STRONGblog

Notes from twenty years in the field

Working notes from real z/OS engagements — Endevor-to-Git migrations, DBB builds, IDz performance, code pages, and mainframe CI/CD. The same knowledge we bring to yours.

Adding Compiler Feedback Information to Team Concert z/OS Dependency Builds

In Rational Team Concert’s build functionality, there is capability to show the build compilation report. This is available by a simple checkbox for Java type builds, but in z/OS dependency builds, it requires some additional configuration to get it working property. A compilaton report can show errors and warnings that occured durring the compile. It … Read more

FAQs for Runnnng Rational Team Concert on DB2 for z/OS Database

Strongback works with many large mainframe customers, in the financial services, government, insurance, and manufacturing sectors. We’ve been involved in quite a few migrations from various SCM systems to Rational Team Concert. Most of these customers choose to run Team Concert with a DB2 backend running on z/OS (DB2z). As such, we often run into the … Read more

Powershell script to create folders based on week ending date

We are frequently on projects subcontracted by IBM. As such, we have to submit our time and expenses for each week which ends on Friday’s in IBM’s time tracking system. Sometimes we have multiple projects going on at the same time and every Friday afternoon (or Sunday evening depending upon travel and general motivation), I … Read more

Supporting the Boy Scouts of America

This is a change in previous types of content, and this post is about one of our favorite charities and youth groups: the BSA.  This fall as your children are starting back to school, you might have some extra curricular activities in mind for them to peruse. Sure, there is little league football, basketball, baseball … Read more

The success of Agile’s concept of self-organizing teams can be traced back to Austrian economics

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. This is one of the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto, and is a key step in changing the culture in an organization as it moves to Agile development and other DevOps principles. This is not a new concept however. Although it has been studied on … Read more