APPLICATION PROGRAM PROCESSING ERRORS

To determine the causes of application program errors, you have two areas of concern-hardware and software. Let's look at some of the most common causes in each of these areas.

Hardware Problems

With respect to the hardware, not only each specific piece of equipment is a possible cause of a problem, but you also have external environmental concerns.

Some of the most frequent hardware problems are: . Head crash; . Tape drive damage to a tape; and . Tape read/write errors.

If tape read/write errors cannot be conected by cleaning the read/write heads, a maintenance technician should be called. For head crashes and tape drive damage, a maintenance technician should always be called.

The most common external environmental problems are: l Loss of power; l Voltage spikes; and l Loss of air conditioning.

What action should be taken will depend on the damage done. The operator may be able to recover the job completely by rebooting and restarting the job. If the data files have been corrupted, the operator may need assistance from the user and/or the media librarian.

Software Problems

Examples of the common software problems are: l Wrong file specified; l Program entered a loop; and l File not available.

The preceding is only a very brief list of possible problems. There are too many different causes to list in

this manual because of the number of different application software programs being used.

To correct software-related problems, the operator must refer to the job run folder and the program operator manual for the corrective action to take. Your operators will have predefined steps to follow when researching the cause of the error in the specific program operator's manual. The operator manual explains the steps to follow in connecting the problem and any restart points. The job run folder will contain the name and phone number of the person to contact if the problem cannot be easily corrected.

SYSTEM DOWNTIME

The system downtime and nonavailability can be categorized under two different topics-scheduled and unscheduled.

Scheduled Downtime

Scheduled downtime and nonavailability include the time for system saves, scheduled maintenance for the equipment, and scheduled processing preparation. You will include scheduled downtime on the monthly production schedule when the requirement is known in time. You may also add it to a workload schedule when needed.

Unscheduled Downtime

Unscheduled downtime and nonavailability include the system being down because of power failures, the loss of air conditioning, or rebooting the system. They may also include system degradation because apiece of equipment is down, even though the system can still be used for production. Since unscheduled downtime is not something you can plan for, you will have to react, replan schedules, and advise users of changes when their work and/or deadlines will be adversely affected. If you are using an automated system, it is usually a simple task to produce a new schedule. You can usually direct the system with a command or two to produce a new schedule or a simulated schedule. In a manual scheduling system, it will require some cooperation between the subsystem coordinators and AIS operations to replan the schedule to get all the work done in a timely manner.