3000 NewsWire Online Extra Welcome to our 32nd edition of Online Extra -- the e-mail update of our articles in recent issues of the 3000 NewsWire, plus items that have surfaced since we mailed our last First Class issue. We e-mail subscribers 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. If you're not getting this file by e-mail, we don't have a valid e-mail address for you. Drop us a line at subs@3000newswire.com and update us. We don't share e-mail addresses with other organizations, so the only thing you're signing up for is the rest of your subscriber services. Watch for news on 3000 Web server changes HP 3000 division speakers at this month's Strategic Customer Forums are wondering if supporting Netscape's FastTrack Web browser is such a good idea for 3000 customers. The division announced in August of 1997 it would include the browser in HP 3000 operating system software, but the port of the product has taken a lot longer than expected. Insiders say the delays result from the condition of the Netscape code -- programming that was supposed to be Posix-standard but was far from standard anything. Now CSY is floating a trial balloon to see if supporting the Apache Web server instead of FastTrack might not be a better idea for HP 3000 customers. The advantages to making Apache the 3000's included Web server product? Well, as an open source code application, Apache is far more likely to outlive any commercial product from any supplier, even one as established as Netscape. In the open source model, the world's programmers develop the product in their spare time, at no cost, and use of the product is free or at virtually no cost. IBM recently announced it would be supporting the Apache Web server as part of its operating systems, a show of support almost unheard of for open source software. (You might have heard such products called freeware, but things like Apache get a lot more development attention and organization than freeware). The best example of open source success outside of Apache is Linux, the operating system running plenty of firewalls on dirt-cheap PC hardware. As for Apache, surveys show it's driving more Web sites (by number) than Microsoft and Netscape servers combined. FastTrack is supposed to be entering a beta test phase outside of HP's 3000 labs soon. It carries the confidence of the Netscape brand, but nobody is under any illusions about who will be supporting and developing the product. This will be a CSY production, just like the OpenMarket Web product for 3000s. That was a commercial product killed off by its creators, a fate that FastTrack might endure someday in the distant future. Apache has another significant advantage over FastTrack: it runs today on HP 3000s, including at least one site using it for commercial exchange of financial data. Apache/iX needs better security capabilities to make it a complete substitute for the FastTrack product, but CSY's switch to it is an interesting idea. The CORBA services for distributed computing which are included in FastTrack won't provide much help for 3000 applications which do not use the Web server. Some advocates for CORBA on the 3000 argue that distributed computing capabilities for MPE/iX are more important in the long run. We've heard rumors that switching to Apache for a 3000 Web server and freeing up the FastTrack resources might enable the division to get serious about CORBA for the platform. We expect CSY to keep gathering customer input on Apache vs. FastTrack this month. Mr. Platt predicts 2000, then pulls back HP CEO Lew Platt was candid about his view of the Year 2000's business impact when asked by analysts at the latest Gartner Group ITExpo conference. "I believe there will be some negative impact, particularly the enterprise server business," Platt said. "We'll be hurt, but less than other computer companies." He went on to explain that HP would get harmed less because it runs a multitude of computer businesses. The comments rose to the top of the mainstream and weekly computer press, and in less than 48 hours HP's PR handlers needed to apply a spin to them. The handlers apparently decided that Platt's comments about Year 2000 needed to be softened. Their defense could be summed up as "We don't know what will happen." That's probably the best answer any exec could give about a futures question, but that reply was too boring to give in person during a Q&A at an industry event. For the record, here's the backpedalling: "It's impossible to predict what will happen, so HP's approach is to prepare for multiple scenarios," said Lewis E. Platt, HP chairman, president and chief executive officer. "We are staying close to our huge customer base and focusing on the wide spectrum of our customers' needs." HP said the range of customer reactions to the Year 2000 could be as follows: -- increase new hardware purchases to replace legacy systems that are not Year 2000 compliant; -- delay new hardware purchases and concentrate spending on upgrades such as operating systems and for items largely without Year 2000 issues, such as printers; -- change the mix of products they buy, perhaps choosing to invest in servers, networking, systems and consulting at the expense of new PCs; -- identify 1999 as the year to steer dollars to information-technology (IT) solutions, accelerating purchases that otherwise would have occurred in the year 2000 or later; or -- exhibit no change in overall IT spending or in the mix of IT spending. "Regardless of which scenario or range of scenarios unfolds, HP is accepting the uncertainties with added resolve to be aggressive in the marketplace, to intensify our relationships with customers and to use the turn of the millennium as a new way to show customers all that HP can do for them, " Platt said. "We intend to remain flexible to address and resolve customers' uncertain environments." HP pointed out that Platt's caution on unknown aspects of customer spending patterns reflects the company's 10-Q report disclosures for the third quarter of 1998. HP said that filing provides a broader description of the risks associated with the Year 2000 issue. If you want to check out those four paragraphs, browse to the US governement EDGAR site to see the 10-Q and look for the section titled Year 2000. CSY runs counter to HP business trends, as usual The continued pressure on HP earnings is taking its toll inside the company. HP commitments are being scaled back as CEO Platt makes all his managers account for their expenses and make operations more profitable (or in some cases, profitable at all after months of red ink). The trend is to freeze up hiring across the board, but there are some exceptions. Not surprisingly, the HP 3000 division is one of those. It's an operation that's been consistently profitable all along, even when the group had to cut headcount in the middle 90s while the rest of HP was ramping up for Unix and NT battles. Now there may be engineers returning to CSY whose future in other divisions don't seem nearly as bright anymore. Meanwhile, the 3000 group is hiring, putting out the word at the Strategic Customer Forums that it's looking for good talent. The JDBC season starts soon for 3000s HP has launched the public beta test program for its JDBC driver for HP 3000s. The software is scheduled to ship in early 1999 on a PowerPatch for MPE/iX 6.0, and now customers can sign up to beta test the product that will link HP 3000 databases with Java applications. For more information you can browse to the CSY Jazz Web page or contact CSY's Shu-Feng Wei at sfwei@cup.hp.com. In the same timeframe, HP 3000 sites will be able to install the first commercial entry for JDBC. Minisoft reports on its Web site that it will release its product in the month of December, complete with a JavaShop/3000 development environment. IMAGE connectivity is vital to making Java more than a technical curiosity for the bleeding edge experimenters on the HP 3000. TurboIMAGE class libraries for Java have been available for awhile at Jazz, but more sites will be willing to combine the first language bundled with 3000s in 20 years with databases when connectivity is as simple as clicking on datasets in a window. No more airline vertical target market -- sort of With the recent purchase of Open Skies by the HP 3000 division, CSY has pared back the number of vertical markets where it expects to sell new HP 3000s by one. That's because the new Open Skies, a division of CSY, will not be selling software and leveraging hardware sales for HP anymore. The installation of OpenRes at Skymark Airlines in Japan was the last site where the company will sell its software to be run by a customer's IT staff. Instead of selling new HP 3000s to the hundreds of small airlines in need of reservation systems, CSY will be selling transaction services running on HP 3000s owned by HP's services groups. The shift in business strategy should make customers think twice about how they measure HP 3000 success in the marketplace. A simple count of systems installed was once a reliable measure. Consolidations changed that, but counting the number of customers owning HP 3000s was still reliable. Now it appears HP 3000 new business will flow through a transaction pipeline as well as a measure of the hardware installs. Airlines pale next to the numbers of manufacturing concerns who are prospects for new HP 3000s. So long as SAP continues to fit best for only the largest companies, and Baan and Oracle continue to stumble, manufacturing remains wide open for suppliers of midrange solutions on HP 3000s. HP user group's vote turnout lower than US average Word surfaced from an HP 3000 candidate for the Interex user group board that low turnout has made the first set of election results for the 1999 board null and void. Interex charter calls for a minimum number of ballots to be cast to make its elections of directors binding, and candidate Steve Hammond posted this result late on Friday November 13: "I just got the results of the Interex Board of Directors election and I am quite dismayed. The results have been declared invalid because there was not a quorum! The Interex constitution states that 10 percent of the membership must cast votes for it to be a valid election. So that means that less than 10 percent of the Interex membership bothered to cast a ballot for the board of directors." "I am honestly concerned what this means for the future of this organization!" Voter turnout has been a problem in US elections for years. In recent elections any turnout above 25 percent was cause for celebration. Now it appears the apathy has spread to members of Interex, which represents some HP users who are members to Hewlett-Packard. A second ballot gathering initiative is underway to determine who will sit on the user group's board of directors. Automatic spam-free e-mail -- on a 3000 We've pointed out the benefits of hosting e-mail on HP 3000s in the past, but keeping spam off business systems just seems to keep getting easier for users of NetMail/3000. The software is still available in a free two user license from 3k Associates and operates with all of the popular PC mail clients. 3k founder Chris Bartram pointed out the freeware and paid sites of NetMail and DeskLink that spammers get axed quickly because of the company's anti-spam mission: "Next time you pick up your spam-filters update (a free service to all NetMail/Freeware customers) you will no longer be subject to this particular spammer. [We update our spam filters almost every day; users are encouraged to schedule their 'spamupd.job.threek' job stream -- included with every current release -- at least once a week] Bartram said the job stream automatically retrieves new copies of 3k spam filters (which filter by domain name as well as IP address/block) via anonymous FTP from the 3k FTP server. When was the last time that Microsoft gave you any help in blocking spam filling up those Exchange or Outlook mailboxes? Automating things that aren't even offered on other platforms feels like a great example of the 3000 Way. Keep those FTP addresses short in 6.0 for now The new anonymous FTP in MPE/iX 6.0 has got one limitation you may want to watch out for: password sizes. Gary Biggs reported that one of his e-mail addresses (a typical password) wasn't accepted by the new version of the FTP/iX server. HP 3000 lab engineers in Bangalore, India confirmed that the FTP has a 28-character limit for now. "Currently, there is a limitation on the size of the password to 28 characters. Yours just exceeded that! Hence it was rejected. Since anonymous FTP ignores the password field (for now ), I wouldn't worry about it!" HP's US-based 3000 engineers said the behavior has been filed as a Service Request, SR 5003442400. It's fixed in patch FTPFD91, a 6.0 patch now in beta test. Maestro is Y2K ready, says Tivoli HP 3000 sites using Maestro to manage datacenter jobs and events have a Year 2000-compliant version to work with, according to support staff at Tivoli -- the 1998 owners of the software once offered by Unison Software. Patrick Ancipink reported on the Maestro mailing list, maintained by AEC: "The Year 2000-Ready version of Maestro for MPE is D.01.47. - Previous Maestro versions were believed to be "compliant" based on Unison Software's definition. - The acquisition by Tivoli/IBM required retesting Maestro for IBM Year 2000 "readiness." Maestro versions 4.5.x, 5.0.x, and 5.1.x failed readiness testing. - Official Year 2000 Readiness reports for all Tivoli and IBM products can be generated on this IBM website: http://wwwyr2k.raleigh.ibm.com/servlet/MessageRouter/sw/Yr2k. - Extended Agents are all Year 2000 ready. They do not have date dependencies. For Year 2000 reporting, Extended Agents are a subset of the Maestro product and are not listed separately. Making porting easier from Posix to MPE Part of the Posix promise to 3000 customers was that it would deliver software ready for MPE use from other platforms. Piece by piece it's happening, as more people take a stab at porting Unix standbys like DNS. One way to get utilities onto 3000s involves re-compiling Posix/GNU C source code, a process that Posix wizard Mark Bixby has posted his experience on. "GNU stuff is usually very easy to port to MPE, once you get the configure script working properly. Lars Appel has a configure script generator you can use, or you can tweak the script manually as described at http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/portin g.html" "The MPE select() function doesn't work against terminal file descriptors, and other terminal I/O support is lacking. That's not to say that porting terminal-intensive applications is impossible, but rather it may be fairly difficult and unpleasant." Possible system performance issues in porting include the fork() function, which Bixby said "suffers from terrible performance. Network server daemons that fork() a child to handle each incoming socket connection will be slow. Servers that use a pre-forked child pool (like Apache) will offer much better performance." An MPE/iX enterprise backup alternative ships Denys Beauchemin of HICOMP America dropped us a note to point out that HiBack/iX, the enterprise backup solution which lets HP 3000s control backups across multiple-platform networks, has started shipping for HP 3000s. The software employs NT systems in its configuration as well, to give administrators a graphical user interface (GUI) for complex backups: "I think it's kind of neat to use a GUI on a Windows NT to run a backup on the HP 3000 and send the data anywhere you want on the network, or on attached devices," Beauchemin said. " It's also very neat to be able to restore to an MPE system a file anywhere on a DDS tape within a few minutes (actually closer to 30 seconds) when this tape drive is attached to an NT or UNIX box." HP usually invokes the name of Legato when it discusses MPE enterprise-wide backup these days, but that solution still demands the control reside on a system other than an HP 3000. Some sites might not be that comfortable with putting less-reliable platforms into the critical path of 3000 backups. There's more detail on the HiBack solution at HICOMP America's Web site, or you can call them at 281. 288.7438. A few DDX users will still endure an EOF bug While HP shipped out a fix for the EOF bug that was scrambling some datasets in the 3000 world, a few HP 3000 sites might still encounter the bug while using dynamic detail dataset expansion (DDX). Ron Tilby of Raytheon Aircraft reported on the Internet that his company "still had a problem with DBUTIL ERASE improperly modifying the dataset EOF when DDX is enabled. HP has reproduced this problem, and I'm told it is assigned SR # 5003438093." Adager database support expert Ken Paul helped us track down a little more data on the problem. While it's a rare one, the net result might be a loss of data in some cases: "This is a corner case problem with DBUTIL ERASE and DDX datasets that has always been there," Paul said, "and just happened to be found because of the other problem with DBUTIL ERASE. The problem only occurs when a dataset is using 100 percent of the block, which does not happen very often." HP reported that the problem will be fixed in the C.07.18 version of IMAGE, and a beta test patch (TIXKXJ7) to bring your IMAGE to that level should be available shortly. Copyright 1998, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.