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1. INTRODUCTION
SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THIS MANUAL
The information in this manual falls into three general
areas, as fol lows:
•
Hardware and software configuration planning.
•
System generation and initialization.
•
System maintenance.
The intended readership of this manual falls, correspond-
ingly, into three major categories.
•
Installation management, responsible for planning the
functional capabilities of the desired RBM system and
for selecting a hardware configuration to best satisfy
the installation's requ irements.
•
System programming staff, responsible for designing the
installation-specific system generation and initializa-
tion procedures required to achieve an operational
system, and for formu lating any post-generation main-
tenance that may be necessa
ry •
•
Senior operations personnel, responsible for performing
the system generation, initial ization, and maintenance
procedures.
ORGANIZATION OF THE MANUAL
The present chapter, in addition .to providing an intro-
duction to the manual, presents an overview of the Xerox
Availability Features of the RBM system.
These features
are designed to complement the salient reliability and
maintainability characteristics of the hardware. (See the
Xerox Availability Features/Reference Manual, 90 30 54,
for detailed usage descriptions of the Availabi lity Features. )
The succeeding chapters are organized as follows:
•
Chapter 2 presents guidelines for the selection of a
desirable hardware configuration in terms of perform-
ance requirements, application suitability, data-band-
width considerations, etc. For example, guidelines
are given for selection of the size of main storage, and
the size and type of secondary storage, appropriate to
the user's specific needs.
•
Chapter 3 presents both guidelines for software con-
figuration planning (supplementing the information in
Chapter 2 in this regard) and detailed information on
designing a specific system generation procedure for
the desi red system.
.
•
Chapter 4 presents the operational aspect of system
generation (SYSGEN), i.e., directions for performing
the SYSGEN process.
•
Chapter 5 presents system initialization information;
that is, it gives directions for adding desired processors,
I ibraries, resident foreground programs, etc., to the
newly generated monitor so as to ach ieve a fu lIy op-
erationa I RBM system.
•
Chapter 6 gives system maintenance information and
procedures: how to temporari Iy or permanently replace
RBM modules with newer or modified versions; how to
patch RBM, subsystems, and processors; how to prepare
a modified SYSGEN input tape; etc.
AVAILABILITY FEATURES
The Availability Features provided with RBM are designed to
streamline maintenance activities and reduce maintenance
down-time. These features are error logging, SYSERR anal-
ysis, device isolation, and on-line device verification. The
Avai labil ity Features can be used by on-site customer per-
sonnel as well as (in the case of the Model 530) by remotely-
located Xerox maintenance experts, via the Xerox Remote
Assistance interface. These features enable the user to in-
teract more effectively with the system to increase "up-time"
availabil ity.
User sites at which remote assistance is not available still
benefit by the use of the information gathered by automatic
error logging during system operation.
The other features
are of course also usable whenever customer personnel or a
Xerox system specialist is on-site (assuming provision for
these features during system generation).
Note that Xerox Remote Assistance is applicable only to
Model 530 systems. All of the availability features other-
wise apply without restriction to all RBM users.
See the Xerox Availability Features/Reference Manual,
90 30 54, for full descriptions.
REMOTE ASSISTANCE
The Xerox 530 Remote Assistance feature, in conjunction
with the use of error logging and SYSERR analysis, permits
operator-attended sites to be examined by a system special-
ist without his having to make a trip to the site. He can
monitor the transactions at the operator's console from his
remote console. He can examine a SYSERR analysis print-
out and selectively interrogate the error log.
He can
detect a pattern of error buildup for an
I/o
device, as seen
in the error log, facilitating proper maintenance scheduling
and increased ava i lab iii ty .
He can even "Iook over the
shoulder" of a Xerox Customer Engineer or of a site operator
during device isolation and exercise, all whi Ie RBM is pro-
cessing normal production tasks.
Introduction
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