Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:15:34 -0500
Reply-To:     Jeff Kroll <jeffrey.kroll@US.ING.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jeff Kroll <jeffrey.kroll@US.ING.COM>
Subject:      MF to Linux Conversion advice sought

For the longest time we have been a mainframe shop running SAS 8.2 and SAS
9.1 on Z/OS.  Our management has decided to move off the mainframe and go to
a Linux environment. Several large Non-SAS apps have already been moved. We
have a small number of SAS users, probably less than 20 regular users.  Most
of us have no experience running anything in the Linux environment.  We have
a mix of production and adhoc jobs on the MF as well as adhoc jobs we run in
Windows PC SAS.

I would like to ask the user community if anyone has any experience doing
this kind of migration and what, if any, issues we need to be aware of.  Are
any particular server types recommended?  What would be a minimum server
configuration?  We have over 200 production jobs running on the mainframe
and Im aware that at some point we would need to migrate all the MF data
files to the Linux environment.  Converting jobs from JCL to Linux scripts
will be a major PITA.  Are there any recommendation for doing this
efficiently?  Another issue I have questions about is where the data should
be stored.  It appears in our environment we will have several different
SANS.  Our jobs will need to be able to retrieve data from them.  Is this
possible?  I envision having a standalone SAS server with several terabytes
of storage.  It should be possible, or so Im told, to FTP data from the SANS
to our server.  Im sure this would make processing faster than having to
access data over the network.

Any other help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.  Finally,
anyone know where I can buy antacids in bulk?  I think Im gonna need them.

Jeff