3000 world works to make Java deliver its promises

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3000 world works to make Java deliver its promises

Applications still in pilot, progress phases as latest version surfaces

The hype surrounding Java has outstripped the cross-platform language’s capabilities throughout the computer industry in its first two years of release. The same effect has ensued in the HP 3000 community, but developers are making progress to heat Java/iX up to production-grade temperatures.

HP released a 1.1.4 version of the Java Developer’s Kit for MPE/iX in December, a maintenance fix that corrected problems but added no new functionality. Mike Yawn, the HP engineer in charge of Java/iX, reported that the AWT windowing tool under MPE/iX is “still sluggish. I'd recommend sticking to server-side applications, and running any user interface code on your PC, Mac, or workstation.” More importantly, the 1.1.4 version of the software incorporates a fix to the classes.zip file that makes it a bytestream file. Yawn says the change will dramatically improve performance of the classloader.

But the software remains an anomaly inside the HP 3000 community – new technology that isn’t supported by HP’s Response Center but is being crafted by HP’s engineers. The latest version is available via the CSY Jazz Web site (http://jazz.external.hp.com/src/java), and it will be included in a future release of the Freeware tape being sold by Interex. But unlike Java for HP 9000s, Java/iX still isn’t part of the HP 3000’s operating system releases.

The lack of official support remains a good barometer of the 3000 market’s acceptance of the tool. HP said in the summer it is waiting for customer deployment in earnest before committing to product support of Java on the 3000.

Official notice of customer projects using Java/iX has been hard to find. At the NPD Group in New York City, the development team responsible for some of the largest market research operations in the US is evaluating use of Java in HP 3000 operations. Rob Joseph, MIS manager at NPD, said he couldn’t get specific on what his company is doing with Java for competitive reasons. But the 3000 manager said Java will help extend the services his company offers as well as the capabilities of any HP 3000.

“In most organizations Java will find its initial use in applications designed to deliver information over the World Wide Web,” Joseph said. “In fact, it is very possible that our present effort will end up running mostly on an HP 9000 or NT Web server system outside the firewall.”

Joseph said while NPD’s programmers are deploying Java for ultimate use on non MPE systems, the fact the language is supported on the 3000 lets his company leverage its hefty MPE/iX horsepower in a Java solution.

“Java is a solution to a problem many of us have faced for a long time: how to create truly portable systems,” Joseph said. Some of NPD’s services collect large quantities of data from retailers, which are used to track sales trends. Much of this data is now transferred over the Internet and received at NPD first on HP 9000 systems outside its firewall.

The data usually needs filtering and reformatting for NPD to use it, a chore currently done on the company’s two Series 995/800 production HP 3000 systems, boxes.

“But we have begun to be overwhelmed by the volume,” Joseph said, “and have been kicking around whether we could somehow distribute the data amongst our many powerful servers and desktop PC's for incremental processing. Java makes this possible, because the programs we develop can be run on our HP 3000 systems as well as all the others. And its built-in features for distributed applications make it an ideal choice for this kind of task.”

Customer support like that from the NPD Group is what CSY is waiting for. “As customers, the ball is in our court to show there is market demand for Java/iX,” Joseph said. He’s typical of the HP 3000 customer planning for the day when Java begins to extend the utility of the HP 3000.

“For us Java is not just a language, but potentially a revolution. I think this will also be true for the HP 3000. Any Java-based system can be run on it, once JDBC capability arrives on the scene.”