IBM Systems Magazine: IBM “Improves” Handling of the Inactivity Timeout in i 7.1–What About “QPADEV”?

In her i Can Technical Tip for i column, senior technical staff member at IBM Rochester Dawn May is reporting that with PTF SI46398, IBM is addressing the following two long-standing problems (bugs?) with handling Inactivity timeouts in the IBM i 7.1 operating system. According to Dawn:

1. Accuracy. Prior to this change, a job can be inactive for up to twice the specified interval before an action is taken. For inactivity intervals measured in hours, this level of uncertainty is simply too high.
2. Performance. A large number of jobs can be ended at once when the subsystems check for inactivity. This can affect overall system performance at the time the jobs are being ended.

No word on whether this will also be resolved for IBM i 6.1. If you’re not on 7.1, beware of these issues with your OS version.

This piece gives a nice rundown on just how these issues are addressed with the i 7.1 PTF.

Also be sure to take a look at the comments section for this article, where there is a small discussion between user John Knox and IBM i Work Management Team member Dan Tarara about disconnecting inactive jobs whose name starts with ‘QPADEV’ and why it doesn’t work the same as for named devices. I’ve always wondered about that, and no, this PTF does not affect the ‘QPADEV’ issue. And Dan says that this change currently isn’t “in plan”.

Read the article here.

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