3000 NewsWire Online Extra Welcome to our 30th edition of Online Extra -- the e-mail update of articles in the June 1998 3000 NewsWire, plus items that have surfaced since we mailed our latest First Class issue. This service is an exclusive to our paid subscribers. We e-mail you this file between the First Class issues you receive by mail, updating the stories you've read and adding articles that have developed between issues. Analysis: What IA-64 means today for 3000s Since HP has taken off the wraps on its plans f or IA-64 on the 3000, it's time to consider what this futures announcement without a schedule means to you today. HP will at first tell you that IA-64 support means a way to deliver performance increases on the 30 percent-per-year path. When you look at the timing of the announcement, however, and what everybody knows about IA-64 performance today, this news can be about only one thing during this year: confidence. HP believes that the IA-64 commitment will give customers confidence the platform isn't going away. It's confidence that couldn't be manufactured with many other moves from HP itself. Selling the box into new customer sites would mean a lot, especially to the software vendors relying on it. But the numbers probably wouldn't make any serious dent in market share numbers. No, what customers want to be certain of is that the 3000 will be around long after they are. In that regard, IA-64 on 3000s fills the bill nicely. Moving the system to a new architecture is a project so much bigger than anything in the last 10 years it's hard to explain unless you remember the Spectrum project, the last migration. Hundreds of positions open on org charts. Outside contractors inside to test MPE's metamorphosis. The current commitment probably won't get that out of hand, but it's bigger than anything the NewsWire has ever covered in its almost three years. Okay, it's a given that the new architecture will run faster than PA-RISC. How much faster is anybody's guess right now. That means that when you hear somebody say IA-64 "will deliver peak performance at reduced cost," put your boots on, because it's being shoveled deep. (We actually read something like that this week). It's important to remember that even amid all the anticipation of faster HP 3000s, nothing has yet been proven regarding IA-64 performance. IA-64 will be a good thing, sure. How much better than PA-RISC is what you're going to have to decide, eventually. It's a choice that Windows NT users won't have to make, unless they are running Alpha systems when Intel finally gets chips into boxes. As a 3000 customer, you've had it better than most in performance per box anyway. One user pointed out that PA-RISC was so sorely needed that 3000 sites were desperate to work with it right away, even though it was unproven. That's because the high end sites were running out of floor space to install Series 70s, the leading 3000 before PA-RISC. It kind of sounds like the problem people will be having when they learn NT doesn't scale, and you gotta pack your datacenter with lots of servers to get as much done as one hefty 3000. Today we don't know what IA-64 3000 systems will cost -- and you can hunt all day trying to find anybody at CSY who predicts these systems will be less costly than the current HP 3000 top-end. That's where HP is likely to introduce the systems, where performance is needed most. The performance growth in the 3000 line still lies with PA RISC for the foreseeable future, until IA-64 gets its bugs knocked out of it. More than a few analysts and vendors we interviewed think IA-64 needs to generate another processor other than Merced, too. Happily for many 3000 sites, those are problems the HP-UX users are going to be working out. The good news is that it may be even easier to shift to MPE on the IA-64 platform than it was to go to PA-RISC. The new architecture, after all, is an extension of PA-RISC, a revision of the VLIW designs HP announced just before it got married to Intel. CSY is working to woo software suppliers It's absolutely vital to get application suppliers working on HP 3000 software again, and HP is taking steps to do it starting at HP World. Tuesday evening at 7:30 in a swank corner of the San Diego Marriott, the 3000 division is throwing a get acquainted party for its ISVs -- those it knows from the past, and those it wants to meet. HP brass all the way up to Bill Russell, the GM of the Enterprise Systems Group and Harry Sterling's boss, will be on the carpet to answer questions and brag about rebounding sales. If you don't have an invitation yet, and run a software company, HP wants you to be there. Send a message to www.partner_event-98@hp.com. Some analysts are tying the significance of the IA-64 announcement to the number of software companies who will develop for the new MPE. HP people in the Sea Grill Room will be able to recite good reasons to do just that, we hope. What to do about mail systems Gee, we don't know for sure what to do about mail systems, but we have some evidence of what not to do. If you're looking to replace something like HP Desk running on a 3000, and people start talking up Exchange Server, better think about things like bad address notification. Seems the current version of Exchange doesn't send immediate bounce messages when somebody pings it with a bad user address. That's a bug that spammers love, and it's making Exchange servers a target for spam kings. We also hear from HP that OpenMail, the HP-UX alternative to Microsoft's stuff, remains a security risk if it's configured wrong. Not long ago HP warned its OpenMail sites that something as simple as a print server configuration file can give users the ability to run arbitrary shell commands. OpenMail has never been known for painless configuration, but it has its advocates. We think you'd be better off keeping e-mail on something with better security, like your HP 3000. 3K Associates makes a dandy product, NetMail, that has spam blocking features galore, too. You can get a free trial from the 3K site. New, big drives on the way We spotted another reference to the biggest disk drive yet for HP 3000s. It's an 18-Gb hog, and we think it might be one of the announced devices at the upcoming HP World show. HP talked about it being new hardware for a MPEKXB3B patch that went into general release on July 10. Get bright about command files Command files are one of those tricks that old pros on the 3000 use to make a 25-year-old platform do backflips of a more pup-like environment. There's a great talk coming up in San Diego on using them by a NewsWire subscriber, Tim Ericson. Check out the Tuesday morning schedule if you'll be there. If not, you can enjoy the education from your favorite Web browser. Steer to http://www.denkor.com/hp3000/c ommand_files and learn how to get more out of your HP 3000. A better ESC soon for 3000s We hear there are some serious improvements on the way for the Electronic Response Center for HP 3000 customers. Up to now they've often been stymied by slow response, downtime and pokey searches for information at the electronic site. Soon you will be able to place 3000 hardware support calls through the ESC, something that can simplify support for 3000s on non-critical calls. Phone support can be so hard to get through sometimes, users report, that they'd be grateful for the ability to tell HP what they need without being on hold. The Web does that, and we hear it will be up and running later this month. In the meantime, searches will be much quicker for known problems if you use a tip contributed by Stan Sieler: "On boolean searching, if you want to exclude something, DON'T USE "AND NOT"...just use "NOT". E.g., print not panic" Media shift is on again for 3000s HP is considering new media for backups and documentation, but you'll see the latter long before the former. Documentation is going to be available at an HP Web site this fall for the 3000, and it's being released as CDs as well. Today, many HP 9000 manuals are available on the net at http://www.docs.hp.com. "When 6.0 ships, the plan is to have the updated HP 3000 manual set out on a reorganized Web site that will contain HP 3000, NT, as well as HP-UX content," said HP's CSY lab section manger Jim Sartain. That doesn't mean that CDs are going to be the prevalent media for a very long time. Sartain confirmed that the division is looking at alternatives to software distribution media. "We are investigating the options -- however, nothing different is very imminent. CSY does need to establish a technology roadmap for this area soon," he said, "because technologies such as DLT and DVD are emerging, and they could potentially replace DDS." In the meantime, you can't sign up for CD distribution of 6.0 or other releases; HP isn't accepting new customers for that media. If you've got it, you're the only ones who can get it. Shifting time with any database tool for decompiles G. R. Helm, Inc. reported that its TimeShift 2000 tool now works with QUERY and other tools to do database "decompilation." Gordon Helm dropped us a note to say, "Previously, we required Adager to reside on the system it was executing on to perform the decompilation of the databases that are to be analyzed. We have enhanced the software to now use Adager, DBGeneral or Query. Therefore, for all intensive purposes, we have removed any dependencies on third-party software products." "We have also enhanced the product to perform the aging by not only years, but now by days also. This should make the tool much more appealing to users who want to perform the aging process on a more granular level." Copyright 1998, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.