OMC-FLASH Case Study
Top U.S. Bank & Trust Leverages Tone’s OMC-FLASH Technology to Help Deliver Financial Services
Spanning across the United States from coast to coast, this top financial bank and trust has a long standing history of delivering financial services to a wide variety of clientele for well over a century.
To support their hundreds of branches across the United States, the bank relies on a robust mainframe computing environment to provide the core processing power for their ATM network, online banking, and back end database processing for branch transactions.
Success Leads to Growth in Mainframe Workloads
As the success of the bank has grown, the mainframe workload of daily financial processing has also grown, along with the workload of the technical staff in the bank’s IT department. To assist the IT staff in managing the bank’s mainframe z/OS and JES3 environment, the IT staff turned to OMC-FLASH from Tone Software.
OMC-FLASH provides extensive capabilities to efficiently view and control host jobs, output, devices, resources, workflow, as well as JES2 and JES3 operations. The team notes many benefits the technology has provided, including expediting balancing operations, enhancing throughput of bank processing, and increasing IT staff productivity.
Instant Access to Output Keeps Bank Financials in Balance
Keeping accounts in balance is critical for financial institutions, and the bank operations staff and project control analysts use OMC-FLASH daily for many key tasks related to balancing bank finances.
Using the extensive OMC-FLASH spool viewing and output control capabilities, the bank back office staff routinely checks Job SYSOUT and report datasets through the detailed OMC-FLASH Job Selection Panel and Dataset Index Panel to quickly view, compare and ensure totals are in balance.
OMC-FLASH is also instrumental in helping bank staff verify crucial files have been transferred successfully from the Federal Reserve. In addition, the back office team utilizes OMC-FLASH to ensure the accurate processing of the bank clearing house systems that drive customers’ direct deposit transactions.
The bank’s IT Systems Manager reports: “All in all, OMC-FLASH is a significant time saver for the bank – I couldn’t work without it.”
Managing the JES3 SYSPLEX Environment and Throughput
Behind the daily flow of money, OMC-FLASH is used extensively to manage the bank’s z/OS JES3 SYSPLEX environment. Bank staff routinely uses the OMC-FLASH Display Console facility (DC) to view and interact directly with the MVS master console from their desks. Through DC, IT staff can view the activity and messages occurring within the z/OS environment and watch what’s happening in the computer room without ever leaving their desks.
When crucial batch processing levels fluctuate, the bank’s operations staff uses the OMC-FLASH INIT command to view and control JES Initiators, increasing or decreasing initiators to accommodate the size of the batch workload. Viewing host system resource levels is also quick and easy using the OMC-FLASH CPU command, which enables operators to view system resource consumption, including tasks and CPU utilization levels.
During heavy processing periods, the bank staff uses the OMC-FLASH JES3 Workload Manager Display to view and control the JES3 WLM Scheduling environment. Through the OMC-FLASH WLM facility, the system operators often change users’ job priority or the class of job execution if users are experiencing delays in job initiation or execution.
The bank IT Systems Manager comments: “The OMC-FLASH JES resource management capabilities are particularly beneficial during month end processing when critical jobs must run with higher priority, and batch processing is heavier.”
Productivity Increased with OMC-FLASH Job Analysis
One of the largest groups of bank OMC-FLASH users is the Systems Programming group, with close to 100 team members. Using the OMC-FLASH Job analysis capabilities, bank programmers routinely check if their compiles executed successfully by reviewing job status and maximum condition codes on the OMC-FLASH Jobname Selection Panel (JSP). Using the JSP, programmers can quickly identify which jobs have errors, and immediately select and view the JESYSMSG dataset to diagnose the specific step that failed through the OMC-FLASH Dataset Index Panel.
When job issues do occur, the programming staff relies on OMC-FLASH job log information to help troubleshoot job abends for users. Frequently, programmers also use the OMC-FLASH SYSLOG viewing facility to review the active and historical SYSLOG data to identify events or issues that may have impacted job execution and completion.
“OMC-FLASH is our primary tool to determine if jobs completed successfully, and what may have caused job abends”, the IT Systems Manager reports. “Using OMC-FLASH is a significant time saver for me and our programming staff, which helps increase our overall productivity.”
A Solid Relationship with Tone Software
Just as the bank’s customers rely on them for financial services, the bank’s IT department relies on Tone Software for OMC-FLASH product quality and support. With over 25 years of OMC-FLASH use under their belts, the bank is well positioned to judge the quality of the OMC-FLASH software.
The IT Systems Manager reports, “I’ve had almost no issues with the product, even during operating system upgrades of z/OS and JES.”
“I’m very satisfied with OMC-FLASH – the product is stable, and I’ve had very few problems – It’s solid software.”
For more detailed information about OMC-FLASH, fill out the Product Information Request form. You can also request information by sending email to info@tonesoft.com or call one of our sales representatives at 714.991.9460.