My boss has a saying that goes: “Do you want to get your brain surgery by a doctor that has done one operation or do you want the operation done by a doctor that has done 1,000 surgeries? He uses this analogy to give our customers peace of mind when we analyze their performance data. After all, in 2005 we did 3,000+ capacity plans alone. As a result, we get the pleasure of helping customers understand their performance needs. Big shops, small shops–our company has seen it all in regards to performance.

I state the above not to be a

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One complaint I hear from time to time concerns the way CL’s CALL command formats literal values that are used as parameters. I have a utility that I use when testing programs that overcomes this problem. It allows me to call a program and ensures that the parameters are formatted as they should be.

First, let’s be sure we all understand the problem. When you use the CL CALL command to begin execution of a program, CL makes some assumptions about literal parameters. CL assumes that numeric values are 15-digit

Physical printer breakdowns always cause problems in delivering critical output to i5 or iSeries shops. This problem is usually solved by transferring spooled file output to another functioning printer queue or by changing the non-functioning queue’s IP address to point to another printer. There is a third option, however, as you can also quickly redirect printer output between queues on the same i5 partition by using a remote output queue.

I discovered this trick when a critical IP-based printer broke down on me and I had to quickly redirect important spooled files to another i5/OS writer on the same partition.