SPARTA News

April 2023

SPARTA President’s Corner

contributed by Randy Springs

April brings us to the start of baseball season, and the end of March Madness in college basketball (which ended prematurely for some of us). Hopefully, we can make some travel plans for vacations and family visits, after years of restrictions and delays.

For those close to retirement, we continue to see the need for experienced mainframers and the education gap in training up new entrants into the mainframe environment. Thanks to all who are working to close the gap, such as Dr. Cameron Seay, educator and IBM Champion.

This month, we will again be holding our SPARTA meetings via Zoom format. With the removal of mask mandates in NC, we can consider going back to our in-person meetings if we can find an appropriate venue. Let us know if you have any suggestions for a meeting location.

For our April meeting, join us for a presentation from Ed Webb, a SPARTA veteran who is retired from SAS. He is still volunteering at SHARE and will update us on the highlights of the March meeting in Atlanta (including the z/OS 3.1 announcement for Fall 2023 availability). Invite your fellow systems programmers to join us for networking and information.

Please join your colleagues online at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 4, on Zoom. Watch for speaker details and meeting connection information coming your way soon.

Randy Springs
Retired (Truist)

Future Speakers (subject to change)

April 4, 2023 - SHARE 2023 Atlanta Conference Report by Ed Webb of SPARTA

May 2, 2023 - TBA

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact Ron Pimblett by phone as noted below.

2022-2023 SPARTA

Board of Directors

Randy Springs - President

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Raleigh, NC 27604

Ron Pimblett - Vice President

MDI Data Systems

Land line 613 599 6970

Mobile 613 981 6919

190 Guelph Private

Kanata, ON K2T 0J7

Chris Blackshire - Secretary

Retired (Dell, Perot Systems, Nortel)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Durham, NC 27713

Randy Springs - (Acting) Treasurer

Retired (Truist)                  (919) nnn-nnnn

see Randy

Springs earlier

Ed Webb -  Communications Director

Retired (SAS Institute Inc.)  (919) nnn-nnnn

street

Apex, NC 27523

Mike Lockey -  Web Master

Guilford Co. Information Services  336-641-6235

201 N. Eugene St.

Greensboro, NC 27401

Meetings

Coronavirus Change: All meetings for the foreseeable future will be held online at 7 p.m. via the Zoom App. The link to meeting is sent to SPARTA Mailing list within 24 hours of the meeting time for security reasons. Stay safe.

Meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in January), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings usually are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto T.W. Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building (1912 T.W. Alexander Drive). In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Bill Johnson. Bill will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter e-Mailings

The SPARTA policy is to e-mail a monthly notice to our SPARTA-RTP Group. The newsletter is posted to the website about five (5) days before each meeting so you can prepare. The SPARTA distribution List is maintained by Chris Blackshire; if you have corrections or problems receiving your meeting notice, contact Chris at chrisbl@nc.rr.com.

August 2022 “CBT Tape” Shareware Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V504 (dated August 16, 2022) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Ed Webb (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the March 7, 2023 Meeting

• The meeting was canceled because of speaker issues.

• This Thirty-first (April 2020 to March 2023) virtual SPARTA meeting was held via the Zoom Software.

• Thirteen (13) people were present at the virtual meeting.

• The business portion of the meeting followed the presentation.

• For the Roundtable, everyone introduced themselves, told where they worked, talked about working from home, and briefly described their job functions and what they've been doing at work and home.

OLD BUSINESS

• The minutes of the December 5, 2022 meeting as published in the March 2023 Newsletter were approved.

• The January 31, 2023 Treasurer's report (there was No Activity in December) as published in the March 2023 Newsletter was approved. As of January 31, 2023, the current balance was $994.51.

• Call For Articles: Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don't really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

• The SPARTA Web page is available at this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

• 2023 meeting dates, Future Speakers and Topics (subject to change based on internal politics, budget, the weather):

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Ron Pimblett.

• The next SPARTA monthly meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, April 4, 2023.

• The annual dues have been suspended (motion passed in the March 2021 monthly meeting).

• Thanks to Randy Springs for online hosting the March 7 meeting via Zoom.

• There are currently 100 people on the SPARTA e-mail distribution list.

• Send any e-mail address changes to Chris Blackshire so he can update the SPARTA distribution List. The SPARTA meeting notices are being sent via a simple distribution list maintained by Chris.

• Randy Springs is looking for a new Treasurer volunteer. He projects about 2 hours per month is needed.
- Contact Randy Springs if you are interested.

• Randy Springs has setup a SPARTA group on LinkedIn. Please join.

• There was discussion about a possible 2023 in person meeting, depending on vaccinations and room availability. Stay tuned.
- LabCorp Future Meeting Place: No update from Bill Johnson.

NEW BUSINESS

• None.

• We will continue meeting virtually for now with a future in-person meeting date TBD. Stay tuned.
• Randy will contact Bill Johnson to determine the LabCorp meeting place status.
• The Business portion of the meeting and the meeting itself ended about 8:30 P.M.

• The Presentation started at 7:25 PM.

• Presentation Topic: A Practical Approach to Zero Trust Architecture [ZTA]

By Glennon Bagsby of NewEra Software
Assisted by Jerry Seefeldt of NewEra Software

Answering the requirements of NIST SP 800-27, EU Commissions statement 22 March 2022, and the UK’s NCSC 21 July 2021

ABSTRACT: Forrester Research has said “Zero Trust is becoming the security model of choice for enterprises and governments alike.” If your CIO or CISO asked you to develop a ZTA plan for your mainframe, would you know where to start?

• Agenda
• Why is ZTA Important? What is ZTA?
• Zero Trust Architecture [ZTA]
• How to get started establishing a ZTA for IBM z/OS Systems
• An example of an actual exercise to create a ZTA for z/OS critical datasets
• A demonstration of The Control Editor (TCE)

The online presentation ended at about 8:20 PM.

• Presentation Access - See Below for a full outline of the presentation.

See the SPARTA webpage for all recent presentations.

including this one.

• Contact Info:
Speaker: Glennon Bagsby
NewEra Software, Inc.
8070 Santa Teresa Boulevard, Suite 240
Gilroy, CA 95020, USA
Email: ghb@newera.com
Toll free: (800) 421-5035 or 1-408-520-7100
Support: support@newera.com

• The March 7, 2023 monthly meeting ended about 8:30 P.M.

Treasurer’s Report for March 2023

contributed by Randy Springs

The balance in the account is $994.51 as of March 31, 2023.

SPARTA Financial Report
03/01/2023 through 03/31/2023

Items of Interest

SPARTA Schedule and Menu for 2023

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Apr 4, 2023 - BarBQ
May 2, 2023 - Pizza
June 6, 2023 - Chicken
July 11, 2023 - Subs (July 4 holiday falls on the first Tuesday meeting date)
Aug 1, 2023 - BarBQ
Sept 12, 2023 - Pizza (Labor Day holiday is Monday Sept 4)
Oct 3, 2023 - Chicken
Nov 7, 2023 - Subs
Dec 5, 2023 - BarBQ

Present at SHARE New Orleans!

contributed By Ed Webb

"Why Present?

SHARE events are your opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and showcase your innovative approaches to the industry. By presenting on any number of key enterprise IT topics, you will broaden your reach to hundreds of industry professionals and support your peers by sharing your expert knowledge.

All speakers selected to present will receive a discounted speaker rate for the full week or a discounted one-day rate for the day they present.

What is SHARE Looking For?

SHARE events feature a range of topics focusing on enterprise IT technologies. Tracks include:

z/OS Systems Programming" and many others.


 See more tracks and learn details about submitting your proposal by visiting the SHARE Call for Presentations. The deadline to submit a proposal is Friday, April 21, 2023.

Keeping Up With Security and Compliance on IBM zSystems

contributed By Ed Webb

Learn about how the IBM Security and Compliance Center can help you navigate the increasing complex world of Security and governance that includes the IBM Z system.

"Non-compliance could lead to increasing costs. Regulatory violations involving data protection and privacy can have severe and unintended consequences. In addition, companies must keep pace with changes that arise from numerous legislative and regulatory bodies. Global organizations have the added liability of dealing with national and international-specific regulations.

To prove you are compliant entails compiling and organizing data from multiple sources to satisfy auditor’s requests. Preparing for compliance audits can be a major time drain and maintaining, updating, and adding new processes for compliance can be a costly effort. How do you keep constant changes to regulations and your security posture in check? It starts with establishing a baseline—knowing and understanding your current security posture, comparing it with IBM® zSystems security capabilities, and the latest standards and regulations relevant to your organization."

See this IBM Redbook page for details and a PDF download of the draft of this new Redbook.

Gordon Moore, of "Moore's Law" fame, dies at 94

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

"Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empirical relationship linked to gains from experience in production.

The observation is named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel (and former CEO of the latter), who in 1965 posited a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit, and projected this rate of growth would continue for at least another decade. In 1975, looking forward to the next decade, he revised the forecast to doubling every two years, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41%. While Moore did not use empirical evidence in forecasting that the historical trend would continue, his prediction held since 1975 and has since become known as a "law"."

Read additional material about Moore's law and its applicability in 2023 here.

"Gordon Moore, the co-founder and former chairman of tech giant Intel, died Friday at the age of 94, the company and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced.

Moore and Robert Noyce founded Intel in 1968. Moore initially served as executive vice president until 1975, when he became president. In 1979, Moore was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer, positions he held until 1987, when he stepped down as CEO and continued as chairman.

Moore became chairman emeritus of Intel in 1997, stepping down in 2006.

Prior to Intel's founding, Moore and Noyce were involved in the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor, where they played central roles in the initial commercial production of diffused silicon transistors and later the world’s first commercially viable integrated circuits.

Moore received the National Medal of Technology from President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Moore received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2002."

Read the rest of this obituary here.

Humor

Wit and Wisdom continued

contributed by Ed Webb

Smart is when you believe only half of what you hear...brilliant is when you know which half to believe.
Experience is what you get when you expected something else.
Misers aren’t much fun to live with, but they make great ancestors.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.
People who are late are usually much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.
When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

7 p.m.

Location: Online

Information about access to our online meeting will be sent to our e-mail list by Tuesday, April 4.

Free Food before meeting: Your Food at Your Home

Program:

SHARE 2023 Atlanta Conference Report

Speaker:

Ed Webb of SPARTA

SPARTA Corporate Sponsors:

p8March 2023 Presentation outline

• Presentation Topic: A Practical Approach to Zero Trust Architecture [ZTA]

By Glennon Bagsby of NewEra Software
Assisted by Jerry Seefeldt of NewEra Software

Answering the requirements of NIST SP 800-27, EU Commissions statement 22 March 2022, and the UK’s NCSC 21 July 2021

ABSTRACT: Forrester Research has said “Zero Trust is becoming the security model of choice for enterprises and governments alike.” If your CIO or CISO asked you to develop a ZTA plan for your mainframe, would you know where to start?

• Agenda
• Why is ZTA Important? What is ZTA?
• Zero Trust Architecture [ZTA]
• How to get started establishing a ZTA for IBM z/OS Systems
• An example of an actual exercise to create a ZTA for z/OS critical datasets
• A demonstration of The Control Editor (TCE)

• NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST)

The presentation ended at about 8:20 P.M.