HP shipped its first customer-ready copies of the MPE/iX 5.5 operating system during the first week of August, delivering all promised improvements on schedule and adding a few new features.
Although it's numbered with a ".5," the new release is no interim shipment like its 4.5 predecessor. "There's a lot of good functionality in here," said HP's MPE and database product manager Kriss Rant. He noted as many as three-fourths of customers in the groups where HP has been presenting 5.5 say they plan to order the release.
HP will support its newest Model 10 and Model 20 High Availability Fast/Wide SCSI disk arrays with version 5.5. The storage devices, known by the code-name "Nike" inside HP, are based on the Data General Claarion arrays already on the market. A PowerPatch for the 5.5 release will be required to support the drives. HP expects to ship this first 5.5 PowerPatch at the end of September, evidence of the dynamic nature of business computing environments.
HP is also supporting new EMC Symmetric 3000 disk arrays with the release. The Model 10 and Model 20 arrays are designed for medium-sized storage array needs, with 6-to-40-Gb and 20-to-80-Gb capacities respectively. The EMC devices range from a minimum of 35Gb to a top-end of 559 Gb, and can serve several different host systems simultaneously.
Rant said the 5.5 release targets three areas in its mission to improve value for HP 3000 users: high availability, networking and coexistence. The new version isn't expected to improve performance overall, but a few of its features will provide a performance boost. MPE/iX fully supports up to 3.75 Gb of memory on Emerald-class, high-end HP 3000s with the release, an increase from the prior limit of 2Gb. Performance experts acknowledge that additional memory can often improve performance in PA-RISC systems such as the 3000.
HP has also moved the STORE program used during installations from Compatibility Mode to Native Mode. Rant said that using NMSTORE instead of CMSTORE will improve installation performance 20 to 30 percent.
Networking improved
HP is renaming its ARPA Services as Internet Services for the release, since the software now includes most of the industry-standard network software found in Unix-based systems. HP is introducing inbound Telnet for its HP 3000 systems with the 5.5 release, releasing the Telnet/iX Server to complete a project begun with a promise at the 1994 Interex user conference.
The inbound Telnet in release 5.5 will allow HP 3000s to be located and accessed via Telnet from non-3000 systems. Until 5.5, the only way an HP 3000 could be accessed using Telnet was through the use of a Telnet Access Card (TAC) in the 3000's DTC controller.
The initial release of Telnet/iX on version 5.5 won't support block mode applications, according to HP's Rosemarie Chiovari. "We had a choice of getting the product onto the release without all its functionality, or waiting until the next major release," she said. Block mode capability has been developed and is being tested in parallel to the 5.5 release. Chiovari said HP hopes to have block mode Telnet/iX ready in time for the September PowerPatch of 5.5.
The early version of Telnet/iX will also be limited to about 250 connections, Chiovari added. The PowerPatched version will support about 2,000 connections, although that number can vary according to processor demands. HP has also optimized areas of Telnet/iX during the parallel development phase, and Chiovari said the vendor expects performance of Telnet/iX to improve in the PowerPatch version.
New to MPE/iX 5.5 are inetd, bootpd and tftpd -- Internet service daemons designed to smooth interoperation with non-3000 hosts on enterprise networks. HP said inetd facilitates the porting of applications used for Internet services. That means that the software will be able to act as the main Internet service daemon on systems, accepting all incoming TCP/IP network connections. The inetd daemon looks up the service requested by a TCP connection using a table, then passes the request on to the appropriate server.
The new release also includes SHOWCONN, which allows you to display all TCP/IP, UDP/IP, ICMP/IP connections. The utility also displays listeners along with the sessions and processes that own those sockets/connections. This includes all NS services (VT, NFT, RFA, RDBA, RPM and PTOP); all FTP connections; all (host based) Telnet connections; all ODBC client/server connections that run over TCP/IP; and all custom, in-house network applications running over NetIPC or BSD sockets.
HP has added network printing with the 5.5 release, although its bundled functionality still lags far behind third party programs such as RAC's ESPUL and PrintPath, as well as API International's Unispool, Minisoft's NP92 and Quest's NBSpool. HP is extending the network printing capability on the HP 3000 to let you print MPE spoolfiles and other MPE files. You'll be able to do this if you're using LAN-connected printers linked over TCP/IP networks with the SPX/IPX JetDirect card or JetDirect EX, or if your printers are slaved off a NetWare client PC running RPRINTER. HP says page-level recovery may not work with print servers from vendors other than JetDirect.
High availability
HP has added features in 5.5 to reduce both planned and unplanned downtime. Online and dynamic configuration utilities allow customers to configure devices such as DTCs, tape drives, disks and terminals without bringing the HP 3000 down for planned downtime.
Release 5.5 addresses unplanned downtime with file system resiliency improvements. System managers will see system aborts reduced within the File System and prevented when closing files on disk. There will also be a new quarantine mechanism to handle files with corrupt data structures that can't be closed. A new MPE/iX primitive assists in processing the file system errors, so the operating system will be more discriminating about calling system aborts when an error occurs.
The FSCHECK utility will get a QDISPLAY command to deliver information about files with corrupted data structures. When a file is quarantined, its access is restricted to read-only while an error message is displayed on the console.
Quarantine only works when the Subsystem Dump facility is enabled. HP says Subsystem Dump is a prototype of technology that enables online diagnosis. It's a more manageable slice of data commonly found in a full system dump, a process that can take awhile to gather and even longer to decipher. A software subsystem automatically gathers the Subsystem Dump when it detects a failure, creating SDUMP files in the group SDUMP.TELESUP.
Coexistence improvements
HP will officially bundle its Posix Developer's Kit with the 5.5 release, which lets application developers make use of things like the freeware C++ compiler that's been available for MPE/iX since last fall. HP has also improved performance in the fork and exec processes of its Posix shell for MPE/iX 5.5, making them more compatible with industry-standard uses.
The enhancements will make programs load faster, Rant says, "because we'll be opening half as many files as we used to." Fork performance in particular has been a hurdle to overcome in porting Unix-based applications to the HP 3000, developers say. The release will also allow exec functions to load exec shell or awk scripts, so MPE/iX will now recognize a directive to use another interpreter via the #! command. The enhancement makes it easier to move script files between Unix and MPE/iX systems.
Management enhanced
Stage/iX and Patch/iX get a formal rollout with the 5.5 release, giving managers two new tools to corral an ever-growing list of reactive and Power patches to HP 3000 systems. Patch/iX lets users stay online during patch preparation stages; up to now, customers had to use AUTOPAT or AUTOINST and users had to log off while files were restored.
New to the 5.5 release is host control of DAT storage devices. This feature permits the LOAD command to be inserted in jobstreams, command files or scripts so managers can execute unattended backups to DDS devices.
HP has also made remote system management easier with its support of console switching over the LAN. System managers working from home can dial up the HP 3000 and switch the console to their desktop system, using the CONSOLE command with an LDEV number.