Customers this summer wore smiles as fat as Bill Gates' pocketbook when HP announced it would ship an MPE/iX 32-bit ODBC driver before year's end. However, the promise seems to apply to HP's 1997 fiscal year, not calendar 1996.
Software schedules are often subject to adjustments. HP's 32-bit ODBC projection during the HP World conference in August will apparently be delayed by several months, according to customers who asked HP's Response Center for a completion date. One customer reported the RC told him the software may not be ready until late spring.
The reason behind the new timetable is shrouded in some secrecy. Project manager Jon Bale, whose CSY team is responsible for testing the driver, didn't want to discuss all the steps HP will take before the middleware is ready. But Bale did note that fewer appropriate MPE/iX releases and a complex testing suite were factors that could delay the software's release beyond the promised delivery date.
"We want to do a fairly thorough beta testing of it when we get it," Bale said. "There are some other things we'll do internally, but the main thing is catching a release vehicle -- and those don't leave the station every day."
Bale explained the HP process will include a beta test of the software with many possible combinations, including four differing Windows clients (3.1, 3.11, Windows 95 and Windows NT) as well as Allbase/SQL and IMAGE/SQL on both 5.0 and 5.5 versions of MPE/iX. What's more, the middleware must be tested against Allbase/SQL for HP-UX.
Once tests are complete, HP will have to place the software in a release vehicle, some version of MPE/iX that includes the other host-based database software needed to interoperate with the driver. HP's specification for the product is to match functionality for its existing middleware and extend its range to Windows 32-bit (Win95) environments. That means that customers will still be required to go through the SQL layer of IMAGE/SQL. Therefore, the new software will have to match release schedules for Allbase/SQL and IMAGE/SQL.
In plainer terms, the new ODBC driver isn't a simple PC-based software solution anymore. Unlike its predecessor, Bale said, the new middleware is part of the Allbase/SQL and IMAGE/SQL databases. Because the division of functionality between client and server has changed, mapping of ODBC and database calls through SQL is different in the new middleware. That will make it harder to slip out interim releases as they're ready in the form of beta-test patches, something HP did often as it evolved its own driver.
Combine the changed design with a broader scope of testing, and you've got the elements for a delay in delivery, Bale said.
"It could have an additive effect to the delivery time," Bale said. "We're trying to provide a replacement equivalent capability in all places where we have our databases. That's turning out to be a tall order."
All of the above doesn't mean that customers will be waiting until the next major release of MPE/iX, Bale added. "I expect that we'll put this out on an Express release," he said.
A long wait for some
HP's tests will commence once it receives code from M.B. Foster Associates,
the company that's slimming down its ODBCLink module of DataExpress to
create the middleware. The software, now being called OCDBCLink/SE, was in
the final stages of testing at the M.B. Foster Associates labs as this
issue went to press. The slimming down process included advancing the
software's ODBC conformance to level 2. Documentation and training material
preparation was already underway, to give HP the tools to train its own
support organization.
But some HP 3000 customers have been waiting for this middleware more than a year. HP first heard requests for the capability in October, 1995, and it made a formal commitment to delivering the product two months later. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office 95 shipped during that period, increasing the number of 3000 sites that could make good use of a link between Microsoft Access 95 and TurboIMAGE.
HP proceeded to work on the software during the spring of 1996, but its investigations and engineering revealed a bigger task than first anticipated. HP had to eliminate the dependencies on the Gupta SQL drivers that were originally designed into its 16-bit middleware. Indeed, the new middleware based on the M.B. Foster product will require customers who've engineered their applications to use Gupta-specific calls to change code in their programs.
By March, Bale was reporting that the promised August delivery date was slipping. "We're working hard to come as close to that date as possible, including looking at some short cuts," he said at the time.
The most significant short cut turned out to be licensing a subset of the M.B. Foster driver. HP took on the third-party product to replace its own. "This lets us get out of the PC-based software business," Bale said in a briefing with customers this fall.
Some customers are investigating other options while they wait, albeit reluctantly. John Painter, marketing manager for Computer Solutions, Inc. (CSI), is looking into licensing the full ODBCLink product to integrate into his company's SMARTS school administration software for MPE/iX. Painter said the delay has him wondering if the HP 3000 is going to be a timely supported platform for client-server applications.
"For a developer with a huge investment in 3000s, it's kind of panic city right now," Painter said. "We don't really need all the higher-end functions that M.B. Foster's product provides. But we may be forced to eat the cost of that product for our customers potentially, just to get something out there right now. Whenever HP gets its act together, we can go from there."
The difference in the HP software and the full ODBCLink is significant. Bale called the HP middleware "a reduced version of ODBCLink, in the sense that product has a lot of capabilities outside of access over a LAN to IMAGE/SQL and Allbase/SQL. It has other data sources, other access methods, supports dictionaries and so on." Customers who will use ODBCLink/SE to connect IMAGE databases to clients will still have to administer through the SQL layer of IMAGE/SQL and won't be able to connect over serial links. Oracle support isn't included, and the HP software won't work with version 4.0 of MPE/iX, either.
The full ODBCLink answers every one of those needs, but at a cost that starts at $3,000 and goes to $16,000 in seven tiers of pricing. Customers get DataExpress, a desktop integration tool, as part of that price, too. That full product is on a smooth upgrade path from ODBCLink/SE, but M.B. Foster is discussing no discount for upgrading at this time. Since HP will be distributing the SE version to all of its supported customer base, any such discount would have to be extended to virtually the entire HP 3000 community.
M.B. Foster president Birket Foster said if customers can consider the coming HP middleware as entry-level software, "we feel there is room in the market for both an entry level and a full-featured commercial solution. I think the issue is 'free' software, not the ability to solve the ODBC problem. That solution has been here for awhile." ODBCLink first went into production release in February of 1994, he said.
The only other option for a client-server plan at a free price point is Java. Middleware is ready to connect other databases to Java applications and applets, but not to the HP 3000's IMAGE/SQL -- not yet, anyway. An ADBC project, started by Adager's Alfredo Rego as a contest to link IMAGE to Java without ODBC overhead, hasn't produced a released version after six months of development, although a demo is ready.
Painter said his company isn't willing to jump into Java as an alternative to client-server design. "You want to be safe," he said. "It's not like you could afford to take a 20-year-old business and risk it on a chance like that. Java may show some potential in a few years, but for now we've already chosen a path, and we need to have something in place."