TWS/Graph at a major bank

Important note: The Author uses "OPC" instead of "TWS for z/OS"

What has been achieved in the first year

A large UK bank purchased TWS/Graph to simplify its batch scheduling process. The bank has now been using TWS/Graph for about a year.

TWS/Graph for OPC is a graphical, search and documentation tool for use with OPC, IBM OS/390 Batch Scheduler. OPC is almost entirely text based. TWS/Graph allows the people responsible for planning the scheduling of the major batch processing of large mainframe sites to get a clear overview of the whole process and to focus on specific areas easily and quickly. It can also automatically produce accurate documentation for the batch schedule.

 An Operations Analyst with many years experience, describes his first twelve months experience of using TWS/Graph. The bank had “A huge OPC database of over 60,000 application descriptions. This was primarily due to a policy of retaining multiple versions of each application for auditing and backout purposes.”

Using TWS/Graph to clean OPC

TWS/Graph can provide an accurate overview of OPC both graphically and by using simple and complex queries.

“TWS/Graph was used to identify these (old versions) and other applications, which were redundant. The results showed that if we could find a secure repository for these applications, then it would be possible to reduce the working database by over two thirds. 

“TWS/Audit fitted the bill perfectly as it became the one stop shop for information on all changes to the OPC databases and, most importantly, provided the facility to retrieve old versions for backout purposes.”

TWS/Audit is one of the sister products of TWS/Graph which allows a full audit trail and backout process to be implemented.

Alex continued “So now we had a more manageable OPC (database) we could look to providing accurate and timely information to all users, not just those with an understanding of OPC. This (the clean OPC database) was maintained by running TWS/Graph programs to identify daily which applications were no longer required and then deleting them with OPC batch commands.”

Improving Standards

TWS/Graph has extensive cross-referencing and enables complex searches to be performed online or in batch. “Using TWS/Graph supplied programs, I managed to implement a process to check on the adherence to standards.”

Spreading the knowledge

Alex has also “rolled out TWS/Graph to the development community who were just beginning to form a habit of reviewing their schedules themselves, rather than picking up the phone and ringing the Ops Analysts.”

Other users can view TWS/Graph information either;

·        directly

·        on files downloaded to a computer or a server

·        or via the inter/intranet

This information includes Barcharts, Status Monitoring and Netplans (flowcharts) and Documentation.

Monitoring the Production schedule

TWS/Graph can monitor the production process and alert people when certain conditions arise for example errors or late starting of jobs.

Alex “had built a monitor tree for the 'video wall' on the Operations Bridge. Although I had proved it's stability I couldn't take it any further as there was no TCPIP stack on the production LPAR.” There are now “plans to expand this facility to the business applications designated as the 'top twenty services'.”

Accurate duplication for user testing

TWS/Graph and its sister products such as TWS/Batch AD are very useful for duplicating  batch environments.

“OPC application netplans are unloaded from production to the PC, converted into batchloader cards, and loaded to our user acceptance testing environment, for full batch program testing.”

Alex concludes “Can't think of anything else at the moment although I have a simple one pager which I passed to the analysts giving them tips on what TWS/Graph and Audit could be used for.”