3000 NewsWire Online Extra (March, 1997)

3000 NewsWire Online Extra

Update of Volume 2, Issue 6 (March, 1997)

Welcome to our 15th edition of Online Extra, the e-mail update of articles in the March 3000 NewsWire and items of interest since we last mailed our First Class issue. This service is an exclusive to our paid subscribers. We'll e-mail you this file between the First Class issues you receive by mail, updating stories you've read and adding items that have developed between issues.

Editorial: HP sets sail for a sea of Supplement sites
In the four weeks since HP laid out its 3000 strategy, we've noticed a pronounced shift in the attitude toward the HP 3000 customer base. It began last year as officials at the HP 3000 division noted an upswing in the number of customers who used HP 9000s along with 3000s. HP was developing a Supplement strategy for its customer base, the approach that imagines customers relying on HP 3000s will bring in other business systems to run the applications and deliver services not available on their HP 3000s.

Now we hear indications that HP believes this kind of customer makes up the majority of its active HP 3000 business. We think that's wishful thinking instead of sound surveying. As long as everybody's wishing, we wish HP would embrace its customer base for what it is, instead of focusing on what it wants it to become.

To start with, nobody really knows what percentage of HP 3000 customers rely on non-3000 systems for business-critical functions. Anybody's figures are what we call anecdotal: you measure as many sites as reply to your questions, then assume you've gotten a fair sample of the whole enchilada. Even HP can't survey its entire HP 3000 customer base, because like any computer or software maker, it can't find all of them. Drop your HP support for any 3000 you own and that machine pretty much disappears from HP's radar screen.

HP can't answer the question of how many 3000s are in place, because by its own estimates it's lost track of about 25 percent of them -- because HP support contracts get dropped for older systems (or those run by self-maintainers or those using 3d party services).

We'll also take issue with HP's new "Supplement as majority" measurement for another reason: it lines up better with HP's business plans than it aligns with the reality of the customer base. Rick Belluzzo, czar of all that is HP computing, likes to tell reporters the differences in HP's divisions are going away. It's certainly true that any HP division will be glad to talk about better-suited solutions than the ones it makes itself. Well, maybe not every HP division -- we still don't hear much about the 3000 coming out of what CSY folks like to call "our HP 9000 brethren." And it doesn't help much when HP goes about renaming that division the "Enterprise Systems Division." Put all the spin on Unix solutions that you want -- they still aren't trusted in lots of places where downtime is unthinkable.

HP qualifies its Supplement-majority measurement by saying the majority of its "active" customers are relying on something in addition to an HP 3000 in their business. Nobody knows how much of the HP 3000 customer base is "active" for the reasons above. But if you're a passive customer, you're not getting a lot of airtime in HP's futures for the 3000. Instead, HP will tell you that your technology-centric thinking is wrong and out of date. The fact that your IT strategy is reliable, affordable and manageable doesn't seem to count as much to HP as it does to you.

We'll introduce our own numbers as evidence that technology-centric is still the majority of the customer base. Since we opened our doors we've mailed out well over 40,000 copies of the NewsWire, and 90 percent of those issues included an extensive survey that a prospect or subscriber must return to see another issue. Our demographics show less than a third of HP 3000 customers are using Unix or Windows NT, either as servers or workstations. And we're surveying "passive" customers as well as the active ones.

How can you tell if you're not active? Passive seems to apply to anybody who's reaping the productivity benefits they sowed years ago by purchasing a 3000 and sticking with it. You maintaining your own programs and don't need to buy much to keep your 3000 working hard. If that sounds like a lot of you out there, we thought so too. No, you're not spiking the charts of HP's 3000 sales effort. But you do deserve something more than being told you're in the minority when you use only HP 3000s -- especially when HP can't prove that statement. This is a subtle way of foisting the "everybody's doing it" mentality onto customers again. That's the thinking that got lots of Unix installed -- thus providing opportunity for yet another installation when NT gets ready to improve on the Unix that never paid off.

The HP 3000 division is honest about the relative share of its revenue contributions to HP. Even though the division is beating HP's quotas, its still becoming a smaller part of HP's $40 billion-and-growing success. But it would be a mistake to start measuring system counts or revenue in trying to assign value to those installations. Just because the HP 3000 business is smaller doesn't mean it's less important to the customer who invests in it. Any other kind of thinking seems to be influenced by HP's accounting experts -- managers aren't much help at making your systems simple and productive.

They count systems, but system counts can get impacted by consolidation capabilities. It's become more attractive now to reduce the number of HP 3000s at a site through multiple-processor, single box solutions. (Consolidation cuts the 3000's admin overhead, already a fraction of some solutions, even more.) In a few years, that trend may begin to reverse, if HP really improves distributed solutions like Shareplex/Netbase.

Counting the number of systems installed can be important to solution suppliers and application providers. But we will argue that any one HP 3000 is worth several of any other system, because they are "long-playing" systems, instead of the "singles" like Unix and Windows NT solutions. All of us ‹ HP and its customers alike ‹ should have some respect for "duration of ownership." That's a better indication of value to application providers and system vendors such as HP who want years of maintenance revenue as well as sales.

If it were me, I'd be charting a course for the good ship HP 3000 that passed through more ports than the "we behave with the popular environments" destination. Customers are always going to stick with what works, what's most secure and whatever protects their investment. For the majority of HP 3000 customers, the 3000 remains the most business-critical system they own -- and the one they'd like to keep applications and critical services on.

NT security flaw makes 3000 look more secure
If HP 3000 customers aren't rushing to place critical applications on systems other than 3000s, nobody can really blame them. A report in EE Times last week uncovered a gaping security breech in NT 4.0, one that gives even remote dial-in users the ability to unscramble encrypted information such as a corporate network's entire registry of user passwords and display them as plain text.

According to EE Times, a pair of professional security technologists wrote the code for the "hack" that found the flaw. The code is making the rounds on the Internet via a mailing list frequented by skilled hackers with an interest in NT-security issues.

This is the third major security flaw found in NT in as many months and follows recent revelations of security holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. Now that NT has found broader market acceptance, the hacking community is taking an interest in it that matches its affection for Unix.

Mike Nash, Microsoft's Director of Marketing for NT Server, acknowledged the security flaw to EE Times without elaborating on a possible fix. "It's good that people are testing our products and the best thing we can do is increase the awareness about security to our customers," he said.

Personally, we can think of better ways to improve security in an enterprise-class operating system than to let dial in users uncover user passwords. We think the appropriate process is called "beta testing."

Though presented in the mailing list as a "utility tool" for NT systems administrators, the latest NT hack is capable of as much mayhem as help."NT is not as safe as it had been, because of this hack," concluded Chris Goggans, Senior Networking Security Engineer at Wheelgroup Inc.

With news like this, it's no wonder that a stable, mature operating environment with less prominent profile in the hacker community ‹ MPE/iX ‹ looks more secure in comparison.

Microsoft cozies up with HP at press event
Being the 600-pound gorilla of software marketing gives new meaning to the term guerilla marketing. One advantage to being the gorilla is you get invited to appear as someone's close ally much sooner than history would dictate. HP's CEO Lew Platt made a point of showing off Hewlett-Packard's relationship with Microsoft in a press event a few weeks ago, then followed up with an ad in Computerworld showing off his business card and Microsoft's Bill Gates' side-by-side. The press conference was meant to show the close integration HP has in mind for its Unix and NT solutions, something that's more of a proposal than a product line as of this month.

HP and Microsoft said they'd collaborate to further Windows NT and Unix integration. Some customers thought the press conference would be a good place to ask what HP's plans are to integrate MPE/iX and Windows NT.

HP had no intention of talk about its MPE/iX-NT plans, because the conference was being held for the benefit of its Unix customers. The damage HP was trying to control with the press conference is the whispering Sun has started about HP's commitment to Unix. Sun has observed, somewhat astutely, that HP is chasing NT, the new skirt in town. Analysts are beginning to believe that HP's long-term commitment to Unix on Intel hardware will go the way of the DOS dodo: still there, but quickly becoming extinct.

The bottom line of the press conference was of only marginal interest to the HP 3000 customer who doesn't care if Unix is still the sweetheart of HP. HP said it was dropping its development of OpenMail for NT, apparently to give Microsoft's Exchange Server a clear path and integrate with the existing OpenMail. Some HP 3000 sites had seen OpenMail's impending port as something that would be good for MPE/iX as well. But when you want Microsoft's public friendship, there's a price to pay. In this case, it was OpenMail's future outside of Unix.

Since there were no new products to announce, Bill G. and Lew P. gave reporters a chance to see them be pals in public. Platt isn't the only CEO who'd like to maintain the goodwill of Unix users. Gates would like to see people grappling with making Unix serve the enterprise look at NT in that light. Platt said "HP brings the enterprise clout to Microsoft." Some analysts said that was quite a leap of faith for both NT and HP. Meanwhile, Sun said HP's embrace of NT was a move to separate itself from Unix. HP says it's not going to get involved in "operating system holy wars," and will offer whatever solution a customer feels is going to work.

There was a time when HP had an opinion about which operating environment would work best for a customer. HP now leaves those opinions to the makers of the environments. Some would say that a company that makes a couple of environments -- MPE/iX and HP-UX -- might have at least two opinions.

Network World reported Platt said that HP can execute a strategy based on two operating systems. We'll note that strategy seemed to have only one operating system before NT got popular -- and so we can't wait to see what else will make it into HP's strategy in the years to come.

As CSY's marketing manager Cathy Fitzgerald points out, the success of NT is teaching HP 3000 customers that there's no one correct solution. We just believe that NT's market success might be a good deal in front of its enterprise prowess, if you operate a system that has secure user passwords.

What about Windows NT and MPE/iX integration? Well, you won't find the details in an alliance press conference designed to buck up the hopes of HP-UX customers. Asking a CEO about product-specific plans can be a reasonably certain way to learn how little a CEO knows about what his divisions are doing. The only person who could come up with a strategic, high-level answer to this question is Harry Sterling, or somebody reporting to him. HP's divisions are run as separate businesses, for the most part.

We *are* very curious about how NT will become part of the 3000 environment. We just didn't expect the details to surface during a Unix press conference.

Another way into NT integration
Integration can be defined in many ways and by many players. While HP 3000 customers consider vendor-supplied and tested integration a common benefit, you can always do your own integration with the right tools. Eric Schubert of the University of Notre Dame suggests that M.B. Foster Associates' ODBCLink can provide a good NT-MPE channel:
"Almost plug and play network access-- and you can use Microsoft's NT Internet Server w/ODBC calls to integrate IMAGE data with Web forms. Two guys in two hours installed ODBCLink here and had a Web application accessing IMAGE data off NT. It also works great with Bio-query OLAP tools or Microsoft Access or Microsoft Query/Excel. Nothing was simpler."

Dow Jones takes on HP as select stock
HP integrated its way into one of the vaunted 30 slots that Dow Jones uses to measure its industrial index, as the financial information giant reshuffled its lineup of companies that it believes represent typical American business.

In one of the most extensive changes in the index's history, HP replaced Texaco in the Dow average, along with three other substitutions: Travelers Group replacing Westinghouse Electric, Johnson & Johnson for Bethlehem Steel and Wal-Mart Stores for Woolworth. Representatives of the Dow said HP was included to better represent the technology sector; Texaco was one of three oil concerns in the 30-company index.

The managing editor of the Wall Street Journal said Dow Jones has always thought of industrials as more than manufacturing. Journal editors decide which stocks go into the average. HP joins IBM as the only computer firms in the average, which uses only stock prices of companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. That leaves out HP's new pal Microsoft as well as its other ally, Intel, both traded on the NASDAQ.

Still a way to PING some 3000s to death
Microsoft might be HP's new best pal, but its software continues to toss problems into managers' laps. Last fall network administrators discovered that a new included Windows 95 user utility to check for network nodes, PING, could cause aborts on HP 3000 and HP 9000 systems. All it took was for some user to ping your 3000 from a network where they had the Win95 PING program.

The HP 9000s got a fix within a few weeks, but CSY has been working on a patch for the security breech for months. It only recently released one for MPE/iX 5.0, while the latest version of HP 3000 operating systems still doesn't have a general release fix. HP's Jim Hofmeister of the Response Center explains why the only patch you can apply, NSTEDJ9A, only works with 3000s running MPE/iX Release 5.0 or any of its PowerPatches (C.50.00 through C.50.06).

"The fixes were delivered on the HP-UX system quickly, but were delivered as Beta Test. The 5.0 fix on MPE/iX is General Release. The difference is: Following verified testing on lab regression test systems, testing was performed at customer sites who were willing to install and stress a Beta Test patch reporting any failure conditions which are repaired before the patch/fix can be delivered.

"2. The fix on 5.5 is further delayed due to the efforts necessary to roll the fix(s) into a relativly new release which is currently taking on many other fixes necessary to roll it forward to meet the same or better patch levels on MPE/iX 5.0. Both of the HP-UX releases patched were out for a relatively long time."

It didn't help that HP had a breakdown in its MOVER software, the vehicle used to deliver online patches, during the process that it was doing beta testing. You can obtain patch NSTEDJ9A from the Response Center or online from the HP Electronic Support Center, http://us-support.external.hp.com (US,Canada, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America)
http://europe-support.external.hp.c om (Europe)

Follow the "Patch Database" hyperlink from the HP Electronic Support Center home page.The online patches are unpacked using the UNPACKP script. UNPACKP runs the MOVER utility to unload the truck file for the patch. Hyperlinks for the UNPACKP script and the MPE Patch Installation Guide are located on the main page for MPE/iX patches on HP Electronic Support Center.

You need MOVER version A.00.02, EOF (end-of-file) 635, to unload patch NSTEDJ9A. You can download this version of MOVER from the HP3000 Web Server at http://jazz.external.hp.com. Follow the Shareware and Sources & Binaries hyperlinks.

Secure your Samba on the 3000
Lars Appel, who ported the Samba resource sharing package to MPE/iX, recently advised system managers to add some security to the defaults suggested in the Read Me document included with the freeware:

"If you are using Samba/iX with the "default" setup suggested by the Read Me files, i.e. with the PM programs SMBD and NMBD in SAMBA.SYS with group access rights something like R,X:ANY ... Then I *strongly recommend* to modify this by adding ACD's with

:ALTSEC @.SAMBA.SYS ;NEWACD=(X:MGR.SAMBA)

"Furthermore, make sure that MGR.SAMBA (if that is the user you chose for running the SMBMON and/or NMBMON jobs or in inetd.conf) is secured with proper passwords and is the only one who has write access to the Samba config files (smb.conf and alike)."
We think it's great advice, and nice follow-up push of the Samba bandwagon that Lars started. The 0.6 version is out now and includes these enhancements over 0.5:-

NMBD no longer needs to be run under INETD but can now also be run in "job mode" like the SMBD listener/server process. This is especially useful on MPE/iX 5.0 which does not have INETD by default (unless you try the port from Jazz). -

smbstatus and smbclient have an unneccessary GETPRIVMODE call removed, and thus should no longer need PM capability -

an "html" subdirectory has been added to the distribution; it contains a number of useful HTML documents (man pages, What is ..., How To ..., FAQ) from the Australian Samba web site (http://lake.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/)

Get your Marc Hoff nominations in soon
So long as you're thinking of Lars, think about a way to say thank you for his contributions. Each year the Interex HP user group honors the HP employee who made the most positive contribution to Interex members and HP customers. It's called the Marc Hoff award, and the Interex board of directors is taking nominations for the next few months. We'd like to nominate Lars Appel for his initiative in porting a freeware product that connects HP 3000s with Windows NT. He did it on his own time, and now HP has begun to reference it as a key part of the 3000-NT integration strategy. Appel's work is in the true spirit of Hoff, who used to hold back some of his division's budget to do what he called Gee Jobs, "as in gee, wouldn't it be great if we could do that?" We'd also like to nominate Mike Yawn of CSY, who did much the same thing with the Java Virtual Machine for MPE/iX.

These engineers took initiative to create something that will extend the utility of the HP 3000. As Adager's Ken Paul notes, "Both of these gentlemen exemplify the saying 'It is easier to ask forgiveness than seek permission,' which I believe is the "HP WAY."

It would be great if a technology accomplishment could be honored in public this year, since last year's winner, Software Product Manager Kriss Rant, came from CSY's marketing side. You can make sure your nomination gets submitted to the Board, which make the final selection, by sending your nomination to Deloy Cole (deloy@interex.org), Interex Director of Technology Services. The winner will be announced at the opening ceremony of HP World in Chicago.

Jukebox DAT drive emerges from HP's labs
HP announced at the recent IPROF conference it would be offering a multiple cartridge DDS-3 tape drive for HP 3000s sometime this year, and the Computer Peripherals Group in Bristol, England has already released the PC version of the device. HP launched the SureStore DAT24x6 autoloader, which contains six 24Gb (with hardware compression) DDS-3 tapes and offers a transfer rate of 2Mb/second. HP says an autoloader solution enables the IT administrator "to circumvent the administrative aspects of backup, while ensuring that the backup takes place correctly every night." HP mentioned the jukebox DAT while telling HP 3000 customers about its efforts to increase system availability.

MM/3000, 925-949, VPlus ready for Year 2000
As HP continues to work hard on its Year 2000 solutions for the HP 3000, some surprising products have arrived early at the 2000-safe finish line. Recently HP said that its 925, 935 and 949 systems wouldn't be supported for Year 2000 use. Customers have tested the systems and note that those HP 3000s appear to handle the millennium change just fine. HP won't be supporting the systems beyond next year in any case, but you don't have to unplug them in 1999 if you're a self-maintainer or use a third-party support plan.
MM/3000 is another surprise 2000-safe finisher. The venerable manufacturing software from HP has already taken care of the year 2000 issue, according to Paul Dorius of eXegeSys, Inc. basically by using the A0 to A9 for 2000 - 2009 method for storage. Dorius reports that "since MM converts all the input/output with its own procedures, all is well. File structures need not be changed. If you convert the VPlus screens to larger dates it will display them completely. Actually, this was done several releases ago."
And VPlus will be getting its Year 2000 updates in about a month or so. HP 3000 Customer Delight Solution Manager M. Gopalakrishnan noted that MPe/iX 5.5 Express 2 will include a new B.06.07 version of VPlus/FORMSPEC, one that through using the VSETNEXTCENTURY JCW will handle four-digit or interpret two-digit years correctly. Intrinsic enhancements will be VGETYYYYMMDD and VPUTYYYYMMDD, while FORMSPEC enhancements will include a new ARB Type: YYYYMD. Alas, the VPlus improvements are not scheduled to be rolled back to any version of MPE/iX 5.0.

Year 2000 alliances start in 3000 community
Given the scope of the Year 2000 project for many customers, it's good to see longtime suppliers of HP 3000 tools working together on the problem. Adager 208.726.9100, www.adager.com, info@adager.com) recently announced its first ally in the effort, Diamond Optimum Systems, Inc. The Adager/Diamond Program focuses on the two major aspects of any HP 3000 application:

* Information located in the IMAGE DBMS.
* Software that uses this database information.

Both of these components must be carefully analyzed and modified in order to
prepare applications for the next century (and beyond). Adager Corporation
and Diamond Optimum Systems (818.224.2010, www.diamondos.com, info@DiamondOS.com) are offering a Year 2000 toolset that consists of
well-known solutions:

* Adager (for examining and converting database date-oriented information and structural formats).

* Documentation/3000 with the D-Day/2000 module (for examining and converting software).

More from the ADBC offering
David Thatcher of Advanced Network Systems gave us an update on the ADBC offering he unveiled in our March issue. The software that delivers a high-speed interface between Java and IMAGE data has these enhancements already: "First, the IMAGE API has been converted to Java 1.1, the latest and greatest version. I am also finishing up a program written in Java that will convert Visual Basic programs into Java applets. This program will be part of the ADBC tool kit." Contact Thatcher at 908.821.8893, or on the Web at www.advnetsys.com.

Get those emergency diagnostic passwords from the RC
Contrary to what we reported in our notes in the March FlashPaper, you can get some help from the Response Center (RC) when you need a password for locked-up diagnostics programs. Ken Sletten reports:

"The RC can in fact give you a temporary password that is good for a 'few days.' I got my temporary diagnostics password on Tuesday this week and it's still working here on Friday, so I know it's at least good for three or more days. So at least there is still some way to get at the diagnostics more-or-less right away if you have to."

"Also in fairness and somewhat to my amazement, when I finally called HP License Admin today to get my form to send in to get the six month password (actually now only THREE months, since they always I believe still expire in Jan and July) -- by the time I walked down to the fax after hanging up, the diagnostics license was starting to come off the machine... Absolutely amazing."

NECRUG lays out conference plans
NECRUG (Northeast Central Regional Users Group) is mounting its 18th annual conference May 27-30 at the Taj Mahal Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, NJ. HP 3000 specific sessions will include "Migrating VPlus and IMAGE to a Client-Server Environment" by FrontMan creator Steven Chappell of Minisoft; "Building the HP 3000 and HP 9000 as a Web Server" by Leroy Ruggerio of Data Based Systems; "The Importance of Middleware to Client-Server for the HP3000/9000" by Bradmark president Brad Tashenberg; a tour of MPE 5.5" by HP's George Stachnik, and an "HP 3000 5 Year Road Map" by HP 3000 SWAT Team member Vince Claps.

If you've got Windows 95 or NT responsibilities, the NECRUG lineup features Denys Beauchemin of HI-COMP giving presentations including a three hour Windows NT tutorial. "This presentation will give the users a chance to see Windows NT 4.0 Server close up," Beauchemin says. "It will look at the various features of NT and understand how it is constructed. It will also look at some of the products which make up the Back Office suite, such as Exchange and SQL Server. The session will feature live demos."
Beauchemin also speaks on Friday the 30th about "Windows 95 Tips and Techniques," focusing on performance and stability. It will investigate the various settings, hardware issues and software solutions that enhance this performance and stability, and will include live demos. To register for NECRUG, call James Batty at 610.873.7446

Redundant HASS problems
Mark Bixby, who's ported the Apache Web server to MPE/iX, reports that his HASS RAID disk drives have developed a problem that gets around their redundant features:

"My CE was able to find out that the reason the HASS power supplies were revised is because one supply of a pair would sometimes get into an overvoltage situation, and then the other supply would try to drag the voltage back down, and this battle for control over the voltage would continue until one supply burned itself out."

"I don't know the frequency with which the above scenario occurs. I'm still awaiting word on the specific cause of *both* of my HASS power supplies failing at the same time."

Putting MPE help on the Web
Bixby also posted an advance in getting help for MPE to his Web site, by showing off how he'd made MPE's HELP subsystem available via a Web browser interface. Bixby used Perl, a programming language that's available for the HP 3000 as freeware, to break apart CICAT "and attempt reasonable HTML-ization." He reports:

"My CICAT-to-HTML converter Perl script has just been enhanced to generate hot links to standard HP variables (i.e. HPAUTOCONT etc) as well as functions (i.e. len() etc).The need here is to be able to link into the :HELP pages from other HTML documentation, so I wasn't planning to add a local search engine. Interested users can run it on their own machines to make a local copy of the help files. I now consider the script suitable for inclusion on the Freeware tape. The official distribution location for the converter Perl script:

http://www.cccd.edu/ftp/pub /mpe/cicat2html.pl
or
ftp://ftp.cccd.edu/pub/mpe/cicat 2html.pl

"The thought occurs to me that placing HTML-ized MPE :HELP files on http://jazz.external.hp.com would be a logical companion to the HTML-ized Communicators. I know I would find it handy to be able to browse :HELP for upcoming releases that I haven't installed yet. Also search engines like the awesome AltaVista would eventually find it, allowing keyword searches for command info without having to resort to LaserROM." Bixby adds that "Perl under MPE will change your life. Check it out."

St. Paul Software's EC Center Achieves Record Growth
EDI-on-the-HP 3000 solution provider St. Paul Software (www.stpaulsoftware.com, info@stpaulsoftware.com) announced its EC Center has averaged 100 percent annual growth over the past three years. Created in 1990, the EC Center is a service bureau that has grown to support over 6,400 trading partners with its custom EDI/EC services.The center helps its customers reach their non-EDI trading partners, and helps large hubs expand their use of EDI by enabling the exchange information with their non-EDI trading partners through its conversion services: Fax-to EDI, EDI-to-Fax, Application-to-EDI, EDI-to-Application, Manual Processing and WEB EC- Internet-to-EDI.

The services provided by the EC Center are also used by companies that want to outsource selected EDI processes or an entire program because they cannot or do not want to dedicate internal personnel to manage or expand their EDI system. In this capacity, the EC Center manages the daily EDI activities by controlling the data, information flow and overseeing the staff that manages the transactions.


Copyright 1997, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.