Number 75 (Update of Volume 7, Issue 8)

Nobix signs distribution agreement with Client Systems

In a deal that illustrates how HP 3000 suppliers plan to extend their businesses beyond that server, Nobix and Client Systems announced an agreement to distribute software to resellers of HP 3000 hardware and applications.

Nobix, calling itself "a leading comprehensive IT management tools software manufacturer," has signed an agreement with Client Systems, LLC -- the latter company described in the press release as "a value-added distributor of business-to-business technology solutions." Client Systems' primary business since 1999 has been as the exclusive distributor of HP's 3000 hardware to resellers in North America. HP announced in November that it will stop sales of the system in October, 2003. One business activity that Client Systems wants to expand in the coming months is such software distribution pacts, using its base of 20-plus 3000 resellers as the channel for vendors' products.

In addition to Nobix’s flagship JobPak product line for the HP 3000 featuring JobRescue, JobQue, and ElectroPage, Client Systems will distribute Nobix's TranSpooler. That print distribution software and output management application runs on the HP 3000, but Nobix is reaching into non-3000 markets with versions which run on Unix (HP, IBM and Sun), Linux and Windows platforms.

The multi-platform TranSpooler "automatically directs print files generated on any host to any other host or printer on the same network," according to the Nobix release. "By offloading spoolfiles to network or dedicated printers, TranSpooler optimizes network and printing resources, making it ideal for strategic, multi-platform, enterprise-wide information delivery. Documents can then be printed, e-mailed, faxed or displayed on the Internet/intranet."

TranSpooler's admin tools include a configuration manager and Windows-based client applications for managing and monitoring spoolfile transfers on multiple servers from a single point of access. One of the modules, TCM, can be used to create configuration instructions in advance, on the fly, or use configurations copied from other systems. Administrators can override sending or receiving instructions, and redirect or stop output.

Nobix said its distribution agreement with Client Systems "emphasizes the commitment by both organizations to supporting and working closely with the HP e3000 community. This is a great opportunity for those making the transition to new computing systems to benefit from an enhanced computing environment. Nobix and Client Systems will provide the training and support necessary for resellers to maintain their knowledge and application of this new output management technology." 

HP 3000 safe from BIND security warning

A CERT security advisory about the domain name software BIND does not apply to HP 3000 systems, according to the HP engineer who ported bind to the 3000. A flaw in BIND, which translates text-based Internet domain names into numerical addresses, can make parts of the Interenet vulnerable to denial of service attacks. But the HP 3000's version of BIND is a little behind the cutting edge, and so remains safe for use.

"MPE is running BIND 8, which is not subject to this vulnerability, which only affects BIND 9," said HP's Mark Bixby. Other HP server systems are vulnerable, including the HP Secure version of Linux -- which also exhibited security vulnerabilities in the chat program xchat and print utility ghostscript last week. for more details on patching the denial of service potential for BIND on other HP severs, see the CERT official advisory. If you're using only an HP 3000, you can move on to other work and enjoy your security.

Perl script language rolls to improved version

The scripting tool that many Web developers have come to rely upon is getting an improved version for the HP 3000. HP announced that Perl 5.8.0 is now available on invent3k, the public access development server HP opened for free last year. The new distribution is getting ready to gain General Release status as part of HP's official MPE/iX operating system. "If you are heavily into Perl on MPE," said Perl's advocate engineer Mark Bixby in an Internet posting, "you might want to test your stuff on invent3k to make sure it's happy with this release candidate." Bixby asks Perl users to report any suspected porting problems to mark@bixby.org right away, "so I can try to get them fixed before 5.8.0 goes GR."

Anyone who doesn't already have an invent3k logon can register for an account and space on the free server at: jazz.external.hp.com/pads

HP promises faster layoffs, more savings

After our May issue report on the merger with Compaq, HP followed up with investment analysts in June 4 meetings by reporting that the majority of the company's layoffs would be executed by November of this year. A reorganization of the existing resources for the HP 3000 operations looks like the only near-term effect of the merger, but we'll be checking with new 3000 leader Dave Wilde soon for an update on the impact.

Meanwhile, HP promised an extra half-billion dollars in savings during the analyst meetings, running the expected total to $3 billion by 2004. Savings through October of this year will amount to $390 million, and the improved cost savings overall will come as a result of a more rapid work force reduction. A voluntary retirement program will help the new HP eliminate 10,000 workers by the end of October; the other 5,000 jobs will be eliminated by October, 2003. HP is also eliminating 19 percent of its office space as part of the savings program, selling off real estate and putting workers into telecommuting mode.

CEO Carly Fiorina and her top financial manager CFO Bob Wayman had little encouraging news about the company's sales outlook. HP had assured stockholders the reduction in its revenues would be limited to 5 percent after the merger, but now Wayman is forecasting a second-half falloff of up to 7 percent from first-half revenues. Fiorina said HP now doesn't even expect a few percentage points of growth in the tech industry later this year, or growth of 10 percent during fiscal 2004. The stalled tech economy apparently goes far beyond any HP product or sector.

"We are seeing a slower recovery in IT spending than any one of us would have liked," she said. Despite the gloomy overall IT forecast, Wayman said HP's revenue will grow 4-6 percent in fiscal 2003, and increase 7-9 percent in fiscal year 2004. Profits projects were not part of HP's financial intelligence report.

HP continues to lose money in its server business, especially its enterprise computing unit. New president Michael Capellas, who said that he expects Linux to "totally eviscerate the Unix midrange market," said the enterprise computing business would return to profitability in fiscal 2003, along with HP's unprofitable PC business. The company's printing and imaging business, with an unchecked string of profitable quarters, will generate more than $10 billion in sales through October. HP expects its print and image business to grow 10 percent a year during the next several years.

CE savvy dropping, and a phone support trick

HP 3000 customers continue to report that HP's on-site service reps are arriving without some basic MPE knowledge, a level of instructions 3000 owners have come to expect. After one manager said an HP Customer Engineer showed up to replace a disk drive and didn't know how to perform a required VOLUTIL operation, veterans advised that customers reset their expectations about what HP's staff should know when they arrive to service systems.

"Don't expect the CE to do anything software related," said 3000-L mail list administrator Jeff Kell in an Internet posting. "You should be able to shutdown before turning the system over to them, and start it back yourself (from a possible worst-case scenario) after they are finished with the hardware." A few third-party service companies noted their on-site engineers would know about VOLUTIL, and charge a lot less than HP's rates.

Response Center engineers provide a different level of service, Kell added. He forwarded a useful tip about telephone service requests as well. "If you have a system abort, call the Response Center to report a system down, and while you're on hold, start a DUMP. When the engineer comes online, describe the dump. If he says, "Oh, that is a known problem report #blah-blah, (please reboot and we will send you a patch)." At that point you can abort the dump and reboot. Only if they are surprised by your problem and really WANT a dump do you let it finish. This can save lots of time if you have lots of memory."

HP heads for Partner Forum at month's end

While IBM continues to educate HP developers and consultants about the potential of its iSeries server, HP has been preparing its own pitch about altenatives to the HP 3000. A Partner Forum covering two full days, from June 24-26 will be held in HP's Executive Briefing Center in Cupertino, Calif. for 2 full days. The meeting designed for HP's existing 3000 channel partners is designed to help independent software vendors stay connected with HP, by showing them the advantages of HP's Linux, Unix and NT solutions. Channel partners can browse to www.hp.com/go/partnerforum for the agenda and registration.

Hidden Value: Definitions while adding datasets

A reader asks, "I am trying to add a new dataset and have a question. When I try to define the item SSN, I am using X9 as my definition. I get the message that an 'X-Type must have an even number of total bytes.' Why is this so? I am not sure what the SubItemCount is, but I assumed it was the order of my field in the dataset (which should be first).I know that my definition (SubItemCount * SubItemLength) must be even, but I am not sure how to define a PIC X(9) field in my COBOL progam to match this field in my dataset and get an even number."

Denys Beauchemin, Robert Mills and Tom Brandt reply:

You are going to have to define SSN as a 10 or 12 character field. Use 10 for 9 with a blank or 12 for 9 plus the 2 dashes and a trailing blank.

The subitemcount is basically an array construct: address 4X10 gives you a 40 character storage space where you can reference address(1)..address(4) as independent values of X10 each in Query and other such things. However, think of the data being really stored as X40. For characters (X, U, etc) the product of aXb must be even (5X6 is valid, 5X5 is not.) In your case 1X9 is not valid.

PatchWatch: Fix the free job queue feature in 6.0

Patch MPEMX43A for MPE/iX 6.0 has been general released from HP's Response Center, a repair of the multiple job queues functionality first introduced in MPE/iX 6.0. The patch fixes conditions where jobs can fail to logon if there is a duplicate :JOBQ= option on the jobcard, or when the multiple job queue total counter gets out of sync. The patch "is a rework of fixes originally presented in patch MPELXV2. For 6.5 and 7.0, patch MPEMX28 backs out improper fixes in MPELXV2 and patch MPEMX43 reinstates the proper fixes from MPELXV2. For 6.0 patch MPEMX43 overlays the improper fixes from MPELXV2."

HP also recommends that patch MPEMX29 also be installed, to get new CIERR error messages. Data loss or corruption could be experienced without the patch, HP adds.

Copying a patch tape: how-to

Allegro Consultants continues to provide help for HP 3000 sites through software it's writing as well as advice offered for free. One HP 3000 manager wanted to know if an HP patch tape could be copied to a 3000 disk, then transferred over NS to recreate it on the other system.

Stan Sieler stepped up to offer a mini-tutorial on copying patches and HP 3000 CSLTs:

"Various CSL and/or jazz.external.hp.com utilities purport to copy tapes, usually requiring two tape drives. Other people have suggested one or two. Also, STORE tapes can be copied to STORE-to-disk format disk files, again with CSL and/or jazz utilities already mentioned (TAPECOPY, IIRC) (although I don't know if TAPECOPY can take a STORE-to-disk file and create a STORE tape from it).

"The problem with such tape copying/reading utilities is that they use the file system to read the tape. FOPEN & FREAD limit the maximum record size you can use to 16383 half words (32766 bytes). (Note: the Jazz TAPECOPY limit is 32760 bytes...I've asked the author why :)

"However, some software (e.g., STORE) bypasses the file system when writing to tape. According to ":HELP STORE, ALL", STORE will use record sizes up to "32KB" in some circumstances. *If* they reallllly mean 32,768 bytes, that would mean creating tapes with records that one cannot read via the file system.

"Our TAPEDISK product (Info at www.allegro.com/products/hp3000/tapedisk.html) happens to address your question. It can read very large records (larger than the file system limit), and it can either copy tape to tape, or tape to disk (optionally compressed) and then (later) back to tape.

"In general, when you're writing code to read a tape, *ALWAYS* ask for (i.e., FREAD/fread) at least two bytes more than you think the tape record will be. Thus, if you're reading a tape you're *SURE* has records of 100 bytes, ask for 102 bytes. If you ever get the exact number of bytes you requested, then you know that something fishy is going on...the tape records were bigger than you expected!

"I can cite at least one instance where the lack of code like this caused serious problems on the Classic HP 3000. A tape copy program that assumed STORE tapes had 8192 word (byte?) records silently lost data when copying a STORE tape with 16384 word (byte?) records."

New healthcare regs surface for Amisys sites

Following up on our May issue's examination of Amisys plans for its Unix port of its application, we learned that IT managers and companies running healthcare applications on HP 3000s have until July 1 to comment on two new regulations from the US government, according to watchers of the HIPAA process.

In the US Federal Register, three new rules have been published since the end of May. The first is the final rule adopting a standard for a National Employer Identifier. This standard will be the Employer Identifier Number issued by the Internal Revenue Service. The rule can be viewed at:

frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-13616-filed.pdf

Among the new US regulations, there's a proposed rule retracting the adoption of the NDC code as the standard code for drugs (except for retail pharmacy transactions, where it will stay). This proposed rule can be viewed at:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-13614-filed.pdf

Comments on this rule can be sent electronically to cms0003@cms.hhs.gov.

A second proposed rule adopts the addenda to the HIPAA implementation guides, developed by the DSMOs, to be part of the HIPAA transaction standards. This proposed rule can be viewed at:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-13615-filed.pdf

Comments on this rule can be sent electronically to cms0005@cms.hhs.gov.

The information comes from from the HIPAA-Regs listserv, operated by the US Department of Health and Human Services. To subscribe to the listserv, go to aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/lsnotify.htm