Database recovery delivered

All databases can become useless. That is, they suffer some kind of corruption or acquire an unwanted flag. The latter problem came to visit an HP 3000 site over the weekend. The solution to repair a 3000 database ultimately arrived from Adager, the resource the 3000 community calls when trouble needs fixing pronto. James Dunlap called out to the community, via the 3000 newsgroup:

I was increasing a dataset’s capacity using DBCPLUS and thought my (remote) session had hung after already doing PER COM, so I aborted the session.  The bad news was that we don’t have a current backup of the database, and now the “restructuring” flag is set and the DB is “bad.”

That's HP's DBChange Plus utility that Dunlap is using, a tool HP obsoleted. In this situation, DBCPlus played a part in making the database bad. Old tools might be better than no tools; HP tried to put its customers in touch with third parties in 2000 when it dropped DBCPlus.

Dunlap tried to make a copy of the database too, and the copy was also “bad”. He reached out to the community through the Web, although finally the solution came through a call to Adager.

Resetting the database flag advice came from Craig Lalley of EchoTech:

You can reset the "restructuring" flag. There are several ways to do it, none come to mind here in the airport, but I would start with DBUTIL. Do you have Adager, or [Bradmark's] DBGeneral? It is a two bit marker that you should be able to find with DEBUG.

But if you're not familiar with running DEBUG on an HP 3000, the tool can become a tar pit. You'll want expert advice to fix a database problem using DEBUG, a tool on every HP 3000. Custom programming might have solved the problem, according to Brian Donaldson. But he couldn't resist fundamental advice on database procedure: "I don't mean to sound unfeeling about your predicament, but you are getting everything you asked for -—"

1) Not having a backup copy of the DB prior to making structural changes
2) Not using Adager for structural changes to begin with
3) Doing these structural changes across a remote line is just asking for trouble!

You can write a quickie Privileged Mode program to FOPEN the Image root file, read label zero and reset offset zero to a value of "FW" (which means database okay and accessible.) Definition of the root file is in the blue Image/3000 Handbook.

Donaldson's fix carried three notable pieces of information. First, there's the use of a Priv Mode program, written to work in the deepest level of MPE/iX. A process not for many a 3000 owner. Then there's the Image/3000 Handbook, a community resource long out of print but on the shelf of savvy, seasoned 3000 experts.

Then there's that FW flag. The FW stands for Fred White, co-creator of Image. After leaving HP, White worked at Adager for many years before retiring. And so Dunlap found his answer at Adager:

Rene Woc at Adager walked me through the necessary steps to fix via Debug.  (FW did the trick.)  That was not only kind of him, but downright gracious, considering that we don’t have Adager (yet!). Thanks to all who helped.

HP 3000 help remains available through the Web. It is likely to be around long after HP closes its support doors for the system, delivered by way of third parties like Adager. "We remain surprisingly busy," Woc told me in a call last week. He monitored HP's Webcast last week online, staying up to date with HP's plans to curtail 3000 support.

Dunlap reported his repair process, a resolution via Adager expertise:

Database recovery delivered

All databases can become useless. That is, they suffer some kind of corruption or acquire an unwanted flag. The latter problem came to visit an HP 3000 site over the weekend. The solution to repair a 3000 database ultimately arrived from Adager, the resource the 3000 community calls when trouble needs fixing pronto. James Dunlap called out to the community, via the 3000 newsgroup:

I was increasing a dataset’s capacity using DBCPLUS and thought my (remote) session had hung after already doing PER COM, so I aborted the session.  The bad news was that we don’t have a current backup of the database, and now the “restructuring” flag is set and the DB is “bad.”

That's HP's DBChange Plus utility that Dunlap is using, a tool HP obsoleted. In this situation, DBCPlus played a part in making the database bad. Old tools might be better than no tools; HP tried to put its customers in touch with third parties in 2000 when it dropped DBCPlus.

Dunlap tried to make a copy of the database too, and the copy was also “bad”. He reached out to the community through the Web, although finally the solution came through a call to Adager.

Resetting the database flag advice came from Craig Lalley of EchoTech:

You can reset the "restructuring" flag. There are several ways to do it, none come to mind here in the airport, but I would start with DBUTIL. Do you have Adager, or [Bradmark's] DBGeneral? It is a two bit marker that you should be able to find with DEBUG.

But if you're not familiar with running DEBUG on an HP 3000, the tool can become a tar pit. You'll want expert advice to fix a database problem using DEBUG, a tool on every HP 3000. Custom programming might have solved the problem, according to Brian Donaldson. But he couldn't resist fundamental advice on database procedure: "I don't mean to sound unfeeling about your predicament, but you are getting everything you asked for -—"

1) Not having a backup copy of the DB prior to making structural changes
2) Not using Adager for structural changes to begin with
3) Doing these structural changes across a remote line is just asking for trouble!

You can write a quickie Privileged Mode program to FOPEN the Image root file, read label zero and reset offset zero to a value of "FW" (which means database okay and accessible.) Definition of the root file is in the blue Image/3000 Handbook.

Donaldson's fix carried three notable pieces of information. First, there's the use of a Priv Mode program, written to work in the deepest level of MPE/iX. A process not for many a 3000 owner. Then there's the Image/3000 Handbook, a community resource long out of print but on the shelf of savvy, seasoned 3000 experts.

Then there's that FW flag. The FW stands for Fred White, co-creator of Image. After leaving HP, White worked at Adager for many years before retiring. And so Dunlap found his answer at Adager:

Rene Woc at Adager walked me through the necessary steps to fix via Debug.  (FW did the trick.)  That was not only kind of him, but downright gracious, considering that we don’t have Adager (yet!). Thanks to all who helped.

HP 3000 help remains available through the Web. It is likely to be around long after HP closes its support doors for the system, delivered by way of third parties like Adager. "We remain surprisingly busy," Woc told me in a call last week. He monitored HP's Webcast last week online, staying up to date with HP's plans to curtail 3000 support.

Dunlap reported his repair process, a resolution via Adager expertise:

Nothing much new, said by new speakers

About two dozen HP partners and customers took less than a hour today to log into HP's latest update on the system which it calls the e3000. The event was aimed at partners in the Europe, Middle East and Africa HP region (EMEA), but was accessible worldwide. By the time 45 minutes had elapsed, HP had presented less than three dozen PowerPoint slides to the partners, nearly all of which contained zero news.

At least none to our eyes, since we had seen presentations by HP about the platform and migrations at the March GHRUG International Technology Conference. In fact, the e3000 partners got less information from the vendor than GHRUG attendees received, as HP skipped the "Who owns MPE/iX" section of its March presentation. (Download your own copy of the GHRUG slides, as presented by HP e3000 business manager Jennie Hou.)

But we heard a new speaker or two. An uncounted number of partners listened on dial-in phone links to Bernard Determe, whose presence on the HP e3000 EMEA Customers Webinar served as the only new voice. Determe is HP's World Wide Support Planning Manager, a name and voice the world's e3000 users can attach to the vendor's decisions about how long HP will remain in the 3000 community. We say decisions in the plural because, as Determe pointed out today, HP has made three 3000 decisions in all, one following another until "we lose our lab."

HP's speech was not without "color," as we journalists like to call "more speaking about a fact you have already been told." Determe noted that the vendor discovered twice that people are still relying on the 3000 — a point that has sparked two revisions of its support plans.

HP has changed its timeline, but never its intentions, he said. "Since early in the 2000s, we've been pretty consistent in the message we have delivered," Determe said. That is, HP intends to exit the 3000 community and curtail its support, the event the vendor insists on calling "end of life" for the HP 3000.

Life has gone on, he added. "In 2001 we announced the platform would be obsolete in five years, but we were still doing full support and limited development. History has taught us that migrating from any platform to another is a pretty significant endeavor," Determe said, "and many of our customers were still on the e3000 by the end of '06."

Despite HP's discovery of continued 3000 life in 2005, and then in 2007, the vendor seems serious about ending its support in 2008. Well, some kind of support, especially any which requires HP lab development to fix problems. That's what "Mature Product Support without Sustaining Engineering" means, he said.

"We still offer the same level of from the front line engineers, but we lose our labs," Determe said, "which means there won't be any more PowerPatches [in 2009] there won't be fixes for newly-discovered bugs. We won't be offering new MPE/iX versions so we will stop charging for update services."

As long as customers only wish to call HP for workarounds and fixes to existing problems, "nothing changes [through 2010]," he said. "The only thing that changes is that HP will be unable to provide you with fixes to newly-discovered problems."

Nobody should interpret the extensions as a change of HP strategy about the 3000's lifespan in the vendor's business. But "if some of you feel that what we will offer in '09 and '10 does not meet your needs, I strongly encourage you to get in touch with your HP contact, and we can see what type of custom solutions or transition plans we can build together, to help you migrate to another platform."

Liz Glogowski of the e3000 labs in HP presented the information about HP's Right to Use license (RTU). She called it "a new product that allows for upgrading to different levels [of HP 3000s]. As we've matured we've stopped selling the upgrade options, and yet people still needed to move, to do things like go from a 2-way to 4-way [CPU] on a system."

Glogowski reviewed a list of upcoming deliverables (one remaining PowerPatch 5 for MPE/iX 7.5, to be released "in the next few weeks" by Determe's calcuations) and deliverables for 2007. The accomplishments she listed "from the R&D lab" are

• Samba Porting white paper
• SCSI Pass-Thru Driver Enhancement
• Two critical data integrity patches
• MPE/iX7.0 PowerPatch 5
• Samba Release 3.0.22
• Securing FTP White Paper
• 2007 Daylight Savings Time Changes

Glogowski said that R&D lab engineers are working on peripherals, storage and networking white papers during the remaining 31 weeks of 2008 before the lab reaches its end of life.

HP to present 3000 report

HP 3000 community members might want to have their browsers tuned to the Hewlett-Packard Virtual Rooms Web site tomorrow. At 10 AM EDT (4 PM CET) the vendor will present a 90-minute Webcast on its view of the 3000's future and the past:

    * Review last year activities for MPE
    * Discuss latest announcements
    * Discuss migrations and transition tools and partners

You can dial in to the conference to hear HP's audio presentation. Call from the US at 866-832-0714, Germany at 069 2222 3190, the UK at 01452 555 574 and Canada at 866 530 4984. Other countries throughout the world have dialup numbers as well (listed at the end of this posting); the main number is the UK-based 44 1452 555 574. The conference code to supply at the prompt is 50 63 65#.

HP will present the PowerPoint slide deck for the Webcast at its Virtual Rooms site. The meeting key is EPAAPKCNJ9. Testing your browser and PC/Mac configuration beforehand is a good idea; links to do so are available at the site. HP's software won't use the Firefox browsers on either Windows or Mac PCs.

The Virtual Rooms technology from HP is also for rent by the hour, so the Webcast will offer one way to assess the potential for using this tool for your own company communication.

HP has an FAQ page on the HP Virtual Rooms, which are available for both meetings and training sessions:

Used by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, HP Virtual Rooms provides a highly collaborative environment for small to large groups. Our products help you implement a cost effective, secure, and flexible solution for your current business needs while positioning you to take full advantage of future virtual training and virtual meeting functionality.

Our outstanding, reliable, and easy-to-use technology, deep knowledge of distance learning, ability to develop content, and worldwide, round-the-clock service allows customers to get important work done-in entirely new and better ways. We use this technology ourselves, throughout HP, giving us first-hand knowledge about our user needs.

At $180 per seat for a minimum 10-seat license, Virtual Rooms is not priced to compete with WebEx. But we've seen the technology used several years ago in an all-day OpenMPE meeting, hosted at HP's facilities back when Interex's HP World conference had gone belly-up. Even in 2005 it looked slick and complete for an audience of advanced technology users.

The full list of dial-in phone numbers for the conference:

Australia     1800 679 161
Austria     019 289 550
Belgium     024 003 450
Canada     1866 530 4984
China North     10800 712 1523
China South     10800 120 1523
Denmark 032 714 925
Finland     0800 117 112
France     01 70 70 07 60
Germany 069 2222 3190
Greece     00800 126 056
Hong Kong     800 963 831
Hungary 06800 15312
Ireland     01 4319 647
Israel     180 921 3988
Italy     023 600 3762
Malaysia     1800 805994
Netherlands     020 713 2968
Norway     800 18430
Poland     00800 121 0132
Portugal     211 201 811
Russia     8~10 800 2230 1012
Singapore     800 1205 507
South Africa     0800 990 918
Spain     914 146 117
Sweden     08 566 184 84
Switzerland     044 580 3457
Turkey     00800 1420 38506
UK     01452 555 574
USA     1866 832 0714

HP, EDS to serve as one

HP announced its largest acquisition since the company purchased Compaq, buying services and integration provider EDS for $13.9 billion. EDS, founded by former US presidential candidate Ross Perot, still manages about 200 HP 3000s, according to a CEO of a software company in the 3000 community. One community member who knows both EDS and HP from earlier times said the two firms are more alike today than they ever were in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The corporate cultures at HP and EDS were totally opposite in their treatment of employees [in the 1970’s]," said former OpenMPE director Paul Edwards, "when I was an employee of each company. HP has now the attitude toward their employees that EDS did back then. After watching my new DVD Origins from HP, which shows the way they valued employees and the HP Way, I really miss that environment."

Edwards sent us the message today from Dallas, which is the EDS headquarters city. He pointed out that EDS has been "a very IBM-oriented company." This might make an HP enterprise customer, mostly the ones who will stay with the vendor through their 3000 transition, wonder why HP wanted to spend so much for a consulting and integration company. The deal more than doubles HP's Services revenues; that sector billed $16.6 billion last year. EDS generated $22.1 billion in revenue in 2007 and has approximately 140,000 employees in 65 countries. HP's headcount has nearly doubled immediately to a total of 312,000, with more than half of its workers now dedicated to services.

The markets dealt out a sharp sell-off of HP stock in their immediate reaction. HP lost more market cap during the first 24 hours after the announcement than the total value of EDS.

Services is high profit, so much so that HP will create a separate EDS group as part of its strategy. The only HP businesses which generate more profits are systems and HP's ink sales. Services is long-term money, not the constant battle of printers and imaging or the tough sell and churn of enterprise servers and storage. Services is lucrative, which is why HP has been after this kind of company ever since the Compaq deal's ink was dry.

Not long after Carly Fiorina engineered that Compaq merger, fighting back half of HP's shareholders, her executives reached out for Price Waterhouse Cooper, the largest of all independent "C&I" firms, as they're called in the industry. The PWC deal didn't make it out of an HP boardroom vote, a harbinger of the dissent to come about HP's style of growth. At the time, the PWC deal was a $16 billion purchase. Since HP is getting EDS for $2 billion less, four years later, this is a much bigger value at a time when HP needs to maintain revenue growth.

Purchasing massive competitors is becoming a favorite HP strategy to grow. The Mercury Interactive purchase of 2006 clocked in at nearly $7 billion, and it was aimed at enterprise users, too. HP considers the services sector an important part of its enterprise strategy. This is clearly not a deal aimed at the PC buyers or customers who toss an ink cartridge into their grocery carts once a month. HP said of the purchase,

This acquisition fills out a part of our portfolio that we consider to be strategically important. This acquisition will strengthen our ability to compete in the important services segment. By using our technology to automate, we will be able to drive greater efficiencies for our customers on a global basis while expanding our offerings in key segments and extending our reach in important vertical industries.

HP has an extensive press kit on the deal, announced just two days before the company's Q2 report. Purchasing the number one services provider will make waves and perhaps tilt HP toward services as a hedge on printer and imaging revenues.

Encompass, Euro Interex, ITUG Connect users

Four user groups became as one this week when the Encompass, Interex Europe, ITUG NonStop and Encompass Pacific joined hands as Connect. The new name is a result of the research required to acquire Web addresses and trademarks, according to president Nina Buik. But the user group alliance, now 50,000 strong, took its name as part of its primary mission.

"That's what we do," Buik said. "We connect members to each other, we connect members to HP and HP's partners, we connect members to education — so we thought it was a very appropriate name for the new organization." She invited members and the HP IT community to visit hpusercommunity.org to get "the feel of the new networking tools." The HP Technology Forum employed user networking tools in its 2007 conference.

It took 27 directors of the allied user groups to decide on things like names and committees, but only a dozen will be serving on the Connect board. Board representation includes members from each of the founding users groups. Buik, former president of Encompass, will lead the board as president. Margo Holen will serve as vice president, Glen Kuykendall was elected secretary/treasurer, and Scott Healy, former ITUG president, will serve as immediate past president. Newly elected directors include Steve Davidek — formerly of the Interex advocacy committee, and an HP 3000 site manager — Bill Johnson, Jay McLaughlin, Henk Pomper, Joe Ramos, Dr. Michael Rossbach, Gerhard Wedenig and Brad Harwell (HP).

Buik said that seating a vendor official on a user group board is not new to the ITUG members, but it's a novel appointment among most user groups' leadership. The HP user group Interex never had an HP employee on its board in 30 years, but had an HP liasion each year.

"We maintain numerous executive relationships," Buik said. "Brad Harwell is an HP executive and was named as the liaison to the new board. For clarity, David Parsons is a director." Parsons is an executive VP of Hewlett-Packard and ran point for the Technology Forum in its first year, when Interex had folded. Harwell is director of marketing in the Technical Solutions Group for the Americas at HP.

Advocacy efforts will be "stronger than ever" for the Connect group, which calls HP its strategic business partner. Encompass embraced the enterprise customer base as "an independent, pre-eminent worldwide community of users of HP enterprise technologies." The Connect advocacy to HP on behalf of the 3000 enterprise community might not be able to reverse HP's decision to drop MPE/iX certifications next month.

Buik has been on several conference calls to discuss the certifications, she said. "HP is aware of the expiring HP 3000 certifications, as I have been on several calls discussing this very issue.  As you know, certifications change as the technologies change. It's not always a popular decision."

Joining together to create a single user group has been HP's desire. "We congratulate the groups on this significant accomplishment," said HP's Harwell. "It will provide HP a direct, unified customer forum representing the greater HP user community interests worldwide.” Harwell said the combined groups will help customers worldwide "access an expanding portfolio of HP technologies."

However much ease HP has gained in working with a single group, the amassed customers will be working on raising the user voice to the vendor. "We look at multiple ways to get our voice 'Hurd,' " Buik said. "Please see my [Encompass] blog for more on this. There is an Adocacy Committee and the chair of this and all Connect committees will be volunteers! Board members will serve as liaisons for each committee."

Committee leaders were not decided when Connect made its alliance announcement yesterday.

Members of each user group will have complimentary membership in Connect through the end of 2008. The official launch celebration for Connect will take place at next month's HP Technology Forum & Expo, which kicks off June 16 for four days in Las Vegas.

When COBOL heat lights up the future

One year ago this month, Micro Focus announced its purchase of its most prevalent COBOL competitor for 3000 sites, Acucorp. The Micro Focus juggernaut was righting itself after a discouraging era that saw profits and revenues falling. Acucorp had built a successful solution of a COBOL compiler for HP 3000 sites in migration. AcuCOBOL is built to mimic the 3000's HP COBOL II as closely as possible with something created outside HP's labs.

After that $40 million purchase of Acucorp, Micro Focus reported today that is has gone on to set a record for yearly revenue, beating its "Drive to $225 (Million)" sales goal. Now the owner of two-thirds of the COBOL choices for HP 3000 sites will be purchasing NetManage, another $25 million spent to get into a business allied with IT enterprise operations. NetManage sells software "to transform core applications into new Web-based business solutions."

Two years ago, Micro Focus pursued an old, familiar business solution as its new management's goal. In simple terms, stemming the loss of business revenue was Job One. Legacy platforms were the primary means for the solution.

"The primary focus of the new management team is to continue to restore the business to achieve significant, sustainable, profitable growth and to enhance shareholder confidence over time," CEO Stephen Kelly said back then. After two years of buying businesses at a cost that's almost 50 percent of 2006 Micro Focus revenues, it looks like Micro Focus is making progress on the business it desired: Restoration of the Micro Focus operations. Stock traded about $250 a share on May 5.

It took COBOL revenues to make this restoration a reality. Clearly this is a compiler technology that still produced heat, since billions upon billions of lines of COBOL run the world's business. Buying ownership of newer technology is one thing that a company can do with its success in legacy offerings. COBOL for 3000 migrators comes from individual suppliers like Micro Focus. But a move away from it is just as possible as the Micro Focus drive to solutions not tied to COBOL. An HP 3000 software vendor is working on a design that not only leaves Micro Focus out of the picture, but in time erases the need for COBOL altogether.

The other one-third of COBOL choices, Fujitsu NetCOBOL, differs from both Micro Focus products. AcuCOBOL and Micro Focus are interpreted implementations of compilers. According to QSS founder Duane Percox, whose company is migrating its K-12 HP 3000 application to other platforms, "we felt we had less control with those compilers than a compiler like Fujitsu NetCOBOL, which is a native compilation."

Maybe even more important to the migrating customer, Fujitsu's COBOL has no run-time fees.

But even while QSS is using NetCOBOL, its longer-term goals include eliminating as much vendor-controlled technology as possible. Ruby is open source. "Ruby is a standalone object oriented program scripting language," Percox said. "A goal of our Ruby exploration is to begin to replace the COBOL with Ruby wherever it makes sense." QSS has COBOL in all of its software implementations, from the MPE/iX version to HP-UX to Linux.

A former HP 3000 lab expert, Jeff Vance, joined QSS this year for just this kind of technology exploration. The aim of the project is similar to what Micro Focus is buying with $25 million in cost cuts and COBOL growth: a Web application foundation. QSS is employing "the use of Ruby as a general purpose language for any number of things (not necessarily Web based)," Percox said, "and when I say Rails I am really saying 'Ruby on Rails' which is the framework for Web applications."

Cutting down lagging products is important in the Micro Focus kind of business formula, because you need the money from somewhere to make the big purchases. It can be the kind of model where design elegance and customer loyalty can't hold a candle to growth's bright light. HP 3000 customers might recall how vital growth was to an HP that had to cut out the 3000 from future plans. Kelly remains at the CEO desk at Micro Focus, a UK company which trades only on the London Stock Exchange. Two years ago he said

Tough action has been taken in regard to costs, the benefits of which we expect to flow through to operating profits in FY2007. Returning to sustainable revenue growth is the key factor that will determine the long term success of the Company. And while I believe we have broadly arrested the decline, our revenue outlook remains cautious as we stabilise and focus the business.

A bleak Vista faces a mature OS sibling

Some veteran HP 3000 developers and consultants are taking note of how unloved Microsoft's Vista has become. The newest generation of Windows got an ugly reputation from its first month of release, kind of like that stain that lands on your dress shirt as soon as you step up to the buffet table. Windows is the leading choice for HP 3000 sites who are migrating, but apparently not many Windows users are choosing Vista on purpose.

What's more, Microsoft is in total denial of the OS warts and birth defects. Vista is so bad that PC users have begun to cheer for its older sibling, XP. You could have gotten good odds that an XP cheering section was a fantasy five years ago. Now XP fans are not only legion, but Dell will now scrape Vista off a new PC to get you to buy it. HP and Lenovo, Numbers One and Three in the Windows platform derby, also give customers a way to avoid Vista.

Microsoft has begun to treat XP like MPE/iX has been treated by HP. That's to say, XP had a deadline for its demise (dead from the vendor's point of view, but like MPE/iX, still living and working well outside the vendor's marketing chambers.) Microsoft extended the deadline. Still, the vendor is curtailing its XP support since it has delayed the Service Pack 3 for XP. These moves are all in the hopes of making Vista look like a better choice for companies. Individuals are forced to take Vista on a new system, but enterprises can push back.

Bruce Hobbs, a veteran of HP 3000 development and a consultant to 3000 software supplier ROC Software, keeps passing along notes from the outside world about the demise of Windows. The collapse of something that's installed on 90 million PCs could take awhile to ripple through the IT world. But the analysis shows that getting deeper into Windows than XP — and drinking the Vista Kool-AId — is a decision ripe with possibilities, many of them immature.

At the moment, the talk is about how much Vista will need to grow up to be as reliable as XP. By reliable I mean "able to perform without fail for a computer pro who is not a Windows guru." You can get Vista testimonials from the surgeons who've had their hands inside Windows' heart cavity for years. But the summary score for Vista is Not Ready Yet. That has not kept Microsoft from pushing it, even to the point of cooking the books on how many copies are being installed.

Dell, for one, "is installing Vista on your new machine, then cleaning it off and putting on XP, all in a little charade that lets Microsoft keep counting up the new Vista sales even among those who refuse to use it," according to San Jose Mercury News blog reporters on Good Morning Silicon Valley. HP and Lenovo will include an XP Pro recovery disk, on request, with qualifying systems.

Nothing starts out perfect, or even close to it in the computer business. MPE/iX had such a spectacular failure at first that 3000 users said that using a 1.x version of the OS was "a career-defining decision." (It was called MPE/XL in those days, but by any name it took two years-plus before the market began to trust it.) And the 3000 itself, powered by MPE, fell so flat on its face that HP yanked the system off the market at the end of 1972, before the smell of crashed programs could fill the minicomputer town square of the day.

The point to take away from the Vista false start is that staying with a mature solution can mean doing your own dance of denial. To keep using and getting support for XP, a company with designs on Windows must tune out the Vista snake dance. Windows is a logical choice for a company with PCs already using the OS on desktops — and a crack Windows staff or consultants on call — at least any company which must migrate. Migration to Vista, though, still looks like a leap too large to generate anything but a pratfall, unless an IT group has Windows gurus on payroll.

The Ars Technica Web site has a story on how Dell and Lenovo will be extending XP sales beyond the Microsoft deadline for the mature operating environment. Mature is a relative term there, of course, compared to the 34 straight years of MPE/iX field use, upgrades and development. Microsoft might promise a brighter future in its Vista, but the reality of today makes the new Windows a murky migration choice.

Linear advice saves tape storage solution

A 3000 community member who is obviously homesteading asked for help installing a Digital Linear Tape device today. His question to the HP 3000 newsgroup was "Why can't my Series 939 see the DLT8000 I just brought into the shop and mounted successfully?"

A couple of tape experts had good solutions to assist Joe Barnett, but both storage guru Denys Beauchemin and HP's Jim Hawkins couldn't resist much bigger advice: Migrate off that HP 3000. While Barnett contemplates that outsized project, he's got little to spark such an adventure — if his only problem is storing more data from a growing disk farm.

The experts shared a wide range of counsel, from the basic of "check that media" and "tape heads wear out on DLT8000s" to "they haven't made that generation of DLT drive in five years" (a period Beauchemin likes to call a lustrum, accurate but arcane English.)

When Hawkins stepped in to comment on Beauchemin's advice, the combination of counsel was another reason to believe in the power of the 3000 community.

Beauchemin, who's best known as Denys in the 3000 world, set off with an opinion, then followed with details. JIM of HP commented.

Denys: Unfortunately, this is the exact issue facing homesteaders and others who are delaying the migration off the HP3000, especially if they have pre-PCI machines.  The hardware to run it can only be found in antique stores and can be of varying level of readiness. You have many options open to you, but as time goes by they will more difficult to implement.

1- Look for another DLT8000 or a DLT7000, either one will work and you will not get any performance benefit from either one over the DDS-3, just more storage on one tape.

JIM >> Agreed.   Also make sure it has HP branded firmware; within the last two years had a painful set of System Aborts at a large customer due to semi-random walks through driver state machines initiated by non-certified firmware.

Denys: 2- Consider getting more DDS-3 drives.

JIM >> Agreed.  We have one medium size N-Class with something like 12 DAT24 drives -- they do either a 4x3 or 3x4 parallel storeset.   No messing with “reel” switches.

Denys: 3- Consider getting an HVD to SE/LVD SCSI converter and then trying a DDS-4 device.

JIM >> Don’t think that is an option since about 5.5/6.0  the “scsi_tape_dm” DDS driver will not “bind” to the F/W SCSI driver.   I think you may only configure the DLT (scsi_tape2_dm) driver “under” the NIO F/W SCSI HBA (fwscsi_dam).  As previously posted DAT40 with DAT24 media has worked well for some sites but DAT40 with DAT40 media is only supported on A/N-Class.

Denys: 4- Move to a PCI HP 3000 (the crippled A series or a small N-Class), then use newer LVD devices.

JIM >> Agree that PCI Systems will at least enable the usage of much newer “used” equipment and even some new stuff, if you want to buy a XP10k/12k ;-).

Denys: 5- Consider migrating from the HP 3000.  (This is the only long term solution and where I have been spending my time for the last several years. The newer server technology is light-years ahead of where the 3000 stopped and the new storage devices are incredible, fast and cheap.  The companies that we migrate are just amazed at the new hardware.)

JIM >> Agreed

Hardware, of course, is not the biggest challenge in migration. Moving programs, processes, training for new environments— that's where the work really begins. Besides, backing away from DLT is not all that uncommon in the 3000 community. At one point Denys told Joe about a needed interface, "HVD-SCSI is so last century." True enough. But storing to tape has its creaky looks, too. STORE To Disk is successful and better at carrying a 3000 into the next decade.

Tech Forum serves two 3000 talks

The HP Technology Forum put its session schedule online today, a list of talks and speakers which includes two HP 3000 updates. Most notably, HP e3000 Business Manager Jennie Hou is not listed as a speaker for either of the talks.

The Tech Forum has not specialized in HP e3000 information in its three years of existence, unless a demand for migration techniques counts high in a customer's quest for knowledge. Last year's show was the first to feature Hou as the business management speaker for an e3000 update. Hewlett-Packard carried on the tradition of naming an e3000 Contributor of the Year for 2007. It remains to be seen if Allegro's Stan Sieler will remain the final winner of the award HP has handed out since the middle 1990s.

This year's events with "e3000" in the title are one HP update on the 3000 support roadmap, offered by HP's Alvina Nishimoto, and the HP e3000 Migration Solutions Overview, a one-hour talk delivered by Director of Marketing Chris Koppe from Platinum Migrations partner Speedware. Koppe's talk during last fall's e3000 Community Meet pulled advice from migration engagements dating back to 2003. The talk abstract bills the session thus:

Don’t miss the ultimate overview of HP e3000 migration solutions. Speedware is one of only two HP e3000 Platinum Partners and has seen it all when it comes to migrations. Learn about solutions for migrating 3GL and 4GL languages, databases and third party utilities. Migration experts share their insights on straight migrations as well as more modern “legacy modernization” projects.

As for the HP Support Roadmap and Transition Options, the one-hour talk covers two years of HP's future in the community, "a review of what e3000 customers and partners can expect from HP during the next couple of years." HP tips no cards in its Vegas hand in the sessions' abstract, rallying on the same formula of customer update talks since 2003:

Learn the four areas of ongoing HP focus for the e3000 business

1. Helping customers and partners transition to other HP platforms
2. Supporting customers' business-critical environments as they transition
3. Addressing concerns of customers who may continue to depend on the HP e3000 to meet business needs beyond HP's end-of-support date
4. Comparing the various transition options.

On the other hand, the Tech Forum is ideal for hearing HP talk about futures on transition platforms such as HP-UX and Windows. The session planner shows a Tuesday talk on HP-UX Operating Environment Futures, which

explores the future roadmap strategies for the HP-UX Operating Environments. Planned future directions seek to improve flexibility, simplify software deployment and sales, add new functionality and greatly improve the customer experience. Both PA and IPF plans will be part of the presentation.

That's HP Precision Architecture (PA) as well as Itanium/Integrity views of HP-UX. At some point HP's HP-UX support for PA will be curtailed; how soon that will happen would be good information for a migrating site to take home from Las Vegas. HP's Nishimoto reported at the GHRUG conference that HP-UX was leading the field of HP's 3000 migration experience, so knowing what's next for the environment can be helpful.

There's also a Windows Vista debugging session scheduled for later on in the day, techniques which seem to be crucial this year. HP is saving HP-UX Patch Management for the final two hours of the conference in a hands-on lab that ends around 6 PM on Thursday, the third full day of the conference.

Finally, the Forum organizers report that Howie Mandell will entertain attendees who remain for the conference's final day of June 19. Encompass explains that Mandell was best known for the TV series St. Elsewhere, but now hosts the popular show Deal or No Deal. Some 3000 community members may need a laugh to help them deal with their migration challenges, so maybe a Thursday morning comedy act will fill out the bill.

UDALink carries Data Express tool upward

Yesterday we took note of the new version of Data Express, a testing suite from COBOL supplier Micro Focus. The name of the product once described a software solution from HP 3000 Platinum Migration partner MB Foster, which also offers homesteading utilities for companies still relying on 3000s.

At MB Foster, Data Express became UDALink and an allied family of products years ago. MB Foster's Birket Foster clarifies the product name:

MB Foster makes Data Express available... well, it's not the original DataExpress that MB Foster bought from IMACS in 1989 —€“ the premiere data access and delivery solution for the HP 3000. That morphed to become UDALink (Universal Data Access Link) which now runs on the HP 3000, as well as Unix (HP-UX for Itanium included), Solaris and Linux. UDALink talks to various databases including Eloquence, Oracle, and DB2.

The UDA family of solutions includes cross-platform synchronization functions such as IMAGE and KSAM to Oracle or SQL Server. UDACentral does drag and drop data transfer to help migration data between OS platforms and different databases —€” IMAGE, Oracle, Eloquence, DB2 and SQL Server, among others).

The MB Foster products operate on all platforms including the HP 3000. The 3000 is a platform which Micro Focus does not support — which makes data access with the software written by Foster's company a starter step for a migration, a role the newer Data Express cannot play.

For example, UDA-Enterprise, a member of the UDA product stable, connects an enterprise's data from a range of server environments. Used at customers like Georgia Pacific, the software lets a company's applications use information across an enterprise.

MBF-Enterprise accesses,updates and joins enterprise information from applications and data sources as if they were relational  databases. Data is normalized and converted from hierarchical  structures into tables without redundant data. Clients can use JDBC, ODBC, ADO/OLE DB, or XML to submit SQL requests.

HP 3000 customers who've built their own apps use COBOL nearly all the time. That's why Micro Focus options for new compilers — as well as Fujitsu's NetCOBOL — will be important to migrating 3000 sites, or those which are connecting their 3000 apps to other enterprise servers while they homestead. COBOL is not a tool to be left behind, not without serious effort, anyway.

The MB Foster data sheet which describes MBF-Enterprise also notes the product translates application instructions, "such as those typical of legacy COBOL, to and from XML." Data connection products are as essential as gravity for IT enterprises. When a company can deploy one which understands MPE/iX applications, that kind of solution stays a step ahead in migrations by being able to understand an IT's foundation apps.

Data Express gets Micro Focus update

The name Data Express resonates in the HP 3000 community from years of use by its supplier, MB Foster. But that Swiss Army knife of 3000 data transfer became the UDA-Link family years ago — so migrating HP 3000 sites shouldn't be confused that Data Express now has an update. The COBOL and development environment maker Micro Focus has taken up the Data Express name for one of its products.

The Micro Focus Data Express has added a new SQL server module, enabling the suite of tools to support for Microsoft SQL Server. Micro Focus, which purchased competitor AcuCOBOL last spring to consolidate COBOL migration choices for 3000 sites, says its Data Express is used to "create a secure, robust test environment for production data from across the entire enterprise." From a press release:

Data Express also allows organizations to create representative subsets of large volumes of production data for testing purposes, ensuring a secure, compliant testing environment for application development.

“The addition of SQL Server support will allow our customers to test production data from across their entire enterprise without sacrificing privacy or regulatory compliance,” said Stuart McGill, CTO, Micro Focus.

Testing is one of the most significant parts of any migration effort, according to the community's migration partners and 3000 sites which have made their transition. While SQL Server runs second to Oracle in large enterprise database choices, smaller HP 3000 sites use the Microsoft database as part of a Windows platform strategy.

Advice from the vendor on testing fits any kind of migration strategy, whether it involves Micro Focus products or not. Most HP 3000 sites use COBOL for their in-house apps, but Fujitsu's NetCOBOL, with zero dollars of run time fees, is another alternative being used by app supplier Quintessential School Systems. But Micro Focus says

Manual testing involves cumbersome processes that can add significant and unnecessary cost, risk and time to application development. With Data Express, testing becomes an IT asset and not a liability, allowing IT organizations to increase flexibility and more closely align their goals with the needs of the business.

Data Express "allows users to load data from a variety of different databases, including SQL Server databases, into a single repository for analysis, understanding and consistent categorization of data fields."

The tool suite can set masking rules based on the various data categorizations, "ensuring that access to sensitive data complies with appropriate data privacy regulations, legislation and corporate governance standards. It automatically defines appropriate subsets of data. One benefit of using this suite, according to vendor, is the potential to reduce costs of test data storage.

As for MB Foster, the original owner of the Data Express name, the company's chairman Birket Foster tells us

The new DataExpress is from Micro Focus and is for testing. One thing that you will want to be doing when you are migrating or producing a new release of an application is to automate testing. The Micro Focus DataExpress is just a test automation platform.

As for the MB Foster offering which has become UDA-Link, we'll have a note on that familiar and expansive tool set for migrating and homesteading customers tomorrow.

New tricks for HP's old dogs, and newer, too

Earlier today HP invited computer customers to a Webcast about NetBeans, technology that will never make it onto MPE/iX servers. The novelty of the Web information, hosted by Encompass, was its target: Users of OpenVMS, the last non-industry-standard operating environment which HP supports.

And an environment HP apparently still extends, given the information in the Webinar.

A plug-in for NetBeans, provided free-of-charge by HP, allows you to use NetBeans on your desktop to develop and debug OpenVMS applications remotely. This includes not only Java applications, but C, C++, Fortran, Cobol, Basic, and Pascal applications.

HP 3000 customers might recall that Java support was a big step forward for their server — back in 1998. Since that time HP has dropped all interest in the "write once, run anywhere" language. That's too bad for homesteaders, who could benefit from this free Integrated Development Environment which has only gotten richer and more proven in the past five years.

But NetBeans, and the power of Java in general, are a good story for a migrating HP 3000 customer, either as impetus to start moving or as a tool to make the migration easier.

There's almost no chance of NetBeans ever emerging on the HP 3000, largely because Java/iX is mired in a 2001 version of Java. Release 1.3 was the final resting place for a breakthrough language that even earned a Just In Time engine for MPE/iX. Mike Yawn demonstrated the Swing interface for Java/iX at one point. Now Yawn has moved beyond HP and into development at eBay. He gives a stark assessment of the challenge of catching up Java on the 3000.

Because [HP] didn't keep porting efforts going, eventually the Java version running on MPE (JDK 1.3) was no longer supported by Sun, which  meant that HP would have been left holding the bag if problems were found in the 'core' Java code (not MPE or PA-RISC specific). So I think they had no choice but to either drop support, or port a still-supported-by-Sun version. You can guess which option was chosen.

Even if an up-to-date Java version was available for MPE, NetBeans would be a tough nut to crack.  NetBeans (and its competitor Eclipse, which is my preferred IDE of the two) both require a lot of GUI support, as well as a robust threads implementation -- two things MPE never did well.  Early on we were trying to support the AWT and Swing GUIs on top of MPE's Motif implementation, but that never worked well enough that I'd count on it being able to handle something as demanding as NetBeans or Eclipse.  So anyone taking that on would be taking on Java + Motif + pthreads, at a minimum.

Developers on Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris, HP-UX — hey, even Mac OS X — can all take advantage of his new trick. Only HP-UX and Solaris qualify as old dogs among that list, which makes HP's OpenVMS support all the more interesting. Plug-in support to use NetBeans on a PC desktop might be considered something less than complete support. But HP's efforts for its VMS enterprise customers are still more than HP 3000 customers can hope for. You'll have to be on another environment to use this IDE, which you can check out at netbeans.org;

The NetBeans IDE is a free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers. You get all the tools you need to create professional desktop, enterprise, web and mobile applications, in Java, C/C++ and even Ruby. The IDE runs on many platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris; it is easy to install and use straight out of the box.

The 6.0 release includes significant enhancements and new features, including a completely rewritten editor infrastructure, support for additional languages, new productivity features, and a simplified installation process that allows you to easily install and configure the IDE to meet your exact needs.

While Yawn said that a Java update for the 3000 is a non-starter, he did hold out some hope that OpenMPE or the 3000 community could do as much as HP has done on the plug-in concept.

I suspect NetBeans offers remote debugging capabilities similar to Eclipse. [Allegro Consultants VP] Gavin Scott and I had some discussions early on about what the sweet spot for MPE might be  — to try to support a nice client-server approach where a developer could use the Eclipse workbench (I don't think we were looking at NetBeans at the time) to debug code running on MPE.   

I don't recall whether we had grander ideas for pushing code back and forth so that you could edit/compile on the PC and then push the class files up to the 3000 for execution, but it seems like that would probably be the next step. A lot of what I'm doing at eBay is Eclipse plug-in development, so I can see now where it would be possible to create an "MPE development plug-in" that could do a lot of this stuff transparently for the developer. So from a client side it could definitely be made to work.

Another problem that OpenMPE would have if they wanted to revive the Java/iX product would be what to do for a just-in-time compiler. That's a huge effort, and not something that I think we could have ever managed if we hadn't leveraged heavily off of the work done by the HP-UX Java lab.  I have no idea whether they are still investing anything in PA-RISC; it seems probably lose-lose, because

a) If HP-UX is still actively supporting PA-RISC, then they probably would be unwilling to share the PA-RISC code for their JIT / HotSpot technology.

b) If HP-UX is Itanium only, they might be willing to share their PA-RISC code, but with no sustaining engineering effort coming from them, OpenMPE would have to figure out how to move that forward with future Java revisions. I have no doubt that [former OpenMPE director] Mark Klein or Gavin could do it, but the list probably ends there.

QSS gathers another 3000 HP expert

The man who made the Apache Web server a reality for HP 3000s has landed a post at an HP 3000 third party software firm. Mark Bixby joined Hewlett-Packard's MPE/iX lab late in the 1990s, while the vendor was still adding open source utilities to the operating system. Somehow, HP couldn't find a job this year for the man who brought domain name services and the first Web server to the HP 3000.

Bixby landed a development position at Quintessential School Systems (QSS), making him the second HP 3000 lab expert to join the K-12 applications provider during the past year. Jeff Vance, whose 28-year tenure with HP ended when he took early retirement from the company, joined the school system software firm in 2007.

To be accurate, QSS is more than just the spot where more than 100 US school systems buy an application for HP 3000s. Ever since 2003, QSS has been investigaing, developing, as well as recently shipping a vendor-neutral version of its software; that is, one that will not rely on a vendor-only operating environment like MPE/iX.

Vance joined QSS to work on the newest of platforms, open source Linux projects. Bixby seemed delighted to join his former HP colleague at the company which still serves many HP 3000 sites.

I will be taking a couple of months off to focus on various personal projects, then in July I will be joining Quintessential School Systems (QSS). I definitely look forward to working with Jeff Vance again, who also ended up at QSS after he left HP.

By the time Bixby ended his road inside HP, the company had already moved him out of HP 3000 day-to-day work. If ever there was a sign HP is taking rapid leave of your community, it's the vendor's inability to find a place for an engineer with Bixby's skills, as well as his repository of MPE/iX internals knowledge.

Bixby had done volunteer development for the 3000 community during 1998 on Apache, bringing over the Web server that's now a de-facto standard. Bixby ported the open source version of Apache to create the product that HP eventually called Apache/iX. The vendor took in both the 3000 Web server as well as its creator as part of HP's 3000 resources by the time Y2K was impending.

But HP has been cutting jobs continuously since CEO Mark Hurd arrived, a process which former CEO Carly Fiorina launched with the Compaq merger in 1999. Bixby located a new development lab to work at just weeks after he sent feelers into the 3000 development community.

A couple of months ago, HP in its infinite wisdom decided that my services were no longer necessary. My last day of employment there was April 18.

Please delete mark.bixby@hp.com from your address books, lest the other Mark Bixby who still works at HP (yes, there were two of us) starts getting e-mail intended for me.

So HP may still have a Mark Bixby, but the community knows the vendor doesn't employ the Mark Bixby. And since HP is dropping its 3000 operations, having the Mark Bixby outside of HP is a very good thing for your community, even if his work will revolve around a new platform solution. See, there's that MPE/iX repository, now working along with QSS founder Duane Percox's early support of OpenMPE.

Bixby has a helpful repository of his 3000 work at his own Web site, bixby.org

Matchbox-ing up for Tech Forum

A national user group conference rolls out with bigger expectations than a regional meeting. The recent GHRUG International Technology Conference offered a swell networking cookout at an extended stay hotel's pool as its social event. Encompass, as well as sponsor vendor HP, is lining up its own social event with an international flair.

On the final day of HP Tech Forum discount registration, Encompass announced that Matchbox Twenty will be playing a mini-concert at the show's final evening, June 19. We're a bit short of enough hipster cred to appreciate the band's stature. But Encompass assured everyone that the group is "one of the most successful bands to emerge in the past decade." They're not stretching at all to say that. iTunes reviewers assure us that over the last decade the band has "earned five Grammy nominations and had more number one hits that nay other artist in the Adult Top 40 radio history."

Interex, the now-defunct HP user group, used to book talent nearly as well-known, but aimed at a somewhat older audience. But the Interex stars were keynoters, the likes of Dave Barry, Scott Adams (Dilbert) and Al Franken (Saturday Night Live). Top-line talent draws the crowds to a user event, another kind of curb appeal as if the Las Vegas venue wasn't enough.

Those larger crowds could deliver a key networking contact for attendees, the ones learning more about HP's alternatives to the HP 3000. Plus, the band makes a better value of the $1,495 entry fee. Matchbox Twenty concert packages for close-up seats start at $250 a ticket. Last year's Tech Forum band was Train, which has won a Grammy but can't boast the same producer as Matchbox Twenty's Steve Lillywhite — who's produced albums for the Rolling Stones and U2.

After playing the Tech Forum, it's on to dates like the North Dakota State Fair, but the band's success need never be matched up, so to speak, on the basis of where they play. Making music in Minot, ND is just a way to appeal to the mainstream.

As for the Tech Forum discounts available from Monday onward, it's strictly the $200 off the full $1,695 package for being an Encompass member. Register at the conference Web site, and book your return flight for Friday if you're counting on Matchbox Twenty.

Encompass wants an alliance decision

Now that user group Encompass and its allies have hashed out the details of their consolidation, it's time for the user group community to vote on the proposed alliance. The vote is part of the charter for the new group, which might be called Endeavor. (The HP world will learn the new group's name at the HP Technology Forum, co-sponsored by the allied groups, June 16-19)

You need to be an encompass member with an up-to-date member ID to vote on the alliance of user groups ITUG (Tandem), Encompass, Interex Europe and Encompass Pacific Rim. These groups are likely to merge anyway, but they need the official blessing from their combined members. (Interex Europe has 35,000 members who belong to a group not associated with the failed user group of the same name in North Ameria.)

Details from Steve Davidek, former Interex advocacy member and current Encompass Director of Advocacy, Chapters & SIGs:

As announced and addressed in various forums over the past several months, ITUG, Encompass and HP-Interex EMEA intend to join forces to create a new, unified global community for HP enterprise users.

As a member of the Encompass user group, I would like to encourage you to vote on the consolidation.  Your vote plays a crucial role in the fate of the new organization.

Davidek manages an HP 3000 installation at the City of Sparks, Nevada and is in the process of organizing a migration there, but still running the system in interim homestead mode.

An e-mail with your member ID and logon information was sent from Encompass HQ on March 27th. If you need help getting this information, please contact Encompass HQ at (312)321-5151 or  at information@encompassus.org

Davidek offered a link to the secure Encompass site used for voting.

 

Migrating HP 3000 customers like City of Sparks will find Encompass is tuned to the needs of the transitioning MPE/iX customer. How much advocacy the group can do on behalf of the entire 3000 community remains to be seen, but president Nina Buik has expressed hope the group can make a differenc — especially in its larger alliance conglomeration.

ERP and 3000 meet in Friday Web VRUG

The ERP user group CAMUS hosts a Virtual RUG meeting on Friday. A VRUG, as they are known, presents speakers on topics via a telephone hookup and Webinar using Web-Ex on your PC. Friday's VRUG meeting runs late morning to early afternoon Central time, but you can come and go from your phone and PC as schedule permits.

One talk that's worthwhile for HP 3000 customers of any kind, ERP or not, migrating or homesteading, is Jeff Kubler's "Moving in Your Own Time," presented over the lunch hour Central US time. Today I worked a bit to help him flesh out the idea and the specifics, but it's his show to present. His Kubler Consulting been a long-time consultant to the 3000 community, a trainer for Robelle's Suprtool and Speedware's products, and an advisor to the Amisys and Ecometry markets.

You can sign up for a spot by sending an e-mail to info@camus.org. Details of Webinar phone-in and WebEx login will be sent to registrants prior to the meeting. It's free and runs between 10:30 and 2 PM Friday.

The full agenda, as released by CAMUS:

Agenda (All times listed are Central Time)

10:30am - 11:00am - WebEx log-in setup

11:00am – 11:15am - CAMUS Update, Terry Floyd, President

11:15am – 11:30am - Infor Update, David Hotchner, Infor

11:30am – 12:15pm - Going Green - Compliance & Sustainability, Rod Ellsworth, Infor

Hazardous waste, recycling, renewable energy… how can manufacturers contribute to solutions instead of perpetuate problems?

12:15pm – 12:20pm - Break

12:20pm – 1:00pm - Moving in Your Own Time, Jeff Kubler, Kubler Consulting: Changing equipment, business systems? Control the process comfortably.

1:00pm – 2:00pm - Talk Soup - Networking-questions, tips, tricks, suggestions related to MANMAN, systems (HP, OpenVMS), business processes.

Hosted by Infor

Local attendees are cordially invited to the broadcast site:

Infor
500 W Madison, Chicago, IL
North Western Atrium Center (train station building)
Office contact 630.258.6056
Madison Room on the 21st floor

Minisoft's IMAGE/Eloquence tool: A Provider

Microsoft is a major player in most IT enterprises, and the company which brought us Vista is big enough to change the rules. It employs de-facto standards to "embrace and extend," and one change for Microsoft Windows Server database access has spawned a new IMAGE and Eloquence tool. Perennial HP 3000 software provider Minisoft serves up this tool for Windows Servers this month.

Minisoft explains why the new OLE DB Provider can bridge the path between HP 3000 data and other servers in the Windows line in the years to come. Windows, after all, is the leading choice of 3000 migration sites by number, if not by size of IT budget.

The new Minisoft OLE DB Provider opens the door to a rich set of  development tools and platforms for Microsoft Windows Servers. Microsoft recently announced that OLE DB will be the method by which all information is accessed. The Microsoft OLE DB to ODBC Bridge known as MSDASQL is not available for the 64-bit environment.

The roadmap for future Microsoft applications requires using OLE DB data sources to  “provide uniform access to data stored in diverse information sources." The Minisoft OLE DB Provider provides that access to your existing IMAGE and Eloquence databases.

This is the first that we've heard of a data bridge that's been branded under the Provider name, but hey, Microsoft's OLE announcement is pretty recent by Minisoft's accounting. Minisoft goes on to explain where its Provider will help in IMAGE and Eloquence access. Migrating or homesteading, you still have to access data.

Use the Minisoft OLE DB Provider for IMAGE/Eloquence to resolve the following issues:

Transparent access to your Image/Eloquence data from the 32-bit or 64-bit editions of SQL Server 2005.

Integrate IMAGE or Eloquence database access smoothly into your .NET application development environment.

Continue accessing Image or Eloquence data with Microsoft Visual Studio, Borland development tools, Microsoft Access (through VBA), ActiveX Scripts, Crystal Reports, Windows Scripting, IIS web applications (ASP and ASP.NET) by using the Minisoft OLE DB Provider.

Minisoft offers evaluation copies of its software at the Downloads page of its Web site.

Six years, five months, and forecasts for futures

This week the 3000 community will move into the month that signals six-and-a-half years of the 3000's Transition Era. It has been a period filled with dread, hope, opportunity and change. A good deal of all that was predicted from the very first day of Transition, but some events were not. 3000 owners who need to forecast events for the next 77 months, now that the first 77 have passed, can start by reviewing what's come to pass from predictions and what has not, and why.

On November 14, 2001, the day of HP's announcement of ending its 3000 operations, ERP and MANMAN advisor Cortlandt Wilson looked into his crystal ball and saw these events:

Up until Jan 1, 2007 service parts should be available from HP just as they are now. After that I expect that HP will continue it’s policy of selling service parts on a “best, available” basis.

Not only accurate, but accurate-plus: HP still offers parts and service on its support throughout this year, two more than HP figured. Also as predicted, the third party market and the vast field of identical HP 9000 hardware has made parts a non-issue to go forward with a 3000.

Q: Is it possible that someone will take over support of MPE/iX after HP stops support in 2006?
A. Yes. In fact the conversations are already well underway.  I was in on a phone call between HP and members of Interex’s MPE Forum just yesterday where that topic was discussed at some length.

We wish we could say this one was forecast accurately, but that swap-over front has moved slower than forecast. HP's decision on support for MPE/iX, tied to licensing source for some, outlasted Interex and that MPE Forum. The timing still seems to be tied to end of HP support. It's important to remember that HP made its discontinuance announcement from two spokesmen: Then-GM Winston Prather, and Jim Murphy, the latter notably of HP Support.

But HP did follow through on what it did promise for improving system, as predicted.

Wilson took a look forward on the dark November day for the 3000 and saw more HP work in the future.

It looks to me like HP is planning to go ahead and roll out the hardware and software improvements that they already had in the R&D pipeline. Furthermore, MPE/iX ombudsman Jeff Vance indicated to the Interex volunteers yesterday that "if anything, the next SIB (System Improvement Ballot) will be more important than last year.

Also predicted well, since HP has more than three-score beta test patches created after 2001, all waiting for general release.

Systems have flowed through the marketplace, more than four years after HP stopped selling the 3000.

I expect the already flourishing used systems market to continue to be there for many years. I
would add a caveat here. I would expect the used systems to be available after 2003, but perhaps not at the current prices.

Those prices are better than ever, and supply meets demand even for the latest class of 3000.

Most important to today's forecasters, Wilson's prediction of the 3000's utility have come true and continue well beyond the date everyone worked toward more than six years ago.

I don’t believe that saying that the HP e3000 is “dead” is an accurate description of the situation.  For some users today’s announcement may be one more reason to leave the HP e3000.  But many of you have looked at the options and have decided to stick with MANMAN and the HP e3000.  If that decision made sound business sense yesterday, I suggest that it probably still does today. And it may still make sense come January 1, 2007.

Or on April 14, 2008, too. Each company can migrate in its own time.

Spreading 3000 expertise on tail slices

As the HP 3000 community huddles together in numbers, the skills and solutions they need become more unique. Migration proponents might call HP 3000 homestead services arcane or obtuse knowledge, but 3000 community members still need to be served from what's known as The Long Tail.

The great thing about Long Tail economics is that small companies can have a big impact on a customer's success using the strategy. The Long Tail, according to Wikipedia, is

The niche strategy of certain business such as Amazon.com or Netflix. The distribution and inventory costs of these businesses allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group of persons that buy the hard-to-find or "non-hit" items is the customer demographic called the Long Tail.

Doing just a little volume of hard-to-find items like HP 3000 management and data services looks like the new strategy from an old 3000 partner, The Support Group. The company has made its bones on being among the top Trusted Advisors for ERP strategy and MANMAN support. But TSG's recent posting to a the 3000 community Internet newsgroups sketched out solutions which might have become hard-to-find.

While Netflix and Amazon, being public-traded companies, are a long way from small providers, they do offer things you can't get in many places. So do many 3000 community providers. And so community members saw the list of services and solutions TSG (which likes to call itself tSGi, for the the Support Group, inc.) is putting out there; a subset of tSGi's list are slices of the long tail:

HP 3000/MPE Support – tSGi can provide management of your HP 3000 remotely or hosted at our datacenter in Austin, TX

Combined MANMAN and HP 3000 MPE – Complete end to end proactive management of MANMAN and HP 3000 processes and jobs

HP 3000 Disaster Recovery – tSGi provides emergency backup HP 3000 hardware in our Austin datacenter

ERP Applications – tSGi works with a number of ERP vendors to bring the right solutions to our MANMAN customers

Data Cleansing – Whether you are staying on MANMAN or migrating to a new ERP application, clean data is vital to running a successful business

Data Migration – tSGi has done data migrations for numerous MANMAN sites to many different ERP applications.  Our data migration knowledge greatly reduces the migration timeline and data errors that can occur without our deep knowledge of MANMAN and IMAGE data relationships

Archive and History Support - for companies that have migrated off of the HP3000 but need to keep the HP 3000 data available, tSGi will keep your HP 3000 in our datacenter at the ready for user access or authorized outside entities, such as auditors

The size of the 3000 community makes a lot of its needs, both migration- and homestead-related, Long Tail servings. That's why a company need not be large to deliver great benefits to a 3000 owner.

No joke: The wrong HP computer?

Perhaps we can file today's entry under History, too, because it promotes a Hewlett-Packard that is gone for the 3000 owner who's not considering a migration. HP has put together a series of TV ads that hawk its HP Financing as part of a "HP Total Care" package. The ad looks like it's part of a campaign selling HP PCs; it's hard to believe that the HP Integrity servers would ever spark such a slick advertisement.

HP drew customers' attention to the joke (not an April Fool's gag) in its HP Technology at Work newsletter. The ad, like so many, is posted up on You Tube, in hopes of the Tube lending some viral marketing oomph to the message. You can have a look yourself. It's probably funnier if your company has a constant future in the Hewlett-Packard fold.

 

You can certainly believe after having a look at the ad that HP has a marketing message that includes the idea that any other computer than the ones it sells is the wrong computer. On the other hand, HP's Financing might be available for non-HP products. Or not. HP knows humor sells, plus it needs to have a direct message at the end of the joke:

Watch and laugh at this YouTube video and discover to what lengths companies will go to finance their technology. See what life would be like without HP.

Support, financing, training, all the little squares in the ad's direct message (click it for a detailed picture), these are still available from the vendor if a company is investing in HP's 3000 alternatives. The message might sting a little for the company that has not migrated and feels like it needs to run a car wash to finance their computer purchases. The subtle nudge is that a company without IT financing is in real trouble, or just someone to spark a laugh.

Of course, many of those options are available from outside of HP, from independent providers — even for the HP 3000 owner. It's a good idea not to take marketing too seriously. We can laugh here in our company, because the alternative won't get us anywhere.

Oh, and HP Financial Services racked up $642 million in loan activity in the first quarter of 2008. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the company that's not washing cars understands the HP Total Care benefits will benefit the Hewlett-Packard profit numbers. HPFS wrote 17 percent more loans in '08 in Q1 than in '07, and the easy financing made $43 million of profit in the first quarter alone.

That'll pay for a few TV commercials. HP certainly doesn't need a car wash. But life without HP need not require car washes and bake sales. What is it like? Maybe less smug, maybe not as funny. There's no comic commericals to promote life without Hewlett-Packard.

3000s don't add up in migration

One element working against the HP 3000 in 2008: Novice owners.

In the El Defensor Chieftain, official newspaper of Socorro County, New Mexico, we read of a faulty tape on a 3000 that is giving the County Treasurer fits.

"The problem seems to once again be the officer's HP3000 hardware. "I think the tape drive is running out," said computer technician Joe Franklin.

Joe's expertise might lie in Windows, and if that's true then he's better-skilled than a lot of the world's workforce. But unless the Chieftain's reporter Evelyn Cronce's quote is in error, then Joe the technician is typical of a lot of the HP 3000 customer base. These are people who know just about everything better than managing an HP 3000.

The 3000 was adopted by a lot of entities like the County Treasurer, places where steel filing cabinets were probably the previous data information system. Since the 3000 is so reliable, and the software vendors and HP itself were spot-on about support, the County and many 3000 sites never needed to know that a tape drive can't fill up, but a tape will. Or that backing up to tape is pretty much out of date now, since tape drives can go belly up on any system.

Novice owners might not know that a disk drive — and I'm just guessing here, but in Sorocco there's probably one of those venerable 2GB drives that HP included in the elderly 9x7 computers — well, those can fill up, but can be replaced.

What will be replaced someday at the County Treasurer's office is the HP 3000, to nobody's surprise. Data Now, the company which has specialized in apps for municipalities like Socorro County, wanted to do a replacement of its own 3000 installation. But at a total contract of $48,000 for two years, the county balked.

So now the County awaits the new AppLogix system, which is getting close to a year overdue. Oh, and a new tape drive is on order for a "no-longer-supported HP 3000."

In the meantime, in between time? "Intermittent computer problems... but the problem is under control, for the moment."

Migrating customers, as well as those who are reaching for a migration solution right now, will recognize the minor drama going on in the County office this month. From the El Defensor Chieftain report:

In May 2007, AppLogix Chief Executive Officer Scott Ballard told the Socorro County Commission his software company would have their new software running in the County Assessor's Office in 30 days, and in the County Treasurer's Office in 90 days.

AppLogix’s Computer Assisted Mass Assessment software was a finished project when the county purchased it. The system only required installation, customization and employee training. The Treasurers’ software was being developed. Both systems were purchased together so the two offices could share data seamlessly.

Basing their decision heavily on that information, commissioners voted to not pay $2,000 per month for a minimum of two years to DataNow to upgrade the Treasurer’s existing system and get rid of the no-longer-supported HP3000 hardware.

The software for the Treasurer’s Office was not functioning in 90 days. “I think their development cycle is just running long,” Franklin said.

That'll happen, Joe. For all intents and purposes their HP 3000 is truly no-longer-supported. Third-party support in Socorro County — total population 10,000 — is bound to be spotty at best. That's what will happen when a computer vendor makes an exit from a working marketplace, and then spends more than six years talking about how their HP 3000 will be no-longer-supported.

Demise depends on point of view

AICS Research has rolled out an evolutionary version of the company's QueryCalc HP 3000 product. Founder Wirt Atmar announced the new product, QCReports, in a posting over the HP 3000 newsgroup. You can download and install a version 0.98 copy from the product's Web page, aics-research.com/qcreports

QCReports runs on any system which supports Marxmeier Software's Eloquence database: HP-UX, Windows or Linux. The software has been 95 percent rebuilt on Windows from the QueryCalc code, Atmar said. In an extensive post to the newsgroup he explained the evolution of the product and how it can help an HP 3000 site migrate to another platform

Although there are an enormous number of PC  manufacturers, there’s really only one system, and I very much believe in Bill Gates' plans for World Domination. Because of that belief, the newest version of  QueryCalc, which we now call QCReports, was translated onto the PC.

However, in that post you'll see another viewpoint from Wirt, who has logged many hours as an advocate for the HP 3000 and IMAGE. The HP 3000 died in 2001, he says, and so QCReports had to take up QueryCalc's mantle for AICS. But Wirt showed curiousity about any interest in a 3000 version of the product, too, a broad-minded view in the wake of an obituary.

The question: Is there any interest (meaning money) in us putting together host code for the HP 3000 and  IMAGE? I estimate that it would only take us a couple of months (in the  Atmarian Calendar) to get it up and running on the HP 3000. We already have all of the database query code written for the HP 3000. It’s only a matter of rewriting it for the new communications protocols.

The death of a system is a serious matter for anyone who's invested so much in it across so many years. But I disagree with the time of death, or even the current prognosis for how long the 3000 can survive.

To make my point about the premature 3000 obituary, I go back to Wirt's point in a subsequent message, when he responded to the mess we see in the Windows world, post-XP.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of this business is the tendency of people to exaggerate, to try to protect whatever nook and cranny they’re comfortable in, rather than look at the situation as the way things are.

“The way things are” is not an empirical, unassailable point of view for the 3000 community. As Alfredo Rego said in his keynote at the recent GHRUG conference, there are many perspectives for the HP 3000 users to use in viewing their world. Wirt builds software from the viewpoint that the 3000 is long dead. IT pros who advise on 3000s like Michael Anderson of J3K Solutions see a Windows world that grows more deadly and blinding with each release. Calling Windows a way for Microsoft to suck more life-blood, he says of Microsoft's product strategy

With every new release of the Bill Gates platform, (from Win 3.x, (95/98/me), 2000, XP, and now Vista) end users and developers experience something similar to a blind man having his furniture rearranged.

Meanwhile, Shawn Gordon and Craig Lalley used their messages to the group to assay alternative solutions and compare the 3000’s successful designs with younger products on the Windows platform.

Is the 3000 dead? Is Windows a life-blood-sucking platform? Does all of this Windows enterprise design remind you of something you bought for your HP 3000 10 years ago? If your answers are yes, no, and yes, you find yourself looking through a migrated perspective. If the answers are yes, yes and yes, you might be in the middle of a Windows migration. And if the answers are no, yes, and no, you see homesteading as the way to view the future. Lots of nooks for lots of reasons.

The nook and cranny I am comfortable in is obvious: historic, legacy in the sense of legendary, and realistic about the ultimate demise of everything we hold dear. Prepare for death and the life that follows. You will know when death arrives, so don’t worry on that score. I just believe it’s still too early to write that obituary for the HP 3000, even while creating alternative solutions for the problems which that great platform continues to solve.

But boy, if anyone can move a product from MPE/iX to Windows better than AICS, I’d sure like to see them try. Especially in keeping the 3000 hosting capabilities inside the evolved product, like QCReports does.

On the other hand, QCReports does have potential for the 3000 user who's not migrating, either at this time or at any time. Wirt summed up his original posting,

On one hand you might ask why spend any money on a dead platform, and that’s certainly a reasonable question. But on the other, if you’re intending on staying with MPE for a little while longer, QCReports would be a way to significantly upgrade and modernize your capabilities with the HP 3000. And, if and when you do migrate, if you move to a platform which Eloquence supports, your total migration time for your database and reports will honestly be only a one or two hours. Other than changing the IP address of the new host, you’ll never notice a single difference.

Discount is departing for HP's Universe

HP will wrap up its $400 discount this week off its Software Universe, a relatively new conference about even newer HP-branded software. The Universe is held at the same time as the HP Technology Forum; the Universe meeting is just down Las Vegas Boulevard at the Venetian Hotel. Register by the end of this week (April 4) and the cost is $1,495. (An HP e-mail from this morning has the price at $100 lower than the cost on HP's Web site.)

HP called this mid-June week the Trifecta last year while promoting the conference, because it takes place in the same city and week as the HP StorageWorks conference and the Technology Forum. Even with all available discounts, attending all the conferences — and therefore maximizing your travel training time — will cost about $3,000. (Of course, being in two places at once might require more than one IT staff member, unless you're nimble or cherry-picking agendas.)

The Software Universe sessions and keynotes can be important if your company is taking a step into a large installation of HP's Unix, or an HP-based Windows solution. A very high percentage of what's showcased at the Universe as a solution is HP-branded, or from a close HP partner such as Oracle or SAP. Big-site stuff, some of this architecture serves. The standards tools can be a good bedrock for midsize companies, too.

HP created the Software Universe by combining its own HP Software meeting with an existing Mercury Interactive conference. HP purchased Mercury in 2006, when it paid $4.5 billion for the company. The most significant offering from what has become known as HP Mercury can be found on the HP Business Technology Optimization site. This is where the HP intelligence in the ITIL standards resides and grows.

HP is calling the discount which ends this week Winter Pricing, and the price tag is $100 below what you will find on the Software Universe Web site.

The conference runs concurrent with the Technology Forum down at the Mandalay Bay, wrapping up with another Thursday night party. As for the specific content, it's still being firmed up, with details expected by mid-April. Official sales of the sponsorship spaces are only ending today. But even at $1,495, HP says the price is a bargain.

Our informative Mainstage sessions, educational track sessions, and invaluable Solution Center are alone valued at more than $5,000. We estimate that an IT professional would need to attend more than a dozen webinars to be exposed to the amount of product knowledge attendees have access to during HP Software Universe. Add in the Partner Showcase, HP Roundtables, and Product Roadmap sessions, and the numerous networking opportunities, and the value is high for any person or team working to optimize the business value of IT.

HP adds that the Universe is recommended for "technical staff supporting their organizations' implementation of HP Software products," and that's really the long and short of it. If your enterprise is planning to use HP's software along with the vendor's environment, this can be a useful meeting to attend.

 

A new conference on the horizon

Three weeks from today, the HP Technology Forum becomes a little more expensive item on HP professionals' itinerary. The early bird registration discount ends on April 18, about two months before the mid-June meeting of HP and its customers, partners and employees.

Encompass and the ITUG user groups have been the driving forces for content in the conference, and the meeting's Expo floor generates revenues for the groups. The need to attend the Technology Forum will seem greatest to the HP 3000 site doing a migration, since almost all of the seminar content and confidential disclosure briefings address non-3000 solutions.

Some HP 3000 community partners will be exhibiting on the Expo floor. At the left you'll see (with an added click for detail) the overall agenda for the four days of meetings and networking, so you can start planning your travel. But at the moment there's no evidence of specific HP 3000 content scheduled for the June 16-19 conference. There's plenty to learn about HP's Unix, or Windows, or even OpenVMS — although that last environment isn't on the destination list for many 3000 users who are sticking with HP in their migrations.

Nevertheless, the June meeting presents the world's largest computer company in all of its enterprise glory, a meeting devoted to operating and improving computer user experience on the target platforms HP wants to sell its 3000 customers. The final word on the proposed consolidation of four HP user groups will also take stage in Las Vegas.

The discount for registering for the Forum by April 18 is "your choice of $100 gift certificate to HPShopping.com or HP's Logo Store." The HP shopping Web site offers desktops and notebooks among its most enterprise-oriented products (but nary a computer ships with anything other than Windows Vista, an OS gaining more problems with its first Service Pack release.) You can put your $100 toward a flatscreen TV for the executive boardroom, though. Joining Encompass earns you a discount off the $1,695 full conference pass, or off the $695 day pass, but the Encompass member discount doesn't have a deadline.

A new poll has popped up on the Encompass Web site about the top reasons which are luring people to the event:

Technical Education     65%
Networking Opportunities     52%
Hands-on Technical Labs     38%
Pre-conference Seminars     29%
The Technology Expo     29%
Advocacy Opportunities     15%
Keynotes by HP Executives     18%
Discounted Onsite Certification Testing     13%
Chapters & Special Interest Group Events     11%

Of all the attractions listed, the final one will reveal the new name for the consolidated user group.

Without much in the way of conference session specifics, we're left to learn that that Mark Hurd, HP Chairman and CEO; Ann Livermore, Executive VP TSG; and Randy Mott, Executive VP and CIO will be speakers. It's early in the registration process, so early that the space on the Expo floor is still being sold by Encompass user group management partner Smith Bucklin.

HP user groups crank up consolidation

Encompass and its allied user groups offered specifics on the consolidation of four groups, a move the groups have scheduled for April pending member approval. Encompass, the Tandem ITUG user group, HP Interex Europe and the Pacific Rim outpost of Encompass want to become a single entity.

As a single group, the entity that's being called Endeavor hopes to attract more notice and cooperation from Hewlett-Packard and offer a better package of benefits to its members. Encompass president Nina Buik hopes the consolidation will make Endeavor more attractive to younger members of the HP IT professional community.

But first comes the vote on the consolidation, scheduled for "soon" in a message to user group members. In order to inform its electorate, Encompass pointed to an "Agreement and Plan of Consolidation", a legal document that Encompass posted online for members to review prior to the upcoming vote. You don't have to be a current member of any of the user groups to look at the plan; just head to the new Endeavor site to review the document.

Only user group members will be asked to vote, however. But they'll have a clear view of what the user groups need them to approve.

The consolidated group's site also has recorded Webcast presentations and an FAQ file, but the message of this week highlighted several plans for the new group:

Board of Directors: The Board of Directors slate for the new organization will include current board members from each of the three organizations that were chosen to represent their respective members. These trusted individuals have demonstrated exemplary service and dedication to their communities and are considered qualified to serve as Directors of the new organization. The bylaws detail the Board positions and terms as well as the various committees and subgroups.

New Organization Name: There are name recommendations under consideration that are currently undergoing a trademark search process. This due diligence will have a bearing on the name that is eventually chosen. Therefore, the new organization's proposed name is not included within the Agreement and Plan of Consolidation, but will be finalized for the intended launch at the HP Technology Forum & Expo 2008 in June.

Membership Dues Structure: The membership structure and fees are detailed in the document for both basic individual membership and corporate membership. Basic individual membership will be US$50 and an additional fee for the Connection magazine subscription. Should the new organization be approved, current memberships with Encompass will be honored with the new organization.

Migration: Not just a 3000 project

HP 3000 users are not alone among migrators in the Hewlett-Packard world. The top two alternatives to the system, from HP's point of view, also bear migration concerns. Windows and HP-UX environment customers both faced migration messages this week.

Users of the more popular target among HP 3000 migration sites, Windows, are listening for what Microsoft will do about the expiration date for Windows XP. The seven-year-old environment is being dropped by Microsoft in favor of Vista, an operating system which has had just 20 percent adoption in one year's time. A remarkably low number, considering how many new PCs ship only with Vista.

Microsoft has told large computer makers such as HP to stop selling XP as of the end of June. This deadline, like the one HP stated for its HP 3000 support, has already been extended once, from January 1 of this year. A CNET news article supposes that Microsoft is not far away from extending the sales deadline for XP once again.

Then there's HP-UX, the proprietary Unix which HP's Alvinia Nishimoto described as a popular choice for the migrating customers which HP tracks. Just today the Encompass user group, in cooperation with HP, started surveying about why users are "either planning or actively migrating your environment to Integrity or another platform." So away from PA-RISC Unix or MPE, but on to something other than HP's Unix? Encompass wants to know more.

The invitation to take the survey is entitled "HP-UX Migration Plan Checkpoint Survey," with nary a mention of HP 3000 or MPE/iX. This is about moving on from HP's Unix.

As you continue in planning and migrating your environment, we would like to check in with a quick 5-minute survey. As always we value your inputs which help us focus and prioritize on areas of importance to our customers.

HP 3000 customers might want to overlook the "As always" part of the last sentence, since at the moment the vendor isn't focusing on input from the OpenMPE advocacy group. But that's another issue. The HP-UX Migration Plan survey wants to know how many of the following systems will be the target of a migration away from HP 9000 HP-UX (HP9000) servers:

• HP-UX on HP Integrity
• Linux on HP Integrity
• Windows on HP Integrity   
• OpenVMS on HP Integrity
• Linux on HP ProLiant   
• Windows on HP ProLiant   
• UNIX on HP ProLiant   
• UNIX on non-HP servers   
• Linux on non-HP servers   
• Windows non-HP servers

At least the questions are ranked in order of HP's most proprietary solutions, and OpenVMS is included. The survey asks if availability of current applications meet a customer's needs in migration to Integrity. The number of Integrity apps, based on the Itanium architecture, were an issue while HP was ramping up its Integrity (Itanium-based offerings).

HP/Encompass asks "What are your primary criteria for selecting a migration target platform:

• Relationship with vendor
• Quality/reliability
• Highest performance
• Best price/performance   
• Lowest cost/price   
• Availability of applications   
• Compatibility with current systems   
• Power consumption/footprint

Finally, the user group serving HP's enterprise customers wants to know which of these considerations will drive the choice of a target platform

• Application or data center consolidation
• Implement a Service Oriented Architecture
• Scale-Out deployment
• Implementing server virtualization
• Deploying blade servers
• Migration to HP-UX v3

You can take the survey yourself if you're moving off HP-UX on PA-RISC. Everybody who participates gets a chance in a drawing for "HP logo Travel Gear." We got a swell backpack with the HP logo during our visit to last year's Technology Forum, without even travelling away from HP-UX.

Talk to another machine to assure a future

We'll file this one under both Homesteading and Migration, because this advice from the GHRUG International Technology Conference can serve both those staying and those leaving the 3000 community. Make sure your HP 3000 talks to another server well — today. It can mean the difference between using newer technologies down the line for the 3000 as you transfer data, either for backup or transitions to new systems.

For the homesteader, long term use of the 3000 might be blocked by a change in something like Cisco networking protocols. This is a de-facto kind of standards shift, according to ScreenJet's Alan Yeo. And it's just the kind of change that HP, or any third party support provider, will find it impossible to difficult to address (depending on whether it's HP or the third party you use.)

"When people talk about long-term homesteading, and what's going to happen to the 3000, this is the one point," Yeo said. "If you've got a 3000 and it's isolated from the outside world, you've probably got a lot less problems. But if you're using a 3000 in an environment that's pretty related to other machines or other sites — well, if HP are no longer doing patches, next year when Cisco might change what they're doing with their FTP process, or somebody else changes something and it becomes a de-facto standard, the odds are you won't get the link between the 3000 and another device working."

One solution lies in another platform, according to Marxmeier's AG's Michael Marxmeier, who was also at the GHRUG talk.

"You should plan ahead to be able to communicate with servers in the rest of the world," said Marxmeier, especially for any company with governmental computing partnerships or requirements.

Yeo said his company was using an intermediate server as a workaround while setting up an FTP exchange of HP 3000 backup files with a Network Attached Storage device. An intermediate server can cause a tremendous increase in network traffic from a 3000 to another device, he added, so solving the direct link challenge is the most efficient solution.

And the migration connection on this advice? It's sensible to plan for a target migration server to act as the intermediary between an HP 3000 and another device. Makers of network devices such as routers and switches will continue to be able to communicate with Unix servers, for example, or even Windows XP systems.

What HP has to say for itself

In a little more than 40 minutes last week, HP's talked about the 3000 division's future for the remaining work on the system. We reported the math for HP e3000 business manager Jennie Hou at her talk. Less than 41 weeks remain before HP's 3000 development of any kind will end. That's scant time to finish so many tasks, like release of 3000 enhancements long-finished but untested, or HP preparation for turning over the care of MPE/iX to the community.

HP is going to release a PowerPatch 5 to its support customers during 2008. The company will also "provide clear guideli