Y2K Alert for all users of
IAM or VSAM...The Y2K Effect...
Several clients that are running with IAM COMPATIBLE format files have
reported running out of overflow resulting in file full conditions. The
reason for these reports has been that the applications they are using
have a 2 digit year in the front of the key of each record. Up until the
year 2000 most of these records were added to the end of the file causing
them to go into Prime Extension. Now the first part of the key is 00 and
causes all of the records to be inserted into overflow. Since COMPATIBLE
format files cannot expand with the sudden new demand for overflow they
are running out of space.
If these files were native VSAM they would experience a large increase
in CI/CA splits which would impact performance on the files.
We recommend converting these files to ENHANCED format for the dynamic
extension capability and to use variable length overflow to save on DASD
space with the additional overflow. If you are going to follow this recommendation
you should also request the latest level of IAM, 6.4/12P, so you are current
on maintenance. It would probably be a good idea to reorganize these files
more often as well.
WARNING:
If a 2 digit year is used as any part of the key it could cause processing
irregularities in either IAM or VSAM files. Applications processing these
files using sequential or GETNEXT types of processing may not be getting
the records in the sequence they expect. For example, if reading from
the beginning of the file they will retrieve the newer records with the
"00" before retrieving the older records with the "99".
Y2K alert for all FATS and FATAR customers:
When VALIDATE=OUTPUT or VALIDATE=ALL is used with BLP (Bypass Label Processing)
on a FATS or FATAR operation, the expiration date of the output tape may
not be correctly checked.
Tapes with expirations of 99365 or 99366 in their labels are considered
expired. Also, tapes with expirations of 20xx will NEVER be considered
expired, forcing the operator to reply to a FATSW08 message to use the
tape as output. You will have these problems only if you use the operands
VALIDATE=OUTPUT or VALIDATE=ALL. Also, in the TAPESUMM output of FATAR,
it displays the highest expiration date of any file on a multi-file tape,
but it will be incorrect if a tape contains a mixture of "permanent retention"
files (such as 99365) and files that expire on 1/1/2000 or beyond; it
will display the highest 2xxx expiration date.
These problems are fixed by zaps:
Version 4.3: P-43.208
Version 4.5: P-45.0138
Version 4.6: P-46.0037
These zaps are available on Innovation's FTP site
in directory /Download/FATS_FATAR_V4x (where x is the version number,
3, 5, or 6) or email Innovation at support@fdrinnovation.com
to receive them by return email (indicate your version of FATS).
Y2K alert for all FDRABR customers who use the
SRS ISPF panels:
FDRABR customers who use the SRS ISPF panels and display dates with a
4-digit year, may have errors when restoring datasets from archive via
the panel. It may result in an FDR316 DATASET NOT FOUND error. To circumvent
the problem, use the SRS settings to change the date display to a 2-digit
year.
Also, when using SRS to display data sets from the ABR SCRATCH catalog,
backup dates may display as 1900 instead of 2000. These problems are fixed
by zaps P-53.3126 (V5.3/3x) or P-53.2156 (V5.3/2x). These zaps are available
on Innovation's FTP site in directory /Download/FDR_V53
or email Innovation at support@fdrinnovation.com
to receive them by return email.
Y2K alert for all users of FDR/UPSTREAM and Lotus Notes:
FDR/UPSTREAM incremental backups of Notes databases will generate very
large backups when run after 1/1/00. Upstream copies all notes to the
incremental database instead of only changed notes. Since incrementals
are very large, the backups will be slower than normal. Data is still
properly recoverable and there is no damage to the source Notes databases.
You can download the latest version of program LNINCR.EXE from Innovation's
FTP site in directory /Download/Upstream/y2k to avoid the problem.
We recommend (though it's not required) that you perform a new full backup
after you install it so that recovery of incrementals is not so time consuming.
Y2K warning for all Innovation customers:
We have received calls from customers who had apparent Y2K compliance
problems but it turned out that they used STEPLIB DD statements to point
to libraries containing old, non-compliant releases of our software.
ABR customers who think they may have this problem can use FDREPORT to
identify all libraries containing Innovation products. You can download
an example of such a FDREPORT job from Innovation's FTP site in directory
/Download/FDR_V53/steplib.txt. Non-ABR customers may need to manually
check for program libraries containing outdated copies of our software.
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