Check software which have not run in last six months.

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DB2 Guy
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Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by DB2 Guy »

Hi there,

What are the possible way to identify, on mainframes zOS 2.1, to check software which have not run in last six months? Can someone please advise on this?

I did search on the search-engines, one of the search is listed here but I could not really figure out a satisfactory answer about it.
enrico-sorichetti
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Re: Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by enrico-sorichetti »

the answer depends on the reason of the research.

- cost saving ,
-- 1 - see if the software You want to get rid of writes smf records
-- 2 - look at the docs to find the main executable and look at the smf records for program loads
and ... process the smf data accordingly

- for any other reason the only way is the donkey way :D
collect the names of the load modules in all the load libraries of Your organisation
match the result with the smf data .
but You might find that many IBM provided zOS/additional-product load modules have never been used

for APPLICATION programs the interval to be checked is the longest application cycle plus some slack
cheers
enrico
When I tell somebody to RTFM or STFW I usually have the page open in another tab/window of my browser,
so that I am sure that the information requested can be reached with a very small effort 8-)
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Robert Sample
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Re: Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by Robert Sample »

There is no easy way to do this. At a previous employer, I wrote SAS code to extract the programs executed from the SMF records and record the last date executed in a data set, along with an execution counter. After a year or so of running, we had a pretty good idea of which programs were being used and which were not. However, this does not account for dynamically called subprograms, so merely having a program not in the data set did not mean it wasn't being used.
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Re: Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by DB2 Guy »

enrico-sorichetti wrote: the answer depends on the reason of the research.

- cost saving ,
-- 1 - see if the software You want to get rid of writes smf records
-- 2 - look at the docs to find the main executable and look at the smf records for program loads
and ... process the smf data accordingly

- for any other reason the only way is the donkey way :D
collect the names of the load modules in all the load libraries of Your organisation
match the result with the smf data .
but You might find that many IBM provided zOS/additional-product load modules have never been used

for APPLICATION programs the interval to be checked is the longest application cycle plus some slack
Thanks for the response Enrico.

It's mostly to revamp the mainframe in our company. Get rid of old, not used software, save some money perhaps and bring in new software. Is there a possibility that there is a product installed but it does not cut through the SMF records for it?
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Re: Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by DB2 Guy »

Thanks Robert.

Is there no common library on zOS, like "Program Files" on windows where we could the possible programs installed already though it won't tell abut their usage but "last updated" date might give a hint. There is not something similar in mainframes?
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Re: Check software which have not run in last six months.

Post by Robert Sample »

Is there no common library on zOS, like "Program Files" on windows where we could the possible programs installed already though it won't tell abut their usage but "last updated" date might give a hint. There is not something similar in mainframes?
There sort of is with the LINKLIST -- which is how programs can be executed without having a STEPLIB or JOBLIB specified. However, the LINKLIST at most sites contains many dozens of libraries, and some vendor programs do not install into a LINKLIST library, so it is not an infallible method. Furthermore, you don't get "last updated" -- modules are replaced by system updates so at best you can only tell about when the update was installed and that can be misleading since some system programs may not have been updated for a long time.
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