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Know who your users are and how they see their world.

V5R1 LPAR and Clustering

Personas Report

Dennis Schmidt

Jeff Scheel

June 7, 1999

Final Version

Contents

Introduction 3
Why Should You Read This? 3
How to Use This Information 3
Disclaimer 3
Project Goals 4
Project 4
Goal/Desired Results 4
Personas 5
Medium Size Environment: Pottery Barn 5
Environment Description 5
Persona: Jeff 5
Persona: Robert 6
Persona: Jason 7
Large Company Environment: Nationwide Auto Supply 8
Environment Description 8
Persona: Jon 8
Persona: Ed 9
Persona: Ann 10
Persona: Linda 11
Persona: Mark 12
Persona: Merlin 13
Simple Cluster Environment: Slick Willie's Style 14
Environment Description 14
Persona: Wanda 15
Persona: Michael 15
Persona: Hal 16
Appendix A: Information Sources 17

Introduction

Why Should You Read This?

Whenever we design anything we design with a specific perspective in mind. By default, the perspective we use is our own. This isn't a problem if the people who will use our products are just like us. But what if the people who will use our products aren't like us? What if when we look at a glass half full of water, we see a glass half full of water and the people who use our products sees a beaker of H2O, or something to draw like shapes and colors, or something to drink, or something to play in? To be successful we need to produce designs that work for our users and not for us.

So, how do you do that? How do you see the world from your user's perspective and design what works for them? Personas are one of the tools software interface designers use to solve this problem. Personas help you recognize who your users are, what motivates them, and what they need and want to accomplish during their day. From here, answering the questions of what to put in, what not to put in, where to put it, and how to say it become questions you can successfully answer.

How to Use This Information

For this information to have an impact on your product, you need to us it. The best way to use this information is to:

  1. Read the Project Goals and Persona chapters. You do not need to read any other sections.
  2. Without looking at this report, can you describe the environments and personas? If you can't, go back to step 1 and review the Persona chapter.
  3. When you make decisions about your product or you have a question to answer, ask yourself these types of questions:
    1. What would Robert want to do at this point?
    2. How would Jason feel about this?
    3. How would JoAnn do this?
    4. And so on...
If you find yourself saying: "If I were the user I'd...." STOP! You are not your user. You are a highly skilled software engineer working with some of the best software engineers on the planet. You are not your user! You need to answer these questions from your user's point of view.

Disclaimer

People described in this report are composites of existing customers and are not descriptions of any one specific person.

Project Goals

Project

The goal of this project is to provide support to logically partition an AS/400 system and simple clustering of AS/400 systems.

Goal/Desired Results

What do you want to accomplish and for whom? How will you know when you have achieved it?

Partitioning High Level Goals

Clustering High Level Goals

Personas

Medium Size Environment: Pottery Barn

Environment Description

The business is run in primary partition. Test system will be consolidated by putting a test system in a secondary partition (because they couldn't afford a second system and it is cheaper to buy a larger system and partition).

1 to 2 secondary partitions exist.

The IS staff consists of 2-4 people max.

They have a second black box IMPI system. They buy a new system every 3 to 4 years. They just bought a new big system (4-way).

All disks are protected with RAID to minimize the expense.

They believe they are 24x7 but are more really like 22x6.

They are located in Cincinnati, Ohio and run an inventory/sales database for catalog and Internet sales.

Persona: Jeff

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Have a test system with out having to buy more hardware.
    1. Task: Makes decision to do partitioning
    2. Task: Does planning for partitioning (been to web page, collected their information)
    3. Task: Were ready to go before they contacted IBM (self-sufficient)
    4. Task: Configures LPAR the first time
    5. Task: Creates the partition
    6. Task: Allocates processor resources such as processor pools, processor weights, minimum/maximum/initial values
    7. Task: Configures I/O resources for each partition
    8. Task: Selects the load source, console, alternate IPL and ECS resources for each partition
    9. Task: Displays the hypervisor release delta
  2. Goal: Keep the partitions running smoothly and services them as little as possible
    1. Task: Maintains the partitions by adjusting them periodically (e.g. Logically moves disk units (minimally), adds disk units, processors, and other resources). This involves moving resources such as processors between partitions.
    2. Task: Makes manual changes to partitions when necessary
    3. Task: Performs LPAR recovery actions following a partitions failure, system disaster, or release migration
    4. Task: Will have to perform saves in an LPAR environment and provide basic system support for each partition
    5. Task: If partition crashes he will need to restart the partition and possibly get a main store dump or start Dedicated Service Tools (DST)
    6. Task: Displays the I/O resources each partition owns
    7. Task: Displays the partition's processor (logical or physical) activity (i.e. The green lights)
  3. Goal: Use the partitions and do normal operations
    1. Task: Powers on/off partitions (both immediate and delayed)
    2. Task: Adjusts the IPL source (A, B, C, or D)
    3. Task: Sets IPL mode of Manual, Normal, Auto, or Secure
    4. Task: Selects partition IPL attributes at system IPL time (Hold or IPL)
    5. Task: Displays the current partition System Reference Code (SRC) and SRC history
  4. Goal: Clean up the system
    1. Task: Deletes partitions no longer needed

Persona: Robert

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Keep the partitions running smoothly and services them as little as possible
    1. Task: If partition crashes he will need to restart the partition and possibly get a main store dump or start Dedicated Service Tools (DST)
    2. Task: Moves resources such as processors, memory, and I/O between partitions
    3. Task: Displays the I/O resources each partition owns
    4. Task: Displays the partition's processor (logical or physical) activity (i.e. The green lights)
  2. Goal: Use the partitions and do normal operations
    1. Task: Will have to perform saves in an LPAR environment and provide basic system support for each partition
    2. Task: Powers on/off partitions (both immediate and delayed)
    3. Task: Adjusts the IPL source (A, B, C, or D)
    4. Task: Sets IPL mode of Manual, Normal, Auto, or Secure
    5. Task: Selects partition IPL attributes at system IPL time (Hold or IPL)
    6. Task: Displays the current partition System Reference Code (SRC) and SRC history
    7. Task: What does he do when something occurs that is not on his list?

Persona: Jason

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Use and manage the test partitions
    1. Task: Will be involved in trying to fix problems in secondary partition
    2. Task: Owns any test partitions
    3. Task: Changes test partitions to create different test environments
  2. Goal: Be the back for Jeff
    1. Task: Has backup role for Jeff. Can do Jeff's tasks but not as his primary job. (needs Jeff's tasks to be easy to learn)

Large Company Environment: Nationwide Auto Supply

Environment Description

Company headquarters are located in California. They have been in existence for almost 30 years and have stores in all 50 states. They supply auto parts and have a reputation of having any part or being able to get it in a day.

All stores have a model 170 for day-to-day operations. Sales and inventory for common parts are kept on the store computer. Nightly "info updates" occur from store to HQ systems.

Each 170 is a cookie cutter system and maintains minimal store unique information.

Headquarters has a four 650 12-way systems. 2 run inventory (hot backup). 2 run accounting and sales info (hot backup. backup used for data mining.).

Headquarters also has a two 3xx model systems used for development.

They purchased HABP software and data mining packages. They wrote a custom sales and accounting package.

IT staff does system support, development, and data mining. Total of 20-40 people.

They want web-based ordering.

Persona: Jon

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Driving Internet based ordering
    1. Task: Reduce IT overhead
    2. Task: Setting IT direction / vision
    3. Task: Setting IT budget
    4. Task: Makes final decisions (e.g. Whether to go with LPAR)

Persona: Ed

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

General

  1. Goal: Reduce costs
  2. Goal: Ensure web-application is seamless and secure
  3. Goal: Keep the ship afloat
    1. Task: solve problems as the come up
LPAR
  1. Goal: Believes LPAR can be used to consolidate backup systems AND development systems and a "firewall" for the website
    1. Task: Does the LPAR planning and pre-administration work (doesn't do the actual LPAR configuration)
Clustering
  1. Goal: Provide high availability
    1. Task: Sees need and evaluates all cluster solutions to select HABP
    2. Task: Involved in high level configuration (what goes in which places)
    3. Task: Decides level of replication

Persona: Ann

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

General

  1. Goal: Manage the people on staff and setup up an efficient working environment
    1. Task: Create operations procedures for daily and weekly operations
    2. Task: Writes guidelines / procedures for operators (e.g. How to backup)
    3. Task: Handles the performance and growth issues (keeps an eye on these two areas)
    4. Task: First person called for technical support
LPAR
  1. Goal: Set up a high availability environment
    1. Task: Makes decisions about maintenance
    2. Task: Assists in planning of LPAR configuration with Ed
    3. Task: Configures LPAR the first time
    4. Task: Creates the partition
    5. Task: Deletes partitions
    6. Task: Allocates processor resources such as processor pools, processor weights, minimum/maximum/initial values
    7. Task: Configures I/O resources for each partition
    8. Task: Selects the load source, console, alternate IPL and ECS resources for each partition
    9. Task: Displays the hypervisor release delta
  2. Goal: Keep the partitions running smoothly and services them as little as possible
    1. Task: Maintains the partitions by adjusting them periodically (e.g. Moving disk drives, processors, and other resources)
    2. Task: Sets up automatic move of processors between partitions (uses Management Central scheduled tasks)
    3. Task: Makes manual changes to partitions when necessary
    4. Task: Performs LPAR recovery actions following a partition failure, system disaster, or release migration
Clustering
  1. Goal: Set up a high availability environment
    1. Task: Makes decisions about maintenance
    2. Task: Assists in planning cluster configuration with Ed
    3. Task: Configures clustering the first time
    4. Task: Creates cluster
    5. Task: Selects data to replicate
    6. Task: Configures resilient applications
    7. Task: Creates contingency plan for applications that are not resilient
  2. Goal: Keep the cluster environment running smoothly
    1. Task: Makes manual changes to clusters when necessary
    2. Task: Performs cluster recovery actions after a node failure, system disaster, . . .

Persona: Linda

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

General

  1. Goal: Get her daily tasks done
    1. Task: Basic system operator tasks
    2. Task: Weekly saves
    3. Task: Keep accurate tape library
LPAR
  1. Goal: Keep each partition up an running
    1. Task: Will have to perform saves in an LPAR environment and provide basic system support for each partition
    2. Task: If partition crashes she will need to restart the partition and possibly get a main store dump or start Dedicated Service Tools (DST)
    3. Task: Moves I/O resources between partitions
    4. Task: Displays the I/O resources each partition owns
    5. Task: Displays the partition's processor (logical or physical) activity (i.e. The green lights)
    6. Task: Powers on/off partitions (both immediate and delayed)
    7. Task: Adjusts the IPL source (A, B, C, or D)
    8. Task: Sets IPL mode of Manual, Normal, Auto, or Secure
    9. Task: Selects partition IPL attributes at system IPL time (Hold or IPL)
    10. Task: Displays the current partition System Reference Code (SRC) and SRC history
Clustering
  1. Goal: Keep cluster working smoothly and do routine tasks
    1. Task: Does saves on backup system
    2. Task: Stops and starts replication to do backup

Persona: Mark

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

General

  1. Goal: Balance new function design, maintenance of existing function, and design for web
LPAR
  1. Goal: Ultimately will be a key player in system consolidation using LPAR
  2. Goal: Use and manage the test partitions
    1. Task: Will be involved in trying to fix problems in secondary partition
    2. Task: Owns any test partitions
    3. Task: Changes test partitions to create different test environments
    4. Task: May not actually perform configuration actions but will provide "directions" for configuration
  3. Goal: Be the back-up for Jeff
    1. Task: Has backup role for Ann. Can do Ann's tasks but not as his primary job. (needs Ann's tasks to be easy to learn)
    2. Task: Second level of support

Clustering

Persona: Merlin

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

General

  1. Goal: Find the next "gold" mine
  2. Goal: Enable more effective mining
    1. Task: Optimize the data warehouse

LPAR
  1. Goal: Enable more effective mining
    1. Task: Tunes the data mining partition (moves processors for testing difference scenarios)
    2. No direct LPAR tasks
Clustering
  1. Goal: Do some data mining
    1. Task: Take a node off-line to do data mining

Simple Cluster Environment: Slick Willie's Style

Environment Description

They are located in Washington, D.C. And are a tourist store down by the Capital.

The are a web-based order system for Bill Clinton merchandise and require 7 x 24 availability. Lost time is lost business.

They have two 620s with two switchable DASD towers for a mutual backup/takeover environment.

One system handles the web business and the other manages the store.

DASD is RAID protected.

Persona: Wanda

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Keep the inventory supply flowing in and out through the business - Sell, sell, sell
    1. Task: Simple cluster operations for day-to-day survival
    2. Task: Starts and stops notes (primarily for backups)
    3. Task: Switches over towers (may do to backup of do software maintenance)
    4. Task: Resumes DASD recovery protection (doesn't configure or add DASD)

Persona: Michael

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Work with computers
  2. Goal: Keep the business systems alive and functioning
    1. Task: Help Wanda with the computer side of the business
    2. Task: Provide technical interface to Hal (when necessary)
    3. Task: Setup / configures cluster environment, IASPs, and resilient applications
    4. Task: Creates cluster - selects nodes
    5. Task: Decides which is the primary node and which is the backup
    6. Task: Starts and stops nodes - basic operations things
    7. Task: Decides who has authority to do cluster actions (security - Wanda can only do operator type functions)
    8. Task: Does all DASD configuration tasks

Persona: Hal

Personal

Education, Skill, Knowledge

Job

Motivators

Goals / Tasks / Steps

  1. Goal: Make money for self and IBM
    1. Task: Keep Wanda happy
    2. Task: Sell consulting services for LPAR and Clustering
    3. Task: Understand concepts and limitations (has had hands-on with a beta while a developer did the work)

Appendix A: Information Sources

The information contained in this report was obtained from and reviewed by the following people: