DETAILS SURFACE ON NEW HP 3000 MIDRANGE ROLLOUT
Last Friday, HP briefed the NewsWire on the new HP 3000 systems code-named
Mohawk, and the interview gave us the lowdown on pricing and upgrade
details we didn't have when we sent our Flash Paper report to press last
month. The systems are priced higher than we'd hoped, with a starting cost
just above $100,000 for a single-processor 979KS/100 with peripherals,
system software, 128MB of RAM and IMAGE/SQL. On the other hand, this is the
new top of HP's midrange line, so you had to expect the 979s were going to
come in above the price point for the existing 9x9 hardware.
Some unexpected good news is that HP is running a short-lived sale on the upgrades to the 969 systems through the end of November. The discounts on upgrades are designed to get you onto the still-being-built 969s and 969x20s -- and off of the 959s and 939s. HP is discontinuing everything but the 969s and 979s in the Kittyhawk line.
The introduction delivers a 64-bit chip to the HP 3000s, but it's being used in 32-bit mode in this debut of the processor for MPE/iX. HP is investigating the prospect of enhancing its operating systems and its compilers to take full advantage of the speed in the new chip. In the meantime, applications written for earlier PA-RISC processors are completely compatible with the newest design.
Speaking of software, HP has bumped down the software tier of the 969s one notch through this 979 introduction. That means that HP's applications and subsystems will now cost less to deploy on 969s. HP even hinted that you could approach your third party solution providers with a request to lower those software costs as well. It's a move that seems to be designed to position the 969s as the middle of the 9x9 line, rather than increase the population at the top end of that range.
There's new peripheral news, too: HP-labeled DLT units and new DDS-3 tape drives will be available December 1, to increase capacities and backup speeds. DDS-3 offers 12Gb of capacity, and compression extends the limit to 24Gb. The $6,500 unit backs up at 3.6Gb per hour. HP's also offering the new DDS-3 units, which can read DDS-2 DAT tapes, in the rest of the HP 3000 lineup. On the low end, the 9x8 units will now a 4-Gb DDS tape unit included. You can get the new bundle on December 1, as well as order the DDS-3 and DLT standalone units. We have more details on the introduction in the November Flash Paper and in our November issue.
NEW PA-8200 CHIP PROMISES MORE SPEED INCREASES
Speed improvements over the 969X20s are only about 17 percent for the
newest PA-8000 based systems, based on the HP estimates of 3000 power
relative to the lowest-end Series 918. While HP said it will wring more pop
out of the chip in a forthcoming high-end introduction using the PA-8000,
the company is also talking more about the next 8000-class chip release,
the PA-8200. The 8200 runs at a 220MHz clock speed, and HP reported at the
recent Microprocessor Forum that it expects the chip to boost commercial
application performance by an average of 50 percent over PA-8000 levels.
HP is hiking the integer performance of the 8200 more than it has boosted floating point performance, which is good news for HP 3000 customers running business applications. HP is rolling out the first systems based on the PA-8200 in 1997, but hasn't yet hinted which computers will be the first to carry the new processors.
HP has increased the cache for the 8200, much like it boosted the Series 969s with the x20 models sporting a "fat cache." It has also improved branch prediction, an enhancement that's been at the center of the PA-RISC evolution over the last decade. HP always likes to talk about how it doesn't need outrageous clock speeds to make chips with leading speed; the shorthand in the lab is "brains rather than brawn." In contrast, the latest Digital Alpha designs run at 500 MHz.
Those brains include adjustments and improvements across the board, literally, from increased cache entries for branch prediction (up to 1,024 from 256 in the PA-8000), using next generation SRAM memory to increase the primary cache size to 2Mb (yes, that's right, 2Mb of cache on the processor board itself), and re-engineering the main memory subsystem to decrease "peak latencies" on the system by 45 percent. Better control of bits through memory is one of the fundamental advantages HP's engineers continue to reach for in PA-RISC, a design that can't have too much memory at hand.
WRQ SHIPS, AND HP ANNOUNCES, DESKTOP MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS
WRQ announced that it's begun to ship
Express Meter 3.5, its application that tracks software usage and
deployment across desktops in enterprises that include HP 3000s. (See our
Vol. 2, Issue one story for details). The WRQ product runs with Windows NT
4.0, Windows 95 and DOS, and can use any of several commercial servers as a
storehouse for the database of information about desktop software. That
list includes the HP 3000, although the management and implementation of
Express Meter happen on a desktop-class client. New features in the product
include reports that can optimize license management by calculating
potential savings through consolidation and re-deployment of desktop
software licenses. Express Meter can also let you "examine the potential
for user growth within a given network," according to WRQ's Paul Davis,
market manager for management software.
HP is also hopping aboard the fast-moving desktop management bandwagon with HP Desktop Asset Management. It's offering is built around the services of its Professional Services Organization, so it's aimed at pretty large organizations. Lane Nonnenberg of HP's Worldwide Customer Support Organization spent a good deal of his recent All Texas RUG keynote talking about Desktop Asset Management, and said HP was looking for installations in enterprises where there were 5,000 desktops or more. He also added the product and service combination was really designed for companies with more than 500 desktops at a minimum. WRQ's offering of Express Meter is priced at $1,300 for a 100-desktop license, so it's being geared for the smaller enterprise as well as mammoth installations.
Best of all, there's free software available to help you determine if desktop management software can help your company. WRQ is shipping the Express Meter Audit Kit to anybody, so you can monitor all application use across a network for up to 30 days as a trial. When you get the reports from the Audit Kit, you'll have the data you need to do your initial usage assessment. Call WRQ at 206.728.8300 to get your free kit, or download it.
HP SALES FORCE GETS MAGAZINE AWARD
Editors at a sales management magazine recently voted HP's sales the top
one in the United States, and the award merited a press release from HP's
PR department. Sales and Marketing Management gave the award to the HP
sales force on the basis of "its reputation of superior customer and
employee satisfaction," The magazine's editor added that "HP's strong
earnings and revenue growth over the last three years was a major factor in
the ranking." HP earned the editors' nod for the first time since 1993's
contest.
While the award drew a few snorts among HP 3000 customers who don't have such a high opinion of their own sales reps, it's important to note that the magazine's selection represents the opinion of its editors rather than a widespread survey. What's more, it's difficult to rank the efforts of thousands of individuals as a whole, so your mileage may vary. But the award at least provides HP with some kind of a reply to the declining satisfaction scores it earned on this year's Interex satisfaction survey. Those numbers showed that customers surveyed in the US were significantly happier with the efforts of their resellers than HP's own sales force. HP did note in its celebratory press release that "more effort is going into strengthening HP's partnerships with its best-in-class resellers." Why not, when some customers are saying that resellers are where they get the best sales information?
WATCH YOUR TAPE FIRMWARE BEFORE 5.5 INSTALLS
HP's upcoming tape introductions bring to mind an important warning note
well inside the latest Communicator on 5.5 installation. It seems that one
set of firmware for the HP DDS DAT devices prevents some files from being
restored from CMSTORE format tapes. It means that an AUTOINSTALL from the
drive could fail. The offending firmware is revision 7.11, and it impacts
the C1503B and C1520B drives. You can check your firmware with the
procedure listed in the Communicator on page 2-15, which basically tells
you to run SYSDIAG to look up the revision number. HP has a process for
upgrading your firmware which it will share with you when you call the
Response Center.
PING PROBLEM GETS ATTENTION FROM HP
Customers are reporting that a PING program included in Windows 95 and
Windows NT will be all you need to bring on an ABORT in an HP 3000 running
MPE/iX 5.0 or 5.5 on the same network. That, and some specific syntax your
users will need to feed the PING program. PINGing from an HP 9000 system
caused a system hang at another site, but no ABORT. HP is working on a
patch for 5.0 that will eliminate the problem, but it's still in testing as
we write this. Some customers are taking PING off desktop systems to narrow
their exposure. Call the Response Center about SR 4701338830 to get the
latest details.
Mike Hornsby of Beechglen Development reports on this method to test and see if you're exposed to the problem:
"How to test if a system, router, or printer is vulnerable: (WARNING THIS WILL RESULT IN A SYSTEM ABORT ON AN HP 3000!)
Ping -l 65510 ip-address(the -l is the send buffer size)
The system abort comes from a bug in the operating system when a 16 bit offset value overflows."
At least one member of the HP 3000 community wondered aloud what the legal exposure might be for somebody who publishes information such as the above, which could be used to bring a system down. In our opinion, it depends on your intentions. There is another school of thought which suggests any discussion of causes and cures for system crashes is secret information, not to be widely discussed at all. We won't try to change anybody's point of view about their school of thought. But then, our intentions are to help you close holes in your system security and maintain reliability.
So you know, warnings of security holes are commonly transmitted by HP several times a month, and all that information could be used to break into systems. We'd expect that a company of HP's size has a few lawyers who have looked into the matter and feel safe publishing this kind of information.
B-TREE TESTING STILL LOOKING FOR SITES
HP is still searching for customers who want to help with testing the new
B-tree indexing feature for TurboIMAGE and IMAGE/SQL. HP demonstrations at
HP World showed the feature could reduce a three-minute search to about
five seconds, so it's a powerful addition to your HP 3000 arsenal. Contract
HP's Bharati Desai at
bharati@cup.hp.com with your e-mail address, mailing
address, and telephone/fax information.
HIDDEN VALUE: CONTROLLING MULTIPLE LOG-ONS
Several clever users have provided their own hand-crafted solutions to the
problem of users logging in to a 3000 over and over. Tony Peters, the New
Technology Project Manager for S&C Electric Canada Ltd., offered this code
and comments:
"At S&C, have used a free method to accomplish the problem of multi logons by the use of a system wide logon UDC and with the use of a couple of command files. The method is cheap, the results are good, and I will try to summarize the implementation as follows:
SYSUDC.GROUP.SYS
----------------------
STARTMENU
OPTION LOGON,NOBREAK,NOLIST,NOHELP
SETVAR HPAUTOCONT TRUE <--Dont get hung on errors used for checking
SETVAR ESC CHR(27) <---/-- Used to easy allow editing of CMD files
SETVAR BELL CHR(7) <--/
IF HPINTERACTIVE THEN
IF NOT FINFO('!["!HPUSER"+".MLOGON.ACCT"]','EXISTS') THEN
IF NOT FINFO('!["!HPACCOUNT"+".MLOGON.ACCT"]','EXISTS') THEN
SETVAR HPMSGFENCE 1 ^--\Checks for existence of a file
ERRCLEAR \by user name then account name
TELL !HPUSER.!HPACCOUNT; MULTI LOGON ON !HPLDEVIN
IF CIERROR<>1619 AND CIERROR<>1620 THEN <-- (if User logged
SETVAR HPMSGFENCE 0 on already)
XEQ MLOGON.CMD.ACCT
IF "!SCMULTI"<>"YES" THEN
BYE
ENDIF
ENDIF
SETVAR HPMSGFENCE 0
ENDIF
ENDIF
.
.
.
.
ENDIF
----------------------------------
MLOGON.CMD.ACCT
OPTION nobreak,nohelp,nolist
ECHO ![ESC]H![ESC]J <---Homes and Clears screen
ECHO *****************************************************
ECHO *****************************************************
ECHO ** **
ECHO ** **
ECHO ** Y O U A R E A L R E A D Y **
ECHO ** L O G G E D O N O N C E . **
ECHO ** **
ECHO ** **
ECHO ** CONTACT OPERATIONS FOR A MULTI ACCESS CODE OR **
ECHO ** TYPE BYE TO RELEASE THE TERMINAL. **
ECHO ** **
ECHO ** PAGER: 81-34 **
ECHO ** PHONE: OPERATIONS Extn 999 **
ECHO ** TONY - Extn 999 **
ECHO *****************************************************
ECHO *****************************************************
ECHO
ECHO
SETVAR SCMULTI "YES"
SETVAR SCCODE 0
CONTINUE
SETVAR HPMSGFENCE 2
CONTINUE
WHILE "!SCCODE"<>"![!HPMONTH*!HPHOUR*(!HPMINUTE/2+1)*!HPDAY*!HPDATE*11]"
CONTINUE
INPUT SCCODE;PROMPT="INPUT CODE FROM OPERATIONS OR BYE?";WAIT=90
CONTINUE
IF "!SCCODE"="BYE" OR "!SCCODE"="0" THEN
CONTINUE
SETVAR SCMULTI "NO"
CONTINUE
SETVAR SCCODE "![!HPMONTH*!HPHOUR*(!HPMINUTE/2+1)*!HPDAY*!HPDATE*11]"
ENDIF
ENDWHILE
SETVAR HPMSGFENCE 0
The code inside the While loop locks the users screen until they input a code from Operations, or type BYE to sign off. The code is an algorythm which changes every 2 minutes. Varying the constant (11) will drastically change the resultant number ranges.
Operations uses the following command file to issue a release code for the user which will allow a multi logon on a one time basis.
:Help Relcode
USER DEFINED COMMAND FILE: RELCODE.CMD.ACCT
ECHO THE RELEASE CODE FOR FREEING A TERMINAL IS:
ECHO ![!HPMONTH*!HPHOUR*(!HPMINUTE/2+1)*!HPDAY*!HPDATE*11]
ECHO ------------
------------------------------------
:LISTF @.MLOGON.COM,2
ACCOUNT= ACCT GROUP= MLOGON
FILENAME CODE ------------LOGICAL RECORD----------- ----SPACE----
SIZE TYP EOF LIMIT R/B SECTORS #X MX
PROG 72B FA 1 4 3 16 1 1
GEORGE 72B FA 1 4 3 16 1 1
MANAGER 72B FA 1 4 3 16 1 1
MGR 72B FA 1 4 3 16 1 1
TECHOP 72B FA 1 4 3 16 1 1
If a file exists with a user name or an account name in this group, that user will be automatically allowed multiple log on capability. PROG and TECHOP are accounts, the rest are users. Contents of one of the files is shown below.
:PRINT MGR.MLOGON.ACCT
ALLOW USER MULTI LOG ON CAPABILITY
^-- Actual contents of file is not important, only that the file
exists.
This method is somewhat crude, but is FREE and handles all the situations we have encountered. It does not interfere with our programmers having multiple sessions and it allows operations to let someone log on twice if there is a good reason on a one time basis, or by creating a file in the MLOGON group, on a more permanent basis.
BROWSE AND SEARCH THE 3000-L ARCHIVES
Jeff Kell, curator of the mighty 3000-L Internet mailing list and friend of
the HP 3000, recently spruced up the list's archives while transferring the
data off of the mainframe at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
You can now search for a subject from a Web interface, or send simpler
commands by e-mail to get text of messages sent over the wide-ranging list
server. Of course, you'll still have to wade through the sometimes verbose
communication of the 3000-L list, but it's a great reference for
discussions that go all the way back to 1993.
Jeff says, "It is with MUCH pleasure that I can finally announce the availability of HP3000-L/comp.sys.hp.mpe archives, current articles, and archive search facilities at http://raven.utc.edu/ar chives/hp3000-l for your perusal. You can view current postings, past archives, search subjects, keywords, authors, date ranges, etc."
The Web interface is fun and easy, and can certainly while away a long compile time easily just hunting for things like "sales force" or "Web server". If you don't have Web access, Kell has simplified the syntax you need to mail to the list site to get messages sent back:
"The database search facility is in an improved, easy-to-swallow no-MVS-looking-JCL format. Forget all you learned about the old //search JOB and //pattern dd * stuff.
To search the archives, just send the "search" command itself to listserv@raven.utc.edu, for example: search * in hp3000-l where subject contains 'client'
This will send you back an "index" of postings containing your requested search word. You can then use the 'getpost' command to retrieve the archived article in question. It's fairly intuitive and requires none of the former "JCL-looking" syntax.
If you are searching the archives, especially a keyword search (e.g., "search Posix in hp3000-l", as opposed to "search * in hp3000-l where subject contains 'Posix'") you can speed things up by including a qualifier at the end "since Jan 1995" or other suitable starting date as the archives go back to 1993."
DATANOW REGROUPS TO IDAHO
It's a real testament to a person's life-work when it can outlive you, and
that's apparently the case with Marion Guerin and his DataNow product.
DataNow is a easy-to-use report writer for the HP 3000 that can be used to
access TurboIMAGE databases, KSAM files, and ASCII files. It also allows
users with appropriate security to update fields in the TurboIMAGE
databases. We profiled the software in action in our March issue, and
Guerin passed away suddenly not long after that. Now we've gotten word that
Idaho Computer Services has picked up the product and will handle all
sales, enhancements, maintenance and questions. Contact them at
208.734.2245; e-mail can be sent to datanow@magiclink.com.