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Features

CIT Already Has Powerful Y2K Services and Tools in Place
The tools and services that CIT has available to help you prepare for the year 2000 (Y2K): full application conversion service and, once your applications are converted (i.e., have Y2K-compatible code), two separate domains for application testing (i.e., simulating the change to January 1, 2000).

Y2K Testing Facilities—Two Domains Now Available
The NIH Computer Center now has two Y2K testing domains available for the MVS systems—one for the North system and another for the South system. Please schedule the time for testing your applications via the webpage form at http://silk.nih.gov/silk/year2000/ to ensure the needed subsystems are available.

Y2K Compliance for Desktop Systems—A Valuable Tool is Now Available for NIH Use
December 31, 1998, is the date that NIH set for completing an inventory of all computers and validating them for year 2000 compliance. To facilitate the assessment, NIH has purchased a site license for ClickNet software. CIT can perform the assessment for you, and is also available for consultation and problem solving.

MVS Enterprise Systems—Fiscal Year 1999 Rates
For the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1998, rates for some computing services on the MVS North and South systems have been reduced and others adjusted to more accurately reflect the costs of providing services. The net overall savings being passed along to customers is approximately 8%.

Notice—Charging for Disaster Recovery Service to Be Delayed
Charging will not begin on October 1 (as previously announced) for applications using CIT’s disaster recovery service.

MVS Standard System—Update
To be presented to our user community in the near future, the MVS standard system project will give us the flexibility to take advantage of computing advances in the industry while maintaining the strengths of our current system.

CERTAN ITSS Contracts—Update
Major changes during the final three years of CERTAN’s Information Technology Support Services contract will improve processing time and reduce users’ costs. The office executing task orders will move to the National Library of Medicine, and task orders will now be awarded on behalf of NIH clients without the additional 1% fee.

Host Your Oracle Application on EOS
The NIH Computer Center has been hosting a variety of production and development applications on the Enterprise Open System (EOS) since its inauguration more than a year ago. You should consider using this Unix-based environment for your enterprise computing needs. EOS offers top-end client/server hardware and software featuring a powerful Digital AlphaServer, an Oracle RDBMS, and complete web capabilities that can give access to data on different platforms—in our secure facility with networking infrastructure, resources and staff expertise already in place.

Need to Set Up Your Own Oracle Server?
Purchase your Oracle server software and concurrent user rights directly from CIT, and take advantage of the savings from CIT’s Oracle site license for Microsoft NT, Digital Alpha, and Sun Solaris Enterprise Oracle servers.

NBARS Changes Coming Soon
Beginning October 1, 1998, the monthly charge for storing a file will be lowered 50%, and the transfer charge will be reduced by 25% to 40% (depending on file size). New server software is schedule to be installed November 2.

WYLBUR’s Enter Sponsor Remains Available until October 11
Enter Sponsor will remain available until October 11. After that account sponsors and deregistration officials should use Web Sponsor.

Enter RACF Facility to Retire in January
Beginning January 11, 1999, users of the MVS South and North systems should use the SILK-based facility, Web RACF, to perform all RACF functions.

Farewell Enter BBS
The NIH Centralized Bulletin Board System filled an important niche before growth of the web. The award-winning system became a popular mechanism for throughout NIH and the nation. Since most boards are now on the web, ENTER BBS will retire on December 21, 1998.

NIH Domain Name Service Enhanced
The new domain name service webpage allows NIH users to register a hostname, set up an alias, perform DNS lookups, assign additional IP addresses, and perform other basic changes themselves. Soon this webpage will handle all change requests.

Streamlined Security Procedures— Account Sponsors Take Note!
On October 26, 1998, security investigation procedures on the MVS South system will be significantly streamlined. Account sponsors will have more control over the process, and notification of security violations will be done through electronic mail.

Documentation Subscription Renewal Period Begins
Users must renew subscriptions by December 31, 1998, to continue to receive updates to documentation through 1999.

CIT Computer Training for the Fall

Computer Training Calendar—Fall 1998

Dates to Remember

Technical Notes

MVS South

Register for the Network Printing Service, TSPrint, via the Web
The Enterprise Print System on the MVS South system allows printing from the ADB, WYLBUR and other MVS systems to LPD or AppleTalk printers. This network printing service uses the Tone Software Print (TSPrint) product. Customers must be registered to use TSPrint, a process that helps to ensure proper configuration. Registration is easy via the webpage http://silk.nih.gov/silk/eps.

Changes to ftp.cu.nih.govTwo changes will affect the use of FTP on the MVS system at ftp.cu.nih.gov. Available immediately, users can strip trailing blanks from the end of downloaded text files. Starting November 2, 1998, an error message will appear when a user attempts to login with an expired password.

Reminder—Check Third Party Software Compatibility with MVS OS/390
OS/390 should be installed on the North system (version 2.4) late this year and on the South system (version 2.5) next spring. Individuals responsible for third-party software should contact their vendors to ensure that such software will be supported in this new MVS environment.

Y2K and the RHB Routines
RHB routines were developed long ago without any accommodation for Y2K issues and are expected to fail in the year 2000. Anyone still using these should replace them using Y2K-compliant code.

MVS North

Non-Y2K Compliant OS/VS COBOL and COBOL II to Go Away
Since OS/VS COBOL and COBOL II applications are not year 2000 (Y2K) compliant, they must be converted to COBOL/MVS. These older, non-Y2K versions of COBOL will be removed at the NIH Computer Center on June 30, 1999.

Billing Reports Now Available on the Web
Account coordinators can now run and view MVS North system billing reports from the web without logging on to the MVS system at http://silkad.nih.gov/billrpt. Web reports provide all the features you are used to on the mainframe and can be printed on mainframe or remote printers.

Tape Listings Available on the Web
MVS North system users can run tape-listing reports from the web using CIT’s web-based SILK Web technology at http://silkad.nih.gov/taperpt. Tape reports can be run for an entire agency code or an individual userid and printed on a LAN or mainframe printer.

Reminder—Operations Coverage Expanded
The MVS North system now has attended operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year—except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Helix

Helix Users—Account Security Requirements Have Been Modified
Due to increased security concerns, the Helix Systems staff has instituted an extensive plan to strengthen security. Two changes affect Helix user accounts—locking of accounts not used recently and mandatory changing of passwords. These increased security measures may cause some inconvenience, but they are necessary to protect your data and files.

WebTerm X—Seamless Web Access to Helix Scientific Computing Applications
Many scientific and high performance computing applications can display graphics or use a graphical user interface (GUI) on any workstation that understands the X window system. WebTerm X is new software that allows Windows 95 and NT users to access X window environments on Helix and other Unix systems seamlessly through Netscape or Microsoft web browsers. WebTerm X licenses have been purchased by CIT for use by Helix users.

High Performance Fortran Now Available on the NIHSP
Scientific resources available on the NIH SP parallel computer now include the Portland Group’s High Performance Fortran (HPF) compiler, an extension to the Fortran 90 that permits writing parallel applications.

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Interface 207 - September 30, 1998

 

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