10/21/09 Know the impact of using the ENDJOBABN command

If you use the ENDJOBABN command to end an active job that just won’t go away after the ENDJOB is issued, you need to be aware of the longer term impact of using this command.

When you use ENDJOBABN, a marker is set in the system that causes the next IPL to be considered an "abnormal" IPL – that is – the system will behave as if it ended abnormally, instead of in a controlled fashion from a PWRDWNSYS. This means that the first IPL you do after an ENDJOBABN will take longer than a normal IPL.

This is important to remember, because if you only IPL monthly or even less frequently, you might be surprised by the impact of an ENDJOBABN issued weeks prior.

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2009, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. Vision Solutions develops and sells iSeries high availability and AIX replication and clustering solutions. IBM, System i, iSeries, and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.

02/23/09 Learn more about any IPL process

Want to know more about an IPL than simply the date and time of the last IPL? Sometimes, the information provided by system values is just not sufficient. For instance,

- Did your last IPL take longer than usual?
- Did you recently apply PTFs and wanted to know how long that IPL step took?
- Need to know how long your system spent doing journal recovery?
- Need to know how long it actually takes to "power down"?

By making a simple program call, you can get a spool file that shows your last
power-down and IPL in full detail - Every system reference code and sub-code
is shown, along with the date and timestamp it was issued.

CALL QWCCRTEC

This program runs very quickly, and does not issue any messages. It produces
a QPSRVDMP spool file of about 15-20 pages. Look beyond column 85 for the
information you need. Here's a sample :

*XPF PWRDWN 10/25/08 07:14:20*
* D900 2740 10/25/08 07:14:21*
* D900 2750 10/25/08 07:14:22*
* D900 2770 10/25/08 07:14:22*
* D900 2780 10/25/08 07:14:22*
* D900 2790 10/25/08 07:14:22*
* D900 27C0 10/25/08 07:14:22*
*End PWRDWN 10/25/08 07:14:25*
*XPF IPL 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* C900 2810 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* C900 2820 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 20 0010 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 20 0020 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 30 0010 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 30 0020 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 30 0030 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 30 0040 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 30 0050 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* 10 3A 0010 10/25/08 12:40:05*
* C900 2830 10/25/08 12:40:05*

Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in your own environment. Please review and test thoroughly before implementing. © Copyright 2009, Vision Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. IBM, System i, iSeries, i5/OS and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other brands are property of their respective registered owners.