We don't usually turn over the FlashPaper to only two items, but these are crucial. If you use DDX or might in the future, read on for a critical fix. If you don't, read on for our first look at a new HP 3000 that can change the performance picture for lots of 3000 customers -- the return of the 939, now faster.
Better swat this database bug soon with HP's fix
There aren't many bugs reported in TurboIMAGE, so the one that's been worming its way into a few databases this year deserves some serious attention from HP 3000 customers. That's because it can lead to data loss. Most at risk are sites with really big databases, or ones running 24x7 operations. Fortunately, the database that's at the heart of thousands of HP 3000s is rock-steady again, thanks to serious sleuthing by IMAGE experts and the quick work of the IMAGE lab inside the HP 3000 (CSY) division. But be wary -- if you use dynamic detail expansion (DDX) on your datasets, you need to do your part. Check for the only bug you're likely to see this year in IMAGE and apply HP's official fix.
It's as rare as a vegetarian spooning an extra helping of giblet dressing onto his Thanksgiving plate, but this DDX bug can leave you with the bad taste of data loss. That's nearly unheard of under MPE/iX, and why this deserves your immediate attention. HP said seven companies have reported it during the three years DDX has been running in HP 3000 shops, but everyone who has DDX enabled on their 3000s is at risk without the fix. If the bug bites you, detail data in your DDX-enabled databases will quietly turn up missing. If you're lucky, and act carefully and quickly, you might recover any lost data. And HP's Jon Bale, head of CSY's IMAGE lab, assures us you can avoid any further problems if you apply HP's remedy -- a beta release patch, TIXKX11 for MPE/iX 5.0 systems, TIXKX13 for 5.5 that are new versions of TurboIMAGE (C.06.23 and C.07.07, respectively). At presstime these were beta patches, but a great, quick effort on the part of the IMAGE lab engineers. You can get them through HP's Response Center.
HP reported the problem once they'd developed a fix for it, an effort that couldn't begin in earnest until somebody helped track down the cause of the corruption. Adager's support specialist Ken Paul doggedly traced a mysterious string of customer calls to assemble a pattern of why detail data turned up missing at a handful of customer sites. After Paul presented his case to CSY's lab, the engineers sprang to work to develop a solution. CSY's Bale explained the problem and the solution in a message posted to the Internet last week. The problem "relates to data stored in a dataset which has undergone some dynamic expansion -- that is, it has "filled up" and its capacity has been automatically increased," Bale said. Then some data that is subsequently written to the dataset is placed "beyond" the end-of-file (EOF), and once the database is closed and reopened, that data is inaccessible. If a program attempts to read that data or add more data entries in the same area, it gets an error -212, "Database is Corrupt." The bug has been in the code for three years.
Since it's a DDX-only problem, how do you know if your databases use DDX? According to Adager's Paul, you use this command in the DBUTIL program: SHOW DBNAME CAPACITY. The rightmost column ("Dyn Exp") delivers the report on DDX: it says YES or NO. If you get an "invalid parameter" message, your version of IMAGE can't use DDX, and you're safe.
Once you determine which databases have DDX enabled, your next step is to check for the bug condition. Just because you have DDX enabled doesn't automatically mean you've bitten. It's a timing problem. What happens is that during the process of dynamically expanding a dataset, another process attempts to access them. This overlap has to happen in just a fraction of a second, so the timing must be just right, or as Bale puts it, "actually, just wrong." It's like having your car in the shop for a 10-minute oil change -- and your teenager borrows it while it's up on the speed rack. So while only a handful of people have reported the bug, the potential for data loss is there for everybody who uses DDX and doesn't apply HP's fix.
You can check for the corruption condition with a third-party database tool, even if you don't own one. Adager was first to report that it's making a limited-time version of its full utility available for free to anybody who needs to check for the bug. Contact them at 800.533.7346 (208.726.9100 outside North America) to get the copy of Adager that can find and fix the problem. Adager can deliver its tool over the Internet (www.adager.com) if you're in a big hurry, employing its private-URL technology that it uses to deliver secured versions of its products. If you're already an Adager customer, the company reports that all models of Adager automatically flag the problem as part of the pre-processing consistency check. An anomaly like the DDX problem gets reported every time Adager opens any database for which you have READ access. "You don't even have to be the database's creator, and other processes may be accessing the database while you carry out this Adager checking," Paul says. During its check, Adager analyzes all database structures and reports anomalies it finds. A discrepancy doesn't always mean you've lost data. But Paul says that if Adager reports a discrepancy and other users are accessing the database, "please do not get them out of the database. Contact Adager immediately and we will be delighted to guide you so that you can 'gingerly' get all of your users out of the database, hopefully without losing any data, if you catch the problem in time." Paul says Adager's therapy mode adjusts privileged database parameters, then can let you see how much data, if any, you have lost.
One day later, Bradmark's Jerry Fochtman reported his company is offering a free FIXDDX utility that can look for the DDX inconsistency and repair it. After some testing, Bradmark (800.294.1251) also reported to us that its DBGENERAL utility can locate the DDX inconsistency. DBGENERAL standard diagnostics option 2.6 and option 2.3 will diagnose the DDX problem. Repair can be accomplished with option 2.3 (detail diagnose and repair) by following the repair prompts. In one case while working on a database which had experienced the problem, Bradmark's Tim Joseph said 2.3 repaired but left the dataset maximally expanded, and option 3.5 was required to adjust the set for further expansion. If you're not a DBGENERAL customer you can use FIXDDX, which Fochtman promised for the front page of Bradmark's Web site (www.bradmark.com) while we were going to press.
No matter what, install the HP patch if you use DDX, or might in the future. If you don't have permission to install a beta version of an HP patch at your site, and need to keep DDX running until the HP patch goes to General Release, Adager's Paul says to limit your exposure by increasing your DDX expansion increment to a larger size. (Look for more details, including which Express will carry the HP fix and DDX therapy tips, in our December issue and up on our Web site, www.3000newswire.com/newswire)
The best deal in HP's hardware lineup comes back faster this month
Hardware experts loved the Series 939s when HP first rolled out the systems three years ago, but last fall CSY dropped the box that one wag called "a deal too good to keep on the price list." Now HP is bringing back the Series 939 with a "fat cache" added, giving an 18 percent performance boost to a box that was already the best deal for a single-processor HP 3000. The new Series 939KS/020 uses a 78MHz PA-7200 chip with a full megabyte of both instruction and data caches -- geek-speak for a box that now runs almost as fast as the bottom of the Series 959 Kittyhawk systems. HP quoted a price of $12,000 for the CPU part of the system, which ships fully outfitted and ready to crank on IMAGE/SQL databases for a bottom line of $76,139. That includes 128Mb of memory -- twice what the old 939s shipped with -- as well as a 20-user MPE/iX license, a 4-Gb drive, 4-8 Gb DAT tape, an HP PowerTrust UPS and console. It's shipping today, and needs either the MPE/iX 5.0 with PowerPatch 6 or 5.5 Express 3 release.
In some ways this new 939 signals a push on HP's part to get its systems into new customer sites, because it's "not a stripped-down version of the 9x9 line," according to CSY's Daren Connor. It ships with four slots and can accept up to eight in its chassis. With the external-chassis I/O expander hardware that HP plans to ship early next year, the new 939 can support as many as 36 slots, which can accommodate plenty of users and storage capacity. The box also has investment protection in its ability to accommodate the faster processors in the 9x9 line via upgrades, right up to the 64-bit PA-8000 chips in the 979 range. Configured as a 939 the system doesn't support more than one processor, but you can upgrade the box to the multiprocessor 969s or 979s. This scalability can be important to companies that are trying to replace older systems from other suppliers -- and need assurance the low entry cost won't make future business growth an expensive proposition.
But it might be in the installed base where the new 939 has the most impact. HP has its sights set on a big chunk of its installed base with this system, looking for customers who are running the 9x7 systems to step into the newer K-class 9x9 designs at the lower price point. For the last year or more the entry into the 9x9 line has been at the 969 level, a place that HP's Kriss Rant admitted was "too giant a step for them." It's a remarkable change of heart from inside CSY, which told us just last fall that the 939 was being discontinued because of "declining customer demand." Our sources in the channel partner community said otherwise, noting that the 939 was a popular system in its first life. Now that it's been reborn, the 939KS/020 compares well to the 9x7 and 9x2 systems HP hopes it will replace. According to HP's relative performance charts, it would take a Series 987/150 or 987/200 to beat the performance of the new 939KS/020. That means that all Series 917 through 977 customers are going to see a performance increase. HP considers the 939 the new foothold in the future of the HP 3000, an easy entry point to the 9x9 line Rant called "the building blocks for the millennium."
HP also wants customers to think of the beefed-up 939 as a tool for doing Year 2000 work, so it's devised a new low-cost leasing bundle for the system. Pricing on the lease, which will have 2- and 3-year terms, wasn't ready at presstime, but HP will start to deliver in February a 939 ready to test your applications that includes tools from key Cure2000 third-party partners that are already loaded on the system. It's a program modeled after the 918/DX Developer's Platform that HP launched at HP World and has gathered a lot of vendor support from tools and utility suppliers. The Cure2000 bundle will be offered through HP's resellers as well as direct sales.
The prospects for the system may be profound. With no significant enhancements in the 9x8 entry-level line of 3000s for the past three years, some parts of the HP sales force have been hearing customers ask for a new entry point for HP 3000s suited to a mid-size customer. Other channel partners say that the 9x8s didn't offer enough flexibility to current 9x7 sites. Perhaps most importantly, HP has now given its own sales force a reason to make calls on customers by shifting the bottom of its 9x9 pricing so extensively. Promoting the 3000 to HP's own sales force remains perhaps the most important work that CSY can do in the coming year.
HP also did a review of its HP World announcements during the 939KS/020 introduction, most notably a brief update on the Express 4 MPE/iX 5.5 release that will make MPE Year-2000 ready. Still set for year's end, the core functionality of Express 4 is available in emergency situations as supported patches from the Response Center. For sites that must have all systems Year 2000 ready before 1997 ends, you can ask for MPEJXY9A, MPEJXU2B, MPEJXU3A, MPEJXU1A and MPEJXU8A. Be sure you really need them before year's end, because HP says the Response Center isn't set up to do mass distributions of the patches. (See our December issue for more details).