsoft Visual C++ (2 months), Microsoft Visual Basic (2 months), Metrowerks Codewarrior C++ (1 year).

Hardware Languages: 3270 datastream (14 years), 6670 OCL (2 years), 3800 (1 year).

Operating Systems: VM/SP releases 1.5-1.6, MVS/370 1.3.5, MVS/XA 2.2.3, MVS/ESA releases 4.2-5.2.2, OS/390 releases 1.1.0-2.8.0, Compaq (DEC) Unix 3.2G-4.0D, Win95/98, OS/2 Warp 4.

Job Entry Subsystems: JES2 and some JES3.

Access Methods: VTAM, VSAM, BDAM, BSAM, QSAM, and BPAM. 24 bit and 31 bit modes.

Software that I installed and maintained: MVS, JES, VTAM, DFSORT, QMF, DB2, ISPF, PDF, RMF, C/370, PL/I, Assembler H, High Level Assembler, RACF, SDSF, SMP/E, TSO/E, DFP, DFSMS, NCP, Book Manager, Netview, FDR, and some TCP/IP.

System Interfaces and Facilities: SVC routines, SVC screening, Dynamic Allocation, Disabled Interrupt Exits, SRB's, Access Registers, Cross Memory Services, Estae Routines, FRR's, Resource Managers, IRB routines, Locks, PGSER (branch entry), MVS/370 Page Services, VSMLIST, VSMLOC, SETLOCK, SCHEDULE, TCTL, CALLDISP, RPSGNL, GETMAIN (branch entry), INTSECT, DATOFF, TESTAUTH, RESMGR, ATTACH, ENQ, DEQ, GQSCAN, EXTRACT, SVCUPDTE, GTRACE, SWAREQ, RACROUTE, AXSET, AXEXT, ALESERV, DSPSERV, STORAGE, LOAD (directed and global), setting up and using virtual fetch, front-ending and back-ending SVC's and TSO/VTAM SRB routines and VTAM routers, VTAM programming using authorized path, STIMER, TTIMER, LINK, SNAP, MGCRE, WTO, SETRP, XCTL, ABEND, IKJDAIR, STACK, TPUT, TGET, TPG, GETLINE, PUTLINE, STFSMODE, STTMPMD, GTSIZE, GTTERM, STLINENO, IKJPARS.

Practical Internals Knowledge in the following areas: VSM, RSM, RTM, Task Management, Contents Supervision, Timer Services, Supervisor Control and Dispatcher, Terminal Monitor Program, TSO/VTAM, VTAM, Allocation.

System Programmer Skills: MVS, JES, VTAM, RACF, SMS, SMP/E, IOCP, TSO/E, HCD, FDR, DFDSS, DFRMM, DFHSM, ICKDSF, RMF, SDSF, ISMF, NJE, some SAS, some CICS, some IMS, ES/9000 and 4381 processors (configuration, maintenance, customization, and operation), PR/SM, hardware installation and planning (electrical, cabling, A/C requirements), system exits (coding, installation, testing, and activation of VTAM, MVS, SMS, JES, and SMF exits - static and dynamic).

MVS Debugging and Diagnosis: SVC dumps, logrec, SLIP (both per and non-per traps and traces), GTF (SVC, USR, DSP, and SLIP), VTAM traces (internal, buffer, and TSO), IPCS, AMDPRDMP, data areas manuals, logic manuals, source microfiche, GTRACE, and PTRACE.

VM Debugging and Diagnosis: PER, TRACE, CCWTRACE, ANALYZE, (from Amdahl), VMDUMP, IPCS, CPTRAP.

VM Services: Logical Device Support.

Hardware knowledge and experience: Installed and replaced HDA's for STC 8650's, and Amdahl 6280's, installed and customized 3274's, 3174's and 3720's. Diagnosis and operation of 3380's, 3880's, 3390's, 3990's, 4341's, 4381's, ES/9000, and Compaq (DEC) Alphaservers.