February 2, 2004

South System Transition to Titan Was Completed on January 12

The consolidation of NIH's two OS/390 systems into a single "standard" system—Titan—was completed when the South system shutdown on January 12, 2004. This project has been a long and carefully thought-out endeavor to provide a more streamlined OS/390 system. Into this new system, CIT merged the two mainframe systems—the original NIH Computer Center and ITS (the Parklawn Data Center).

On January 12 there were only a few minor problems. Generally the end of the transition went very smoothly, and the vast majority of South system customers were ready for the transition. CIT provided users with a Titan Status Web page but fixed most reported problems before there was time to update the page. The biggest issue was a performance problem—particularly for Titan SILK. Caused by the influx of South users and the move of DB2 and SILK to Titan, it was corrected within a day after CIT fine-tuned Titan.

It may be a while before users are fully comfortable with the tighter security and the changes inherent in using a new system, but they will discover that Titan is an extremely robust and efficient system.

The Titan Transition Web pages will continue to provide information—so that users can understand the differences between the two systems and the changes they need to make.

Thanks to Our Users

We would like to thank our user community for their patience during the transition. This consolidation of disparate mainframe systems was required to allow the NIH system to evolve into the future. With the standard interfaces and commercially available products and tools that make up Titan, CIT will be able to quickly take advantage of advances in technology.

February 2, 2004