Hiring older developers is nouveau again Federal labor reports show that programmers age like wines, even as they become more rare Migration is the same as legacy modernization when it comes to its Independent HP 3000 Information August 2013 end result. That’s change, even if the applications that move from the 3000 world still look and act just as they All migration servers live did on an HP 3000. Migration sounds more drastic because it describes the transition of apps from one platform to together in new HP group another. Modernization — especially in the hands of services companies — Reorganized HP units now 2013. Randy Meyer has been named as takes smaller steps but still wants to combine industry standard the GM of many products. Results for shift operations toward something more replacements with Unix, Linux the first combined quarter were set for popular, newer, and easier to hire for. reporting on August 22. However, that ease can Quietly this year, Hewlett-Packard says the combination become a disappointment WIRE HP reorganized its of these groups will quicken the pace of S .CO if the only goal is to hire EW M server operations. something the vendor calls “the speed of N / newer and younger 0 B Under the cover of an transformation of the server industry.” 0 L programmers who 0 O announcement of a new While the un-migrated 3000 customer work cheaper. A 3 G Converged Systems evaluates platform options, they’ve recent study showed for group, Hewlett-Packard been watching a transformation which that the older 3 probably didn’t seem to require more 0 combined its Intel Xeon- G programmer is not 0 based server business speed. Business Critical Servers (BCS), only a better value, but 0 O the home of Integrity/Itanium operations, N L with the specialized now in shorter supply. E /B Itanium-based server has been on a speedy path to a slimmer W M Bruce Hobbs, a veteran S O products. The new unit profile at HP for nearly two years. 3000 developer, pointed WIRE.C hasn’t reported its results yet; Integrity servers have become a tough out the article in IT World the reorg took place just at the sell to new customers, but a preferred which said, “Like a fine wine, end of the second HP quarter of fiscal See HP server reorg, page 6 programmers get better with age.” Researchers from the computer science department at North Carolina State University have released a study HP 3000 terminal emulation in which they examined whether programming knowledge gets better with age. Specifically, they used data on over 84,000 members of the Stack arrives on iPad screens Overflow website community: the App emerges after decades of 3000 emulation from Turbosoft questions they ask and answer in that forum, and the site reputations for An Australian software company, Turbosoft, has unveiled the first iPad app that will each user as proxies for the general emulate HP 3000 terminals, including emulation of block mode. While the functionality population of programmers and their of TTerm Pro is being reviewed elsewhere in this issue, the community might review level of programming knowledge. the costs of delivering a 3000 terminal interface to the world’s most-purchased tablet. Does age have a positive effect on Art Haddad made the first mention of TTerm on the HP 3000 programming knowledge? Community group of LinkedIn. Turbosoft wasn’t on some radar Do older programmers possess a screens for MPE-ready software, but TTerm’s Pro version for wider variety of technologies and skills? Windows has been on offer for 3000s for about 20 years. To what degree do older programmers “TTerm definitely supports Telnet connections, and the [HP learn new technologies? 3000] emulations are complete,” Haddad said. “Turbosoft has 3000 managers who are planning for been developing terminal emulation software since 1986 and the future know it’s not easy to find a the HP series of terminals has been in its Windows-based products from the early senior programmer. “I’ll be looking for 1990s. The main feature advantage that our Windows products have over the iPad range is NS-VT support, as well as scripting. However, there is a plan to add NS-VT See Older programmers, page 8 See iPad terminals, page 6 The Support Group The Right Answer When Things Go Wrong

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Providing companies with peace of mind since 1994 800.798.9862 www.supgrp.com Contents August 2013 All migration servers from HP now live together after reorganization — Addresses and Quietly this summer, Hewlett-Packard has consolidated the operations which replace 3000 servers, putting its Industry Standard Windows/Linux sales alongside personalities the troubled Business Critical Systems unit that sells HP-UX environments — 1 HP 3000 terminal emulation arrives on iPad screens — Users can access change, not souls MPE/iX applications via the world’s best-selling tablet, now that Turbosoft has I’m back in front of my keyboard tonight, released an iOS version of TTerm Pro, which has emulated terminals 20 years — 1 sweaty and a little sore, but happy. This Hiring older developers is nouveau again — Federal labor reports help to show week I’m helping my son and his family that programmers age like fine wine, improving their productivity even while they’re move into a new house, hefting the boxes becoming a development asset in shorter supply — 1 that must be toted through our August heat. We screwed together IKEA furniture HP sets end of sales date for OpenVMS servers — It outlasted the MPE by more in his dining room full of hardwood floors, than 11 years, but OpenVMS got its marching orders to trigger another HP-sparked high vaulted ceilings, and booming AC. migration. Homesteading starts when Integrity i2 boxes stop sales in 2015 — 10 But amid all of that change — a closer Emulator speed working up to N-Class peaks — The fastest three N-Class serv- address, a vast backyard on a hill, the ers that HP ever built are still on the horizon for CHARON to match — 12 mysteries of 5.1 built-in stereo wiring and the charm of a private deck off their Staff’s collective age triggers 3000 migration — A pair of 3000 veterans in master suite — I looked at him and saw their late 60s and early 70s choose a fresh-faced future for their firm — 12 something that didn’t change. His address, Terminals on tablets open new screen doors, by Jon Diercks — A mini-review his personality, his body, they all changed. from the creator of the MPE/iX Administration Handbook shows that the first iPad But there’s one part of any of us that app for 3000 terminals includes block mode capabilities — 14 remains the same. It’s our soul, the true Server replacement unit at HP continues its decline — HP edged away from self and the part of us that witnesses all overall losing quarters, but the BCS unit making Integrity continued its slide — 15 the changes. In order to have an awareness of a soul, Would you like fries with that? by Alan Yeo — A different kind of UPS is the order there must be change for it to observe. My for a true power protection, after a storm’s surges fell an HP 3000 — 16 son’s new house for his family. The length Q&A: Rich Pugh, Making Real Customers from Virtualization — The new of his hair, along with the banking he does senior VP of sales and services at Stromasys provides updates on how the vendor of for a career. The happy chatter of his little the PA-RISC emulator is turning prospects into customers — 20 4-year-old, the humming buzz of his wife’s family all come to visit and help with the The Wide World of the Web — 22 moving. None of that was the same seven years ago, and especially not seven years We thank the following sponsors of The 3000 NewsWire whose support of the earlier. Once you have a life that builds its HP 3000 community has made this issue possible. Support them to support us. legacy of changes, you lay claim to a soul. Phone Page Personality does change, but a soul Adager...... 208-726-9100 ...... 24 keeps you grounded. Like the 3000 user, Blueline Services...... 877-464-2583 ...... 13 the IT pro who’s had a dozen chances to Fresche Legacy ...... 514-747-7007...... 9 change in their career by now. They have a Marxmeier Software AG ...... www ma. rxmeier co. m/eloquence ...... 5 machine with an old soul — a quality that MB Foster Associates ...... 800-ANSWERS ...... 23 I’d aspire to in my youth, the old hinting MPE Support Group...... www mp. esupportgroup co. m...... 11 at meaning, gravity and certainty. Now we Pivital Solutions ...... www p. ivitalsolutions co. m ...... 4 are learning that it’s not HP’s hardware Robelle ...... 888-762-3553 ...... 19 that created that old soul. It’s MPE, the ScreenJet...... www s. creenjet co. m ...... 9, 14 one constant over 40 years of models, Stromasys...... www s. tromasys co. m ...... 7 revisions, changes to the hardware. the Support Group inc...... www s. upgrp co. m...... 2 HP called it MPE V when I began this chronicle of coverage, 29 years ago. Then How to contact the 3000 NewsWire it became MPE/XL, then MPE/iX. But it’s Editor ISSN 1521-124X always had IMAGE and MPE at its heart. Ron Seybold ([email protected]) 512-331-0075 The 3000 NewsWire is published These are the elements that make up the Twitter: @3000newswire • Skype: ronseybold four times yearly, plus electronic updates, by 3000 NewsWire LLC. awareness which is the 3000’s soul. Publisher If it’s possible to connect with that Abby Lentz ([email protected]) Contents of this publication may not be reproduced in any form soul, we do it by listening to the sound Homesteading Editor: Gilles Schipper without express permission of the At-Large Editor: Birket Foster publisher. Non-bylined articles are of our spirit. Was it really so different to written by the editor. Publisher back a van down Nick’s new driveway, News blog with business-day reports: 3000newswire.com/blog believes all information printed my Caravan loaded up with his boxes, Archived news & tech articles: 3000newswire.com/searchnw.html here to be true, but cannot assume responsibility for errors. © 3000 than when he was 19 and moving into Voicemail, alternate e-mail: 512.331.0075; [email protected] NewsWire LLC. All rights reserved. Deliveries & mail: 11702 Buckingham Road, Austin, TX 78759 Printed in the U.S.A. See Souls, page 4 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 3 than 20 years. No matter what else they the years to come. That soul will live in a Souls choose next in their career, it’s MPE that new address, at the curb of the hardware remains in their soul. house of Intel. Nothing will be the same (Continued from page 3) It’s easy to think of technology like MPE in this virtualized computer’s world his first apartment? Was it so different as something that can be changed, like except its soul. People call this computer to help him help himself this time, with a personality. The Gartner Group calls an HP 3000, but it’s really an MPE a wife and two small boys back at his operating environments like MPE and server. Memory, CPUs, motherboards, old house, packing up to follow him a Unix personalities these days. Not as storage, power supplies, networking — short drive away? I felt the same spirit important as it once was, that personality every part of it has changed over the 29 in me as I did 19 summers ago, leading — this is what we’re told. A personality years I’ve observed. Except that soul, him along on a nine-state baseball tour, is certainly more readily changed, like an that constant observer of the family of doing all I could to kindle my hope that address in a new neighborhood, or the applications making a company buzz he was happy. Today it was easier. I paint on the curb at Nick’s house. Fans like grandparents in a summertime pool, heard a voice within me, observing the of Louisiana State lived there, so there’s both catching a boy who leaps into their happiness on his face. It was the look of a purple rectangle on the curb with arms. That boy was Nick, two decades accomplishment I probably saw. His, and LSU next to the house number. It will ago. Now it’s his son we catch. The act of maybe mine, too. probably become a rectangle of Cowboys catching, cradling accomplishments over The 3000 users already have blue before football season ends. decades — that’s the soul of a family. accomplished so much. Nearly all of Your MPE, your computing soul, is It’s tempting to believe that the richness them have worked with MPE for more getting a new address this year and for in that accomplishment is something you’d retain while changing a computing personality. Like gifts of wiring database- handling into filesystem commands — an old soul trait in computing — might be enjoyed with less-integrated choices. I believe the 3000’s soul is important, just like I believe its hardware is the personality and body that changes all the time. People cherish MPE servers. Being cherished means going beyond reason to revere all that brought you together. The sun poured through the many windows at Nick’s new house this afternoon as we built a dining room table and chairs, then hung an IKEA silver- framed mirror on the wall alongside that table. Outside, there was a screech owl house tacked up on the big oak, a tree nestled in a patch of jasmine. All so different than his box of an apartment where I helped him move a futon up three flights as a young man. A family makes a home, while an address just makes a house. MPE made a 3000, while hardware makes a computer. I was missing my own house before too long tonight, but I was really missing the soul makes it my home — my wife Abby, the G’ma to go with my own role as G’pa. A user who chooses an emulator seeks a virtual home to cherish their very real, very unbreakable MPE soul. The natural state of every computer system is virtualization. Being cherished, that’s something you cannot virtualize like you change hardware personality. Like the Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit, only the love of an owner can make software like MPE that becomes Real. The Skin Horse said about the soul of that becoming Real, “it takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.” — Ron Seybold 4 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog Eloquence – enhanced data protection

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Marxmeier Software AG Kasinostrasse 19 - 21 42103 Wuppertal, Germany Phone: +49 202 2 43 14 40 Fax: +49 202 2 43 14 20 [email protected] the code that you’re got and put it onto an iPad terminals iPad. It’s just not possible.” In the summer of 2010 we reported on HP server reorg (Continued from page 1) another terminal emulator that was going (Continued from page 1) support to TTerm Pro in the not too distant to appear on the iPad, but that project path for existing companies that have future.” didn’t come to fruition. Haddad’s insight — a lot invested already in HP’s Unix. Haddad, who works from Australia but like confirming that it’s between two and Obviously, the 3000 site which actually takes calls in North American three weeks from release to Apple to the hasn’t made a move yet won’t have West Coast time (that’s an early workday update availability — shows how tough much invested in HP-UX or Integrity. there) also gave insights on what it’s like some apps can be to craft. But that company may already to sell on the About the have operations elsewhere that use Apple App only other Integrity boxes. That may be the place Store. TTerm software where Integrity can still claim some was already developer fresh datacenter real estate, but those evolving in the MPE won’t be new customers. when it community HP started talking to Integrity was first who’s shown customers about this at its HP introduced. the stamina Discover event this summer. That But an to release message was brimming with more improved an iOS app detail on the level of management version was is Allegro change inside Hewlett-Packard’s going to Consultants. server group. take a few more weeks of reviewing and Its iAdmin app is coupled with a back-end In a note to NonStop users (also approval time before Apple would sell it. service to track crucial system data like captive to the Integrity line), VP and (Apple’s system will then notify any user CPU use and disk capacity, among other GM of Integrity Servers Randy Meyer who’d bought the app that a newer version markers. said HP’s compression of servers has could be downloaded. The notice is inside In addition to its 2392, 700/94 and no impact on its level of commitment. the App Store app, in what is probably a 700/92 emulation, TTerm Pro emulates “We are an important part of the crowded Updates section.) terminals from 20 other vendors. Some of HP Server organization, and we’ll Somehow, Apple has turned around the these vendors have not shipped systems continue to deliver the quality and usual software formula: now sales and in two decades: Stratus, Siemens Nixdorf value that you depend upon to run delivery has been made to lag behind and Televideo come up on the supported your business,” the letter states. development. This situation might serve terminals list. It’s all true, but a NonStop customer to explain a little about the $49.95 price This is an iPad version of a $125 has now seen Winston Prather (long for the app. It only Windows 7 product, so ago, the HP 3000 GM) leave NonStop, seems pricey until a Turbosoft took the perhaps this app is not and then the recently-promoted Ric 3000 manager goes challenge of bringing a as pricey as it might Lewis depart as NonStop GM. Lewis to look for another seem compared to a “has moved up, but he’s not moving terminal emulator multiple-terminal emulator 99-cent Angry Birds, or very far. He still owns the NonStop app — on any tablet. even the top-notch PDF business, and is still deeply invested Not just Apple’s. through the Apple iOS reader, annotator, and in its success,” Meyer reported. There is no other development rigors filer GoodReader selling Even as a one slice of HP’s server HP 3000 terminal at $4.99. It’s a similar industry, HP’s packed a lot of app for an iPad, although there are a situation that Stromasys is tackling with business in there. “Within Enterprise number of telnet-only terminal programs its HP 3000 hardware virtualizer, CHARON Servers, we have created an Integrity that can log on to a 3000. Haddad’s HPA/3000. Just like Louis C.K. jokes in Servers business focused on HP’s company took the challenge of bringing his comedy routine about in-flight WiFi, mission critical portfolio include a multiple-terminal emulator through the the miracle of these products is getting NonStop systems, Integrity server, Apple iOS development rigors, as well as overlooked by our altered reality about and HP-UX and OpenVMS operating getting it sold in the only place you can buy software value. environments.” an iOS app. That’s a vendor-controlled store. This value issue is also the dilemma the This is a better explanation of This month a US court threw out a lawsuit HP 3000 faced at Hewlett-Packard, after the what the market’s speedy against Apple, one that claimed the vendor commodity systems entered its price list. transformation produces: fewer should not limit iOS customers to buying Lowering a price can be a way to lower managers, combined resources and apps through the App Store. the perception of value. HP carried the operations, and a single line on the Haddad has nothing to do with the suit, holding up of its pricing to an extreme that HP quarterly report. It now says but did comment on how the Windows flattened customer base growth. Integrity Servers, not BCS. Now HP’s version of TTerm gave his company no But like getting an iOS program written resizing it and aligning it with the advantage in creating an iOS release. and updated in the App Store, keeping a rest of its enterprise server offerings “We’ve been developing the app for what 3000’s value in line with 2013 expectations that use a popular Intel architecture. feels like forever,” he said. “We’ve spent a is tricky. That is, until you hear Louis C.K. When these were Industry Standard lot on it. Apple is not the easiest company shout about overlooked magic — like and Servers and Business Critical to develop software for. With Apple we a 40-year-old OS built well enough to Systems, BCS took the heat. The word pretty much had to start from scratch. continue running companies, firms which Integrity will now supplant BCS. They’re very firm about that. You can’t take want to use their system via an iPad. 6 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog Frustrated by your HP3000 system?

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The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 7 technical choices, and the human Older developers resources that (Continued from page 1) understand them, a couple of experienced HP 3000 MPE are more costly, resources very soon,” said one IT director because these recently, “and I know they won’t be easy to programmers are find. Been there and done that.” harder to find. At the Stack Overflow site, younger As it turns out, programmers demonstrated a shorter the value in a range of knowledge, asked and answered programmer is questions about a narrower set of topics, correlated with and even scored lower than programmers knowledge rather in their 30s about nouveau topics such as than age. But the iOS and Windows Phone 7. gurus at places “Based on all this, one can conclude like Gartner that as programmers get older, they are delivering a get better; they know more about more different message. programming topics, and they learn new In a briefing applications. It’s become one of the single technologies just as well if not better, than on how IT changed after the economic biggest drivers we’ve seen. We recommend their younger counterparts. Take that, downturn of 2008, VP Dale Vecchio that you ask HR to provide a chart of whippersnappers!” advised IT managers to control costs by retirement dates for specific job titles. Tell This is a development, so to speak, that looking at a calendar of birthdays. them, ‘I don’t care who the person is; just runs counter to one of the driving mantras “Organizations are dependent on let me understand when these retirements of migration and modernization: older an aging workforce to deliver their are likely to occur.’ It’s about managing Imitation, the sincerest form of Philately?

The forgery above represents 100+ man-years VPLUS experience, and a decade-plus doing screen migrations and conversions. EZV is ScreenJet’s third-generation VPLUS toolset, and enshrines the “lift and shift is best” principle. Retraining dozens, hundreds, or possibly thousands of users can introduce a level of risk and cost that can rapidly exceed those of major parts of the migration itself. With EZV we have recreated the VPLUS UI exactly, including all features, bugs, and eccentricities that applications rely on. The aim is that users should have no idea that the underlying hardware and operating system have changed. Whilst keeping the UI the same, the underlying technology is based on “open” structured XML, and maintenance is via a new .NET EZV Designer formspec replacement product. We don’t “do” migrations at ScreenJet, so EZV has been designed to interface with any language, database or other migration technologies you choose. EZV is the only VPLUS migration technology that is also available for the HP3000, so you can test and prove it — before you migrate another line of code.

www.screenjet.com [email protected] + 44 1684 291710 Or speak to an HP Migration Partner 8 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog this skills challenge, managing the retirements of Baby Boomers.” Understand, Vecchio isn’t crazy enough to presume that the technologies running modern business — tech that’s anything but nouveau — should be replaced. No, COBOL will always lead business tech choices, it seems, in enterprise settings. But local schools should be encouraged to train young programmers in elder skills. “We believe organizations must engage with the secondary education institutions, to help support these declining skills where necessary. You need to tell those institutions, ‘If you train ‘em, we’ll hire ‘em.’ “ It might be easier to hire younger We’ll make sure your I.T. IT pros, but that won’t make them as productive or as experienced as the is still next generation older programmer who’s becoming harder to find. All programmers seem to become elusive after 50, not just two generations from now. those schooled in MPE skills. Vecchio suggested that the solution is to In the tech world, 10 months ago may as well be 10 years. So if you’re still on procure for the younger programmer the HP e3000, it’s time to join the rest of us here in the future. a better development toolkit. “There are development environments to help At Fresche Legacy, formerly known as Speedware, we can help. We understand improve the productivity of your existing how important it is to pass IT audits, open your applications to new systems workforce — to help you manage more change with potentially fewer people as and ultimately, grow your business. Our experts have done more than 700 HP they inevitably retire.” e3000 migrations and have worked with more than 200 different technologies. But the applications are not retiring We have the tools and professionals to manage your legacy applications from soon enough to make a difference. Even initial analysis to complete modernization or provide outsource application HP-branded 3000 hardware is being support services and beyond. And our beyond does much more than just purchased to keep the apps running. An support your applications. We transform your applications as we support them IT manager at one marketing company in the Northeast said, “We are moving and make them ready to support your business for generations to come. That’s to an HP 3000 N4000-400-750 box, business value the Fresche way. which is being built with a XP12000 disk array subsystem. Our backup HP No matter which option you choose, we can partner with you to future-proof 3000 will be the N4000-400-500 with a your IT infrastructure. And do it right. Every time. That’s 100% referenceability. XP12000 disk array subsystem — our We’re the only legacy management company that can guarantee it. current production machine.” Older programmers best understand Contact us today at www.freschelegacy.com to learn more. the applications in place on systems which are modernization targets. I.T. can make you smile. Not because they were on hand to document building the apps. The wisdom of interviewing users and developing to needs is hard to replicate without the years of experience. If you see an older programmer available, seize on the chance to employ them. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the median age of a programmer at about 42 years old. Phil Johnson, who wrote the articles for IT World, sums it up: “Just because a guy finds himself getting up more in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom doesn’t mean he can’t still knock out a killer iPhone app for you. He just may need to take a few naps along the way.”

The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 9

LOWE ROCHE 260 Queen Street West, suite 301, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1Z8 416 927 9794 Client: Fresche File Name: SPEE-P7090_Newswire_Newsp.indd Page: 1 Production Artist(s): IH Business Manager: Jonathan Daly Creative Team: Mike Greco/Ryan Speziale Production Contact: Beth MacKinnon. 254 Publication(s)/Description: Newswire Insert - Newspaper First Ins. Date: May 21 Order Number: N/A Second Ins. Date: N/A Order Number: N/A Third Ins. Date: N/A Order Number: N/A Ad #: SPEE-P7090 Final Trim/Ad Size: 5"W x 9.25"H Bleed: N/A Live/Safety: N/A Visible Opening: N/A File Scale: 100% Other Info: N/A Colours: Black HP sets end of sales for OpenVMS servers Vendor to halt sales for Integrity i2 at end of 2015, for Vax and VMS. However, the road isn’t yet cleared for any launching another enterprise migration era company to offer an emulator that puts Integrity onto Intel chips in the same way CHARON does with PA-RISC. It took more than 11 extra years, but HP finally began to swing One major difference from the 3000 wind-down: HP broke the axe on OpenVMS, its next to last HP-crafted OS for general this news in the middle of its annual HP Discover show. Plenty business computing. Customers in the DEC world were given a of damage control was on hand in Las Vegas. HP’s reaching pass for their OS onto the Itanium architecture in 2001. That out to support its less-independent OpenVMS customers with road to Itanium was a route HP blocked when it started to end a “high level” of support as long as a company wants to pay its MPE business. But the OpenVMS customer base will die HP’s Hewlett-Packard. The vendor is also equating transition with death of dozens of cuts, beginning with the cutting off Integrity i2 homesteading support, the same kind of misunderstanding it held server sales for the OS at the close of 2015. for 3000 customers. One year later, if HP keeps to its plan, the vendor will end sales “We will continue to provide a high level of support to you of server upgrades for the only computer that runs OpenVMS,. through the lifetime of your OpenVMS environment,” HP’s letter This will start the era that the HP 3000 entered in 2004, when said. “We have a full portfolio of servers, software, and solutions, new hardware upgrades stopped. The OpenVMS including support for transitions to NonStop, HP-UX, strategy was announced in a letter in June. Linux, and Windows environments.” The HP move also extends the migration experience None of those environments have much to offer from the HP 3000 customer to OpenVMS sites. VMS that will make OpenVMS transitions less painful, but has served even longer than MPE/iX could boast on it’s possible that Hewlett-Packard took some HP 3000 the day HP pulled the vendor’s corporate 3000 plug. lessons to heart. That would mean that vendor-supplied “For over 35 years, the OpenVMS operating transition tools will lead the way in the marketplace. environment has served as a mission-critical platform upon But who might move from one HP proprietary OS to another? which you have built your IT infrastructure. We deeply appreciate Just ask the companies which found replacement HP-UX apps for our long partnership and also the loyalty you have shown HP their MPE/iX applications over the last 11 years. during this time.” Hewlett-Packard doesn’t consider these products proprietary, HP couched its news in the cloak of a “Mission-critical even though customer ecosystems have grown deep software Roadmap Update,” and the vendor used phrases like “at least” roots into the operating systems’ remarkable engineering. There’s in front of dates for ending server sales. But an 8.5 version of no significant profit that HP can make in selling the servers for OpenVMS is not on HP’s map, just like an MPE/iX 8.0 evaporated OpenVMS, HP-UX and NonStop. There’s plenty of support profit, from Hewlett-Packard futures slides in 2001. The equivalent of as there was for MPE/iX. So for at least five years after the last OpenVMS 8.5 is needed to support the Poulson class of Itanium Integrity OpenVMS server is sold from HP, the vendor will collect chips, processors HP will use in its forthcoming Integrity i4 support payments. This would align on the five-year mark HP business servers. that settled upon for the 3000. Sales ended in 2003, and HP’s For the most loyal and patient OpenVMS customers — who formal and full support — including the MPE/iX lab — shut down view migrating their proprietary systems as kindly as 3000 folk in December of 2008. did — HP will continue supporting Integrity i2 server hardware HP called the OpenVMS update “a rolling (up to three- beyond the end of sales, through the end of 2020. That year year) roadmap and is subject to change without notice.” HP aligns with the one that was picked by HP’s expert witness when promised — in the roadmap’s fine print — that what it’s now testifying how long Itanium will remain an HP revenue generator. calling Standard Support for OpenVMS won’t be ended unless a HP appears to have learned something from the 3000 market customer is given 24 months notice. while ending a business line. OpenVMS users will get more than six years of continued HP support — longer than the five that HP VMS community responds, first imagined when it curtailed its MPE business. HP has also while 3000s remain ahead on licenses kept the door open for extra years of support, the same kind of Any revolt and rally might begin with the OpenVMS Boot Camp era MPE/iX earned in 2007 through 2010. this fall, but that was never a meeting that included vast exhibits The OpenVMS move leaves just one HP-created, general and thousands of customers on hand. The Camp is the most purpose OS running on Itanium boxes, HP-UX. (NonStop, VMS-centric event of the year, however. acquired from Tandem in an acquisition, is aimed at a much What’s different about the shutdown of the OpenVMS narrower purpose.) Like HP’s Unix, OpenVMS servers come from operations at Hewlett-Packard, versus the tale of the last decade the embattled Business Critical Systems group, where the HP for the 3000? Many moments and passions are similar. Slides 3000 lived out its remaining HP days. HP has promised more which were not even six months old (like the one on the facing remaining sales cycles for VMS servers than the 3000 servers page) foretold of nothing but clear sailing. But given HP’s 11 got, but only by a few months. VMS on Integrity will serve out “at years of extra embrace for VMS beyond the 3000 sayonara, least” a remaining 30 months on HP price lists; the 3000 got 24 things may be kinder for the VMS acolytes, the ones whose faith extra monthly sales cycles. HP praised in its exit letter. Just like the 3000 odyssey of the HP’s nod to customer loyalty in a letter from Ric Lewis, GM previous decade, HP was assuring the VMS user in slide decks for the Enterprise Servers Business, was an echo of the letter dated as recently as December. HP sent to its MPE sites in 2001. The OpenVMS user has one “Despite Oracle’s announcement to discontinue all software advantage in the advent of their homesteading era. Their OS development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor, we remain already has the benefit of an emulator company that’s making committed to supporting you and your IT environment. We will a nice living in the DEC marketplace. Stromasys has 5,000 continue to support OpenVMS on Tukwila-based and Poulson- installations in 50 countries running its CHARON products based Integrity systems beyond the next decade.” But those will 10 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog be already-sold Integrity systems. DEC group. Stromasys reports that OS and refuses to license VMS on them?” Within a day of posting the letter, the licensing, as well as apps, hasn’t been an The reply from another customer VMS community was trying to organize issue yet in CHARON HPA/3000’s early echoed right back to the earliest days of an effort to get the operating system days of sales. HP’s provided the MPE/ outrage over the 3000 transition. “This is source code from HP, re-licensed as open iX license, and that just leaves the third why prying VMS from HP’s clammy hands source. Perhaps they didn’t take much party software for users to arrange. would be the first priority, and nothing heed of the 7-year quest by OpenMPE to Stromasys reported in May that the else matters if that cannot be done.” win the rights to MPE/iX. license arrangements for the emulator The 3000 community marshalled its “Is there no one who can free VMS from have to be left to each customer who will forces in late 2001 and into 2002 to try HP?” asked one member on the comp. transition to a virtualized 3000 server. to wrest the entire 3000 business from os.vms newsgroup. Another member Users make their own deals. But product HP, at a price. Hewlett-Packard was replied with an update from the group manager Paul Taffel said that “There not interested then, but these are more devoted to Rdb, the Digital database as have been no problems with vendors. interesting times. HP just won a lawsuit vital to VMS as IMAGE is to MPE. He We finally with Oracle, wanted to deal with Digital people in figured out fighting over place before a controversial CEO served who you the future of up the first merger, to Compaq. have to call Itanium. Oracle Up on the Rdb list, Keith Parris raised in IBM to get didn’t want its the possibility of HP open-sourcing VMS. the Cognos software to “While I would prefer VMS to come license, for run on Itanium from DEC before [former CEO Robert] example.” anymore. Palmer, that is no longer an option. If That would Neither does HP done correctly, an open-source VMS be Charlie want OpenVMS might be better than no VMS. Perhaps Maloney, at to run on HP should pay a peanuts-scale salary 978-399- Itanium. of, say, $150,000 so that someone can 7341. HP slide from December for VMS Another coordinate this full time.” What the Digital faithful do not see message came down from the man who HP got badgered into releasing MPE/ in place yet is a license arrangement was recently promoted to head HP’s iX source to a select group of licensees, from HP for OpenVMS on every platform Labs. Martin Fink was formerly the head who cannot improve upon the 7.5 release — including some that may not yet of the Business Critical Systems group, but use their code to create workarounds exist, like someone’s as-yet-unreleased where OpenVMS servers remain for sale and patches. However, the VMS people Itanium emulator. In these earliest days, until the end of 2015. In 2011, while HP can look to the advantage of a thriving OpenVMS sites at least can point to the battled Oracle in that suit, Fink found the emulator company for any Digital VMS emulator company that’s arranged for moxie to make a rallying statement that implementations which run on older, such a thing in the past for another VMS will sound familiar to the 3000 customer. non-Itanium servers. The tech issues hardware host, the Vax. But there are Fink told OpenVMS customers, “Let me have been long-solved for CHARON for doubts and uncertainty to go along with reassure you. HP plans to continue the VMS, but there are licensing issues that fears. development and innovation of Itanium- the Digital user will need to manage for “Are these emulators a serious option?” based Integrity NonStop and Integrity themselves. said one customer on the newsgroup. server platforms with our HP-UX and Here’s where the HP 3000 community “The emulators could be a serious OpenVMS operating systems for more is a decade ahead of the now drop-kicked option, but what of them, if HP clams up than 10 years.” Provide your enterprise with Premier support Across 50 states, support for your HP3000 server — 888-675-5275 plus sales and services for [email protected] your IT infrastructure and localized, specialized peace of mind MPEsupportgroup.com Meeting every company’s specific, unique business needs

The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 11 Emulator speed working up to N-Class peak Fastest three N-Class servers that HP ever built have enough horsepower. One of the reasons for this involves remain on the horizon for CHARON HPA/3000 lineup adding extra CPUs for the unreleased CHARON versions. Unlike HP, Stromasys will support a 6-way or 8-way N-Class. The long-term future of 3000 virtualization looks sunny, in The virtualization lineup won’t support these today, unless part because there’s the remainder of our lifetimes for the you count the ability to provide model numbers in the lineup Stromasys engine to get faster. Using this month’s offerings from Stromasys that showed at its recent Training Day. The N4060 the company shows there’s plenty of performance to make up, and N4080 offer 50 percent and 100 percent more CPUs simply to get to HP’s 3000 benchmarks from 2003. Migrators than HP ever would for a 3000. At the moment, CHARON will won’t care like homesteaders will. need those extra CPUs to run as fast as HP’s fastest N-Class In a look at the part of the Stromasys CHARON product line configurations. which has been shipping, it’s easy to see the product will run When it was still a product for sale from the vendor, this as fast as nearly all of the A-Class and N-Class servers. But HP kind of top- also built and sold three models of N-Class end N-Class still out of the reach of today’s virtualization would cost engine speed. Those models represent the more than threshold CHARON must break to operate as $100,000. At fast as the fastest, hamstrung HP iron. that, it was Hamstrung is a word from horses a complex and people meaning to cripple. It’s an hardware- acknowledged practice that the 3000’s CPUs based server were down-clocked by MPE/iX. In some cases, like the lowest- subject to the end A-Class, the operating system dialed back the processor indignities by 75 percent. A 440MHz CPU was forced to run at a genuine of iron: CPU 110 in the entry-level A-Class. This is one reason why a fully- boards, revamped, 1-processor A-Class HP 3000, with a faster bus, still specialized only ran 70 percent faster than a Series 918. Even at the dawn disks, of a new generation of 3000s, HP was keeping the servers in proprietary memory — all might fail in the way physical check. components do. But you could get very fast, with enough If a company is considering an emulation scenario on the way memory in an N-Class 500MHz or 750MHz server. to a migration, these limits might not matter. At one Dallas-area AICS Research, which sold QueryCalc to hundreds of 3000 e-commerce company, consultant Doug Smith reports the 3000 sites for more than 25 years, still hosts the comprehensive was moving to archive-system status. A migration was in the 3000 Relative Performance Matrix on all MPE servers. The wings. But for other companies, hoping to match those three listing of benchmarked systems goes all the way back to the biggest-sized 3000s, June’s CHARON product line will leave Series 30, as underpowered at the time as the early Series them short of a match. 930 was at the start of the First Generation of PA-RISC CPUs. Migrators might not make up much of the CHARON customer HP wrapped up its benchmarking with a muddled picture. In base. If they’ve concluded that a midrange 3000 will do the 1998 it changed its processor comparison rating to the “HP interim job, however, even companies leaving the platform will Performance Unit.” Since it was near the time of the of e3000, Staff’s collective age triggers 3000 migration One of the more entrenched MPE be kept going for another 10 years, but Despite the cost of acquiring the advocates in the 3000 community the personnel could not.” Windows application, and hiring the extra has seen his server move into archive So the programmer retired, and the staff to do what MPE and Transact did, status. John Wolff, who was formerly the computer operations were moved to a plus the capital cost of more compute Vice Chairman of the OpenMPE group, Windows application. It’s less efficient power for an existing server, Wolff said reports that the Series 928 that drove than the 3000 — so much so that LAACO is in better shape for the future. self-storage provider LAACO has been LAACO has hired two additional staffers “Naturally we transferred our data, replaced with a Windows app. However, to do processes manually with the which was no big deal,” said the veteran the MPE architecture and the health of Windows app that MPE and Transact did manager. “The new application does the 3000 did not drive this replacement. completely automatically, Wolff said. not require any Windows pros, as it is “This was actually done for an The migration mantra says that totally maintained by the vendor. Judging interesting reason,” Wolff said. “My retaining and finding MPE-savvy staff is support costs between the two systems programmer was 72 years old and an the hardest part of homesteading. This was not even considered, as they are expert at Transact, and I am 67 years old. case study is about a replacement of the both nominal. The Windows hardware Looking at the future, it would be very application however. was already leveraged because it runs as difficult to find replacements for us given Change is a common element, but a virtual server. So, costs of ownership the ecosystem for the HP 3000 at this replacing an app is less dependent on were not even considerations. It had point.” knowing the code’s internal structure. A much more to do with specialized future Wolff added. “I think the hardware could replacing company is making a transition. human resources.”

12 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog performance on today’s virtualization other enterprise chip, Itanium. N-Class engines. However, using extra CPU cores It’s a gamble to guess at future (Continued from page 12) will let Stromasys keep adding CPUs. performance needs, so selecting a this became known as the HP EPU. CHARON-HPA/3000 systems use two hardware-based 3000 always involved “In effect,” wrote the late, great Wirt cores to emulate each PA-RISC CPU – one predicting the lifespan of use — the Atmar in his notes to his matrix at AICS, core fetches instructions and interprets headroom for a site’s application growth. “what they did was to begin to use a new them on-the-fly into equivalent Intel Virtualization isn’t much different in the set of test suites which they felt were instruction sequences, while the other forecasting, but moving up will be a new more appropriate to the way that HP core works in parallel, pre- fetching code experience. What makes virtualization 3000s were being used.” pages and applying various analysis and attractive is the ease of upgrading to a The numbers aren’t absolute optimization algorithms to identify higher- faster model. HP might have called this a measurements of anything other than level optimizations. board swap back in the days that it sold the time the various systems take to This More Cores strategy puts some of hardware. This kind of swap was still on process one of the several HP test suites, emulation’s limits in the hands of Intel. the order of $20,000 for any leap. And but they do allow you to compare with That’s a company that has not been shy that was after you turned back your old some accuracy the relative performances about adding cores to its Xeon-x86 line of processor to HP, so it could be resold. that you should expect when upgrading CPUs, the line that drives CHARON. The Nobody’s going to have to turn back a to higher level of innovation on that line is moving at model of CHARON software in order to performing many times the evolution speed of Intel’s turn up their performance. system. You must divide by 10 to get a set of EPUs that make sense in HP’s final 3000 product lineup. The Series 918 became a 1.0 when HP recalculated benchmarks. The top-end 500MHz and That means both 750MHz models of the 4-way 500 N-Class servers remain and both 750 faster than CHARON’s MHz models current model lineup at right are (shown on facing page) coming in at 49.9, 60.6 and 76.8 EPUs, respectively. The Stromasys lineup doesn’t go that high today. As Atmar said, those are just numbers from a test suite. Your mileage will certainly vary. Migration prospects these days are most likely to be smaller customers who didn’t see a good business case for leaving the 3000 from 2003 to 2013. They need help from third parties to make their move, and useful advice might be to start the migration while using more reliable iron than HP’s 3000 “kit,” as the British would say. These people have got what they need from Stromasys today. However, as the economy rises, some of the larger 3000 homesteaders may be replacing HP hardware that makes their boardroom directors nervous. Emulation can happen even at the same time the big homesteaders make a move — like Amisys healthcare hosted sites are doing — to something non-MPE. The biggest homesteaders don’t have a place to go yet to match their top-end

The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 13 Terminals on tablets open new screen doors Brief test of iOS app shows it knows HP 3000 terminals, including block mode

Review by Jon Diercks

TTerm Pro is a $49.95 terminal emulator for iPad from Turbosoft, one with support for multiple IBM and HP terminal emulations. I recently had the opportunity to test TTerm with the CHARON Freeware

Figure 2: Landscape mode, with on-screen keyboard

through the SSH tunnel. With this setup, I can access my CHARON MPE system securely from my iPad, anywhere with internet access. Overall, I didn’t encounter any problems in TTerm configuration. It’s pretty straightforward; there are a fair number of tweakable options in there if I needed them, Figure 1: Portrait mode startup but the default settings seemed to work fine. I missed the tunneling configuration in HP 3000 emulator. I selected TTerm’s HP 700/92 emulation mode, pointed it at the CHARON emulator’s IP address, and got right in — the opening screen for the iPad app is shown in Figure 1. As you can see, TTerm provides an expanded on-screen keyboard. In portrait orientation, the keys presented are pretty standard, with the addition of block-mode enter. But when rotated to landscape view, additional HP-specific keys appear (see Figure 2). Those familiar with “real” HP terminals will feel right at home. Since I use an external Bluetooth keyboard, I closed the on-screen keyboard to let the terminal screen have more space (see Figure 3) Block mode works as expected, as shown in the iPad screen shot in Figure 4. TTerm supports both Telnet and SSH, but since there is no SSH server for HP3000, TTerm cannot speak SSH to MPE directly. However, TTerm can tunnel a Telnet session through SSH — so I set up a tunnel through my home router, and then ran TTerm’s telnet connection Figure 3: Using external Bluetooth keyboard with the app 14 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 the version that I reviewed, at first. The only suggestion I have for the developer would be that there should be a more-obvious option to tunnel telnet through SSH. Jordan Foneska of Turbosoft replied in a note from me, “It may be that we need to look at our user interface and find a more logical, obvious home for the SSH tunneling settings. At present the user is required to select Telnet and edit the security settings section to enable communications with either SSL or SSH.” In my test drive, TTerm appears to do exactly what it’s designed to do. It has a clean user interface, and performs well. In my limited testing, there were no crashes or unexpected errors. I would recommend TTerm for anyone who needs to use an iPad to talk to an MPE system.

Jon Diercks consults on HP 3000 proj- ects and is the author of the only book about MPE/iX management, The MPE/ iX Administration Handbook (available in online versions at the Safari bookstore.) Figure 4: Block mode screen, working as expected Diercks can be contacted at [email protected] Server replacement unit at HP continues skid Hewlett-Packard broke a string of losing quarters by reporting by better than expected performance in Enterprise Services and a $1.1 billion profit on its fiscal Q2 of 2013, but the figures were Printing, coupled with the accelerated capture of restructuring not buoyed by the HP segment which develops and sells HP savings and improvement in our operations,” said Whitman. replacement systems for HP 3000 migrators. HP estimated its 2013 earnings will be in the range of $2.50 The Business Critical Systems — the group where Itanium to $2.60, in line with HP’s previously communicated outlook. For systems are sold, along with the HP-UX that runs only on that 2013, HP is accounting for after-tax costs of approximately $1 server — saw its sales drop 37 percent from Q2 of fiscal year per share, “related primarily to the amortization of purchased 2012. intangible assets, restructuring charges and acquisition-related The company would be reporting its Q3 financial numbers charges. — including the first from a reorganized enterprise servers “I am encouraged by our performance in the second quarter, unit — on August 22. Information on HP’s latest earnings, and I feel good about the rest of the year,” added Whitman. “As I including additional financial analysis and an earnings overview have said many times before, this is a multi-year journey. We have presentation, is available on HP’s Investor Relations website at a long way to go, but we are on track to deliver on our fiscal 2013 www.hp.com/investor/home. HP’s Q3 FY13 earnings conference non-GAAP diluted earnings per share outlook.” call is accessible via an audio webcast at www.hp.com/ Support revenues showed just about the only significant uptick investor/2013Q3webcast. on the HP report. Support revenue was up 12 percent, while The overall Q2 news was not as grim from the rest of HP license revenue was down 23 percent and services revenue Enterprise Group, the organization where Linux-capable ProLiant was down 5 percent year over year. Printing revenue declined servers are sold along with networking gear. Enterprise Group 1 percent year over year. Total hardware units were down 11 revenue declined 10 percent year over year. Networking revenue percent year over year. Commercial hardware units were down was flat, but those Industry Standard Servers’ revenue that drives 5% year over year, and Consumer hardware units were down 13 Linux hosts was down 12 percent. Storage sales fell 13 percent percent year over year. and Technology Services revenue was down 3 percent year over Enterprise Services revenue declined 8 percent year over year. year. Application and Business Services revenue was down 10 percent HP combined all of these units in a reorganization this year (see year over year, and IT Outsourcing revenue declined 6 percent story, page 1). year over year. Software revenue was also down 3 percent year HP CEO Meg Whitman decided to shine the spotlight on HP’s over year. overall ability to beat the market’s estimates for profits. The HP also announced its board of directors has declared a regular company posted a total of $27.6 billion in overall sales, which cash dividend of 14.52 cents per share on the company’s common was a drop of 10 percent from 2012. Whitman had to point at the stock, which reflects a 10 percent increase in amount compared Non-Generally Accepted Accounting Practices numbers — always to the previous quarterly dividend. The dividend, the third in HP’s more favorable — to claim a win. fiscal year 2013, was payable to stockholders of record as of the “We beat the upper end of our non-GAAP diluted [Earnings Per close of business on June 12, 2013, a date of ownership about Share] EPS outlook for the quarter by 5 cents per share, driven three weeks after the report’s numbers were released.

The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 15 Would you like fries with that? New UPS, sir! is the order for true UPS protection, after a storm fells a 3000

Editor’s note: Intrepid veteran developer Alan Yeo of ScreenJet plug, all okay, its still dead. Dig out the APC manual, whose in the UK had a pair of HP 3000s felled recently, despite a symptoms say “don’t use, return to your supplier for service.” sound strategy of using an UPS in his IT mix. We offer Yeo’s At this point the power goes completely for 10 minutes, and report of the rescue of the 3000s, ones which logic said were as I can see that the server UPS batteries are already half UPS-protected. As Yeo said in offering the article, “We’re pretty empty (or half-full if you’re an optimist). “They must have been experienced here, and even we learned things through this taking more of a load during the morning than I thought,” I about UPS.” We hope you will as well. say to myself. I decided it was time for a controlled shutdown of the servers, which I did. Now I was going to have to rejig By Alan Yeo the power cables, so that we could feed power to the comm’s “Smart UPS” now has a new meaning to me. “You’re going to kit (which was now on a dead UPS) from the server’s UPS. A smart, if you’re dumb enough to buy one.” This is one of those couple of minutes of work commenced, to move their supplies stories where if you don’t laugh you’d cry. On with the laughs. to spare outlets on the APC Switched Rack PDU that is fed by By the end of this tale, you should know why your UPS may the UPS. The PDU is a network-addressable Power Distribution be a pile of junk that should be thrown in the trash. And what Unit, one that can power up/down individual power outlets, you should replace it with. — and thus we can remotely shutdown or reset the servers if It’s a Friday in early June, and it was incredibly windy. needs be. Apparently we were getting the fag end of a large storm that So at this point the power comes back, and I power up the had traversed the Atlantic after hitting the US the week before. comm’s kit, leaving the servers off. Decide I’ll go for lunch, let Sort of reverse of the saying “America sneezes, and Europe the batteries recharge a bit, and make sure that the power is catches a cold.” This time we were getting the last snorts of staying on before I restart the servers. the storm. Lunch passes, with a glass of Merlot. Anyway, with our offices being rurally located, strong winds Now the power seems to be stable, so it’s back to the normally mean that we are going to get a few power problems. computer room to bring up just the essential servers. Our main The odd power blip and the very occasional outage as trees HP 3000 test server. A Windows mail server, and a Windows gently tap the overhead power lines. Always worst in the file server that also handles our VPN connections (because summer, as the trees are heavily laden with leaf and drooping everyone works remotely now). closer to the lines than they are in the winter, when they come I’m in the middle of this when the power goes out again. I round and check them. look at the PDU which tells me that we are drawing 3 amps So this situation is not normally something we worry about. (240v * 3 = 720 watts) = about 10 minutes worth on a half- We are fairly well-protected (or so we thought) with a number charged 2200VA UPS. Not worth it, so I shut the servers down of APC UPS units to keep our servers and comms kit safe from (but I don’t throw their power switches). the blips and surges. The UPS units are big enough so that if the power does go out, we can keep running long enough for Fireworks! either the power to come back — or if we find out from the At this point the power comes back and stays on for about power company that its likely to be a while, for us to shut down five minutes. There’s me standing there trying to decide what the servers. to do, when the power goes off again, and then comes back. At We keep all the comms kit, routers, switches, firewalls and which point the sole remaining UPS goes BANG! It flashes its so forth on a separate UPS. This UPS will keep them running lights a bit whilst beeping maniacally, and then goes dead. The nearly all day, so that way we still have Internet access, Web, room fills with the smell of over-heated insulation, so I pull the email and more, so can keep functioning, as long as the laptop UPS power plug. batteries hold out. Okay, “Sod this for a bunch of Soldiers,” thinks I. Was going The wind picked up during the morning and we had the to finish early that day to help some friends set up for a expected a flick of the lights, and the odd bong, ping, and beep weekend Charity Clay Shoot. “I’ll go now and come back later from the computer room as the UPS’s responded to the odd — when hopefully the wind has died down and the power is voltage fluctuations and the momentary outages. Around 12:30 back to normal — and then pick up the pieces.” we had a quick sequence of power blips, followed by a couple Back in the datacentre at 8 PM and the wind is gone, with of minutes of power gone, at which point the UPS’s started power back to normal. Okay, should just have time to get bleeping loudly as they took the load. This is normally the everything working before dinner. Play with the UPS for 10 trigger for me to wander in there and just do a visual glance minutes, but it’s dead. So we are going to have to “walk the at battery levels. I was stood in there as the power came back tight rope without safety harness or net” and run everything and was watching as the server’s UPS came back normally. direct from the mains. Then the comm’s UPS flashed all its lights, beeped and went Not exactly completely unprotected computing, because when dead! we had the new office wired 18 months ago, we installed surge protection on the mains supply. Its like a couple of cartridges It’s not dead, its just that sit next to the distribution panel that absorb a surge, sleeping after a long squawk! decaying in the process, until the point they need replacing. Humm… First I thought it must be the overload switch, They have a status indicator on them telling you if they need so disconnected all the load, grovelled around behind it and changing, but they were showing green, so I thought I’d risk it pressed the reset switch. Nothing. So I disconnect from the for a few days, until we could source a new UPS. mains, reset, power it back on, nothing. Check the fuse in the Why do these things always hit at a weekend? 16 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog Comms come back okay, although I noticed that an old dialup who’s around at Allegro? A quick Skype call gets hold of Steve modem was dead that was still hooked up for dire emergency Cooper, who with the other Allegroids (interesting, my spell remote access if Internet access failed. Okay, now for the checker thinks Allegroid is a valid word) diagnose within five servers: power up the Series 917 and let it start its self test minutes that the 3000 has got a memory error. The last digit of check (which takes ages, and lots of memory); power up the the error indicates which memory bank slot has the problem. Series 918 (it does its memory tests much quicker); power up Okay, I’m not going to start climbing around the back of the the Windows 2008 file server and a Windows mail database rack at this time of night. I leave it until the morning, but at server. Plus, an older Windows 2003 server that still ran the least I know what the problem is. SMTP software, which should have been moved to the 2008 server, but hadn’t because we had never got around to it. False Dawn The HP 3000 918 comes up clean, the Windows 2008 server Feeling refreshed, let’s get these hardware problems sorted. comes up, the Windows mail database server comes up. But Get the Windows server booted with “Hirens Boot CD” magic HP 3000 917 is downed with an FLT error, the Windows 2003 set of tools for fixing loads of stuff. Diagnoses that there are a Server is looping around boot start-up into Windows launch, couple of missing .DLL’s. Okay, patch them in, still problems! then straight back to boot start-up. Wonderful! Sod it, go and Seems to be a hall of mirrors every time we patch something in, have dinner and decide if I’m coming back later. the next missing file is found. This could go on for ages. Feeling mellower, with nothing I really want to watch on the Try various Windows recovery reinstalls, but they all fail, TV, I decide to take a prod at the servers and see what the Windows 2003 doesn’t think it’s installed, but would happily problems are. install if I let it reformat the hard drive. Not the recovery I was Decide that I’ll need input to diagnose the Windows problem, looking for. Run some disc-checking utilities and basically so that can wait until the morning. Power-cycle the 917 to whilst the disc checks out okay, the file directory (or whatever watch the self-test cycle and get the error, do it again. (Well it’s called) is smashed. Do we spend a lot of time rebuilding a sometimes these things fix themselves, don’t they?) Nope, it’s Windows system that’s only running one piece of software that dead! should have been moved off anyway? Simple choice, no. Leave “Take out my long spoon and sup with the devil,” as they say, it to my co-worker Mark to figure out what to do to get mail with a Web search. Nope, Google turns up nothing on the error, flowing again, whilst I take a look at the 917 memory problem. apart from a couple of old HP-UX workstation threads, where Pulling the memory card is no problem. Working out which the advice seems to be “time to call your HP support engineer.” of the five banks is bad takes a bit more work, but a bit of plug Nothing on the 3000-L newsgroup archives, either. (I’d tell you engineering and a couple of reboots shows that we have 64MB the 3000 error code, but I’ve thrown away the piece of paper I (2x32) of bad memory. No problem, plenty left, so remove it and had with all the scribbles from that weekend). reboot. Great, get to the ISL prompt, do a START NORECOVERY and go get a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and I’ll soon have Where’s a guru this system back up. when you want one? SYSTEM ABORT from SUBSYS 143 I really wanted to get the 917 back up and running over the SYSHALT 7,$0267 weekend, as it had all our Transact test software on it. Dave FLT DEAD Dummer (the original author of Transact) was doing some Oh, hell. enhancements to TransAction (our any-platform replacement for Transact) and we had planned to get some testing done for Long Story Short early the following week, to help a major customer. (or another one bites the dust) So it’s 11:30 PM UK time, but it’s only 3:30 PM PDT! I wonder Okay, it’s about time we cut this story short — although I YOU May be one of the few people in the world that this advert is targeted at! If you’re running TRANSACT or DICTIONARY/3000 we now have a lift and shift solution to other platforms. Transact has been reborn as TransAction. For further info just contact [email protected].

The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 17 They are more expensive than Line Interactive ones, but it is Fries With That claimed they are cheaper in the long run, due to increased (Continued from page 17) battery life. Whilst a Line Interactive UPS claims that attached am certain you want to read about someone else’s trials and equipment shouldn’t be at risk during the TT window, as far as tribulations, even as I suspect you’re only reading to find out I can read it can be before it is disconnected from the mains. why your own UPS is useless. Suffice it to say that the 3000’s APC for example have a compensation scheme which wouldn’t LDEV 2 had also been fried, which we replaced, then the DAT be required if this wasn’t possible. Note: It’s interesting that drive was dead, which was replaced, but was still dead. APC only offer this protection policy on 120V products, for So in the end, we decided our fastest recovery solution was those of us using 220/240V supplies the risk is obviously to scrap the 917 and merge its data with a 918 that has a deemed to be too great to cover. The fine print: clone in the shop. It’s a choice which makes DR recovery a If your electronic equipment is damaged by power line lot simpler, also one less piece of kit burning electricity, that transients on an AC power line (120 volt) while directly should help save the ice caps! and properly connected to a standard APC So what got Fried? HP 3000, Dell Intel It turns out there 120 volt product covered by the Equipment Server, one modem, one DTC 16 — and Protection Policy (EPP), you can file a claim of course the two APC UPS’s that were is a little bit of a with APC for compensation of your damages. supposed to be protecting everything. Coverage of damages is determined by the Why? Okay, okay, I’ve finally got around clue in the three limits of the EPP. to the Meat and Potatoes bit. Given that letter acronym. TT seems to be related to the Sensitivity the APC “Smart” UPS’s had done such a Level: High, Medium or Low. And the wonderful job of protecting everything, it The “U” stands for Sensitivity Levels can be altered by how you didn’t seem much point sending them off configure the UPS, for example on many anywhere for repair and putting them back “Uninterruptible” not UPS’s you can adjust at what upper and lower into service. “Clean.” I discover input voltages it should transfer to/from Also, I needed to get some replacements battery. On 120V UPS’s this range is typically in ASAP. But the conundrum was why they that there are two 127-136 at the upper end, and 97-106 at the hadn’t protected everything as had been my lower end. expectation, so it’s about time to do some main types of UPS. In High Sensitivity mode the TT is research on UPS’s. something like 2 milliseconds and if set Low around 10 It turns out there is a little bit of a clue in the three letter milliseconds. Switching to/from battery frequently is bad acronym. The “U” stands for “Uninterruptible” not “Clean.” I for battery life, as is protracted running from the battery discover that there are two main types of UPS: the normal on a Line Interactive UPS. So the compromise is between Line-Interactive. Everyone makes them, everyone’s got one High Sensitivity with possibly frequent but low TT, and Low UPS like the APC Smart UPS. Then there’s the “On-line” ones. Sensitivity with less frequent but longer TT. The major difference is that standard “Smart” UPS’s (most of Theoretically during the TT there is no power going to the the time) feed a mains supply out to everything plugged into connected equipment, so long TT’s may be a problem for some it. In contrast, the on-line versions feed everything from an equipment, also if transfers are frequent equipment may see a inverter 100 percent of the time. pulsed power supply. But I hear you say (and as I thought) “My APC UPC filters the power, chopping down over voltage, boosting under Keeping it clean voltage, and supplying power if the mains fails.” Well the Keeping it On-Line answer in classic 3000-L mode is, “Yes, but it depends.” If Line Interactive UPS technology can fail, what should you Now I’m no electrical expert, but I’ve worked up a layman’s use? On-Line or Double Conversion technology seems to be interpretation. the answer. These can be hard to spot as the word “Online / There’s something in the mix called Dirty Transfers. On-Line” is used to describe a mode of virtually any UPS: i.e. Line Interactive UPS’s do AVR, Automatic Voltage Regulation. a Line Interactive UPS is described as being in online mode Instead of going to battery during low or high input voltages, when it is feeding mains direct to the attached equipment. this sort of unit will use an Autotransformer to increase or So it’s probably best to use the term Double Conversion, reduce the voltage to a safe operating range without as this is less misleading. In a Double Conversion running on the battery. Within their stated tolerances, UPS the equipment is always fed from the inverter, they can run almost indefinitely doing a number of which has tandem input supplies, one from the things. battery and one from a mains fed rectifier. This means • AVR Boost, where the UPS is compensating for a that the equipment never sees “Mains” power, and low utility voltage; there is never any TT. The supply from the inverter • AVR Trim, when it is compensating for a high is continuous regardless of which power source it is utility voltage. using. • If the voltage fluctuates outside a set range, or Double Conversion UPS’s are more expensive to buy than on some of them if the rate of change of the voltage exceeds Line Interactive ones, but it is claimed they are cheaper in the a given threshold, then they will Transfer, using the battery long run due to increased battery life. power via an inverter. The UPS then monitors the AC supply In just checking a few facts I discovered that Wikipedia has and when it deems it is back within tolerance it transfers a great page that clearly covers the different types of UPS back to the mains supply. technology, at Uninterruptible Power Supply . There is also It is this Transfer Time (TT) that can cause some problems. a great white paper, The Seven Types of Power Problems, in Such as those at our shop. First off, the answer to the PDF format on the Web. You can find it at www.apcmedia. problem: Double Conversion UPS units are what you want. com/salestools/VAVR-5WKLPK_R1_EN.pdf 18 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog Wow, are we an HP customer again? that it really was nicely- problem. But I made equipment, and don’t think we Surprise, Surprise. Apart from the odd that we were getting a had anticipated printer cartridge, we haven’t bought great deal (well he is a multiple (but not anything HP since 2001, and I couldn’t salesman!). total) failures at see much likelihood that we would. But There might have the same time, or we have just bought a new HP UPS! It been HP support on an HP 3000 outage appears that as a result of the “Invent” sale for us at one time that was caused by as well, to return us multiple problems to the HP fold. We that could only got our abort for the be discovered in Series 917 because a serial manner. software located on Our total recovery LDEV 2 was missing. time was days, Which we replaced, not hours! The but then needed to upside is that we do an OS install, we are now better couldn’t do because the DAT was also protected, have less kit running and plans dead. Which when replaced still couldn’t for even less (feet on the ground, head be seen, probably meaning an IO card or in the cloud) and are now working on a something was also dead, that was the recovery/disaster plan that encompasses point we gave up. what we have learnt. A good HP 3000 engineer would have Hopefully this saga may be a warning carried on finding out what was broken to others to pull out the manual for and then replacing it — well, maybe. your UPS and see if it really meets your needs and expectations. About that Dual It’s an ill wind Conversion claim of increased battery life, that blows no good I’ll let you know in a few years. HP 3000s Well the wind may have caused this, are certain to still be running by then! but its certainly blown away a few misconceptions we had about how Alan Yeo’s firm ScreenJet delivers the protected we were and how good our TransAction any-platform replacement for backup recovery strategy was. I think we Transact, as well as ScreenJet software had OK strategies for either total loss, — plus interface modernization services or losing a single Server to a specific for 3000s which rely on VPlus. phase (which I understand has now been What’s New at Robelle terminated) HP are one of the leaders in advanced UPS technology, and they do • Suprtool & Qedit run on Stromasys Emulator a range of Double Conversion units. We • Robelle introduces Suprtool scripting services were fortunate and picked up a really nice HP unit, plus a huge auxiliary battery • SuprtoolOpen Linux has been shipped and pack (we now have an estimated 2 hours demos are available full load uptime) for less than the cost of a smaller new APC Line Interactive. • HP-UX/Open Suprtool supports 512 fields Okay, they were customer returns due to • $SubCount function added to all versions damaged packaging, but were brand new and unopened. of Suprtool The sad part for HP is why we got it • Extract has three new functions $first/$last so cheap! I had to ask the UPS reseller and $all why the HP one was a lot cheaper than other makes of similar Double Conversion • June 2013 Newsletter at UPS’s he had for sale, especially as the robelle.com/newsletter/latest.pdf new list price was as high or higher than the others. His answer surprised me. For more information contact Neil “They are difficult to sell, because nobody recognises HP as a UPS supplier.” [email protected] or Tammy He told me that customers who ran data centers with HP Servers would buy new [email protected] HP UPS’s, but that in his experience nobody else did. So if they got returns or 888-762-3553 cancelled orders, they found them very hard to shift unless they discounted them heavily. He did say that in his opinion robelle.com The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 19 Rich Pugh Making Real Customers from Virtualization Rich Pugh describes himself using a term CHARON virtualization engine. market. However, with the experience that’s far from a virtualized IT pro. Pugh, We interviewed Pugh and Chang at that I left Digital with, I wanted to get my who’s the new senior VP of worldwide the start of August, a month when HP arms around direct client interface with sales and services at virtualization 3000 users often gathered at a North the larger companies that we want to sell vendor Stromasys, says he’s “carried a American conference. In the week we CHARON to. bag” since the middle 1980s. The term talked, Google’s founder was announcing refers to a salesman who’s working on a a burger built in a lab using 20,000 cow What can you say about the large commission basis, someone who visits stem cells. A product that puts MPE prospects you’ve been visiting? customers to close sales. That was software on Intel chips might seem as not unusual at any size of IT customer much of a surprise. Pugh is working to I think they’d rather not have their names in 1985, when Pugh started at Digital give the 3000 community a taste for used, but one provides tax returns for the Equipment. Today these kinds of visits the CHARON novelty, one that wants to financial services industry. They’ve got from such computer hardware vendors eliminate HP’s iron like Google wants to two of the largest 3000s that were ever are reserved for large accounts. That’s remove the cow, but with genuine flavor. built. They have a production site and a what makes Pugh’s current job selling DR site in separate states. They’re very the Stromasys CHARON HPA/3000 What industry experience since Y2K interested in using us as an alternative to emulator such a profound echo. His led you to Stromasys, Rich? their platform given a catastrophic failure company is replacing the 3000 hardware in their production environment. which once required a sales call to spark Wireless data sales team leadership The conversation we had with them an install. for ATT. Then for the last eight years, I was on the basis of risk management. Stromasys has been ramping up its worked at Insight, a large global reseller. Not competing on refurb system pricing executive and strategic team over the HP was Insight’s largest partner, and or technical problems. When I asked last 18 months, all while the company they ran the New York market. him what compelled him to assemble his has rolled out and refined its server staff for our meeting, he said, “It took virtualization software for the MPE us a week to get our production system marketplace. Bill Driest was introduced back up. We can’t afford that given the to the community at this May’s Training obligation we have to our clients.” Their Day as Stromasys GM in the Americas application has to be supported until Region. Driest now works for Pugh, 2035. since the latter arrived this June. All was The choices were a COBOL converter, explained to us by CEO Ling Chang, who a full migration, or our virtualization joined the company herself in 2012. platform. He said he could not afford In the fall of that year, Chang was to use anything from the old [3000] introduced to us by Stromasys founder hardware architecture. Even if he got the Robert Boers in a joint Q&A — in much Rich Pugh most stable box in the world, it was all the same way she introduced Pugh to Stromasys Senior VP the peripherals that would be unstable. us this month. We wanted to check on Worldwide Sales & Services the outlook for selling a virtualization That’s one prospect. How about a engine which emulates a server that North American GM Bill Driest said different industry? was cut loose by HP more than two he considered your May event the years ago. Emulators often surface rollout for the product. How does There’s a large insurance claims while system support is still in place but your sales organization work? processing firm. They’ve already put it manufacturing has ended. In the case of through the proof of concept and now HPA/3000, everything was dropped by HP Our sales model is quite different in each it’s just a matter of addressing the short before Stromasys could sell a single unit. of the worldwide regions. In America term and long term implementation of Of such challenges are heroic stories we have our direct sales organizations, the CHARON solution. Then there’s a made. Vendors have given up on led by Bill. I come from an enterprise cooperative of farmers who run their creations or developments that had background, where I sold as a global billing system through an HP 3000. The much life remaining, and Pugh and account manager. I’m very proud of business reason they’re looking at us is Chang believe they’ve got a good shot the fact that I carried a bag, with the to get off their older hardware platform, at replacing some mission-critical HP recognition is that you have to drive out of the maintenance costs. Our 3000 systems. Driest said that the North revenue to the company. It’s something contact there is convinced we’re the right American rollout of HPA/3000 began with that I take very personally and seriously. solution, and it’s a matter of getting the that May Training Day. Three months But with that said, I’m very familiar budget in place so they can move on it. later the prospects still have interest and with the channel model. For example, There’s also a company that runs questions, but fewer of the queries are Insight was a $5 billion dollar company Software as a Service for the financial about technical capabilities. Pugh said that didn’t engineer a thing, but the services industry. On their own, they’ve he’s been pitching large companies this intellectual power of our people there used the freeware version of our product, summer on 3000 replacements using the was really the value we provided to the and they’re convinced that it’s the right 20 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog move for them to make. Again, it’s sold on a business-level Our challenge is to give those remaining 3000 customers a conversation. It’s refreshing to take our sales strategy to this bridge to their next step — whether it’s to migrate, or stay on. level, which I believe will shorten our sales cycle and drive an earlier adoption. With the OS already off HP’s support list before the product became available, is there enough customer base Is there anything that seems to be in common among remaining to succeed? these prospects’ installations, regarding horsepower needs? I know that CHARON was going to get a 1.3 Chang: It’s something we have to balance, because Stromasys refresh for greater performance. is still a very small company — and yet we’re going into the enterprise market, which requires resources. At one site, there’s 11 separate applications While we do that balance, we’re still early that run and one overnight batch job. The way It’s sold on a business- in the process. Our goal is to team with we brainstormed doing their solution is not level conversation. It’s HP 3000 partners where we have mutual a like-for-like replacement, but considering interests to help get the word out. breaking apart the application, and possibly refreshing to take our stacking multiple processors. There’s Datapipe, sales strategy to this Pugh: When Gartner describes what’s going a cloud company and hosting provider similar on in the emulation space — where we were to Rackspace, and do our proof of concept level, which I believe named a Cool Vendor — they say that the from the cloud. The plan is to reduce the space operating system is just the personality. to the point of eliminating the server from the will shorten our sales In the past operating systems were like a DR site, and let the physical assets reside in cycle and drive an religion that you’d never breach. Put MPE the production environment. against VMS? Give me a break, don’t go there. This is the kind of dialogue of flexibility earlier adoption. Now it really doesn’t mean a thing. These are that we’re trying to position, instead of the just personalities of what we do, which is a traditional methodology of just buying a license in capital hardware emulation. dollars. A lot of the problem a customer has to solve is a business problem: risk management, not necessarily when the decision So would that change the investment level for the was made to choose a platform to run that application. I’m customer? not minimizing any of the strengths of MPE. But it’s just not as technically important as it was back in the day when IT Not really. The analogy that I would use is Microsoft Office 365: architectures — because of the proprietary nature of every just another way of using what you might need permanently element — mattered so much. or temporarily, over the cloud. At Stromasys we’ve had a value I can appreciate that Gartner’s personality conversation prop that’s just been traditional. Buy a license. What Ling and I would resonate with today’s Millennials. A CFO at the company are suggesting is that this is clearly an area that makes sense, I’m selling to is in his 30s. They don’t know what MPE means to use the cloud for proof of concept. to the business.

Have any of the major third party application What’s the difference in length of project between suppliers — Ecometry, MANMAN, Amisys, or going to CHARON vs. an application replacement others — had their customers use CHARON as of onto a non-MPE platform, or a rewrite? today? Chang: As you know, any time you’re looking at a Direct access to that application-using community rewrite you’re talking about multiple years. Those hasn’t been as robust as we’d like. I don’t have a specific projects do not usually come in on time, or under budget for response to that question yet; we may have an update soon. that matter. But even while a customer is doing that, we can be a solution to keep the application up and running. We can Is that access important in any way? Is the first-year implement our solution in a matter of days. business going to come from customers who have their own application code? Is there a structure or process in place to develop a network of resellers and consultants for CHARON in the We expect that the direct sales effort will give us more insight 3000 market? into that over the next 90 days. Chang: We would love to explore the opportunity for a company How might you overcome the late start HP created for to become a reseller. We can do a sell-with model, to make it a this product with MPE customers? This is a new situation win-win for a consultant. for a Stromasys product. Pugh: We’re refining our channel model. There are certainly CEO Ling Chang: That’s a good point. This is a market that companies that could offer presales, or sales and presales remains undefined. It is our challenge to find those who are support. And then they could be a value added reseller. We’re remaining, and still run their business-critical applications on going to be in the process of introducing a program that allows the HP 3000. Right now, based on preliminary information we a company or an individual to get started and get their feet received from the service providers at our training day event, wet, and then become a full VAR. Just a few months ago we the numbers vary. But it’s in terms of the thousands. Not the didn’t have that opportunity to give such partners a stair-step hundreds of thousands, as in the old Digital product line. approach to building a business around this product. The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog 21 Summer 2013 Articles Only on the Blog Homesteading Replacing LDEV 1 drives: many options Aug 19, 2013 Open source enables MPE enhancements Aug 7, 2013 Community experts explore Opening SSH Aug 6, 2013 Keeping XP and MPE follows same path Aug 1, 2013 Baking Up the Layers to MPE on iPads Jul 26, 2013 Just as I was closing out this issue, our 139th in paper, we got Software as Service: Answer to OS’s Ebbs Jul 19, 2013 word about a new entry into the HP 3000 emulation market. You OpenSSH may get unquiet for 3000’s users Jul 15, 2013 might not even call this one a market entry, because it’s open A New Opening for Old 3000 Skills Jul 11, 2013 sourced. It’s not really going to be for sale, not any more than Will MPE spell its end date in 2028? Jul 1, 2013 Linux was ever sold in the first 15 years of its lifespan. But open Backing up proves an emulator just works Jun 27, 2013 source relies on the volunteer time of brilliant minds. Marketing Open source resource: Secure FTP on 3000 Jun 24, 2013 and sales might some day be handled over the Web as well as Making Headway with a Static OS May 20, 2013 Git stores program code. However, for placing software that will be running a company, there’s nothing like an old-school visit in person, in a meeting room with customer technicians on hand. Migration & Transitions We might be headed toward a day when the old-school standards Having support is a matter of needs Aug 14, 2013 seem just old, rather than classic and proven. This momentum Glossary to the Future: ITIL, APM, and rank Aug 13, 2013 is gathering quickly in the world of words for publication. This Bottoms up delivers a bubbling MPE future Aug 5, 2013 summer we saw the departure of InformationWeek from the ranks Resource planning options can be cloud-y Jul 30, 2013 of printed publications. The weekly that covered the HP departure from the 3000 world, as well as HP’s e3000 rebranding of the box, 2013 economy continues to delay transitions Jul 29, 2013 is now a weekly publication of about five articles per issue. That’s Ecometry’s clan plans for JDA changes Jul 16, 2013 around 20 a month, or the same number Learn about the 1 migration for all: data Jul 10, 2013 we put onto the Web in our blog. Steps for Doing a Final HP 3000 Shutdown Jun 26, 2013 Web-based publication can do some Ops and apps watched, tracked in emulation Jun 19, 2013 things that print struggles to do these How infrastructure survives heated times Jun 18, 2013 days. It reaches readers nobody knows, The Last 5 Percent, and Toughest Surprises Jun 13, 2013 people who care about the subject but have escaped the commonplace radar. Anybody hear of Innovest as a 3000 site? We did this Users & Reports month. In 18 years of collecting customer Terminal emulation app tested via LinkedIn Aug 20, 2013 names, this one from New York escaped us. Tools trace patterns of IMAGE databases Jul 31, 2013 But then so did Turbosoft, the Australian As legacy iron ebbs, virtual servers swell Jul 3, 2013 firm that started to market its $49.95 iPad app up on the HP 3000 Community of Ron Seybold, Editor LinkedIn. A rollout, on a localized website. News Outta HP The Web provides ways to change the formula for information HP wins suit on strength of weak standard Aug 15, 2013 industries. Some companies never climb on the back of this Glossary to the Future: SDN Jul 12, 2013 tiger, while others work to make their paper versions look and Latest HP exiting outrage may be delayed Jul 2, 2013 behave just like print. Three years ago a company called Zinio was ready to take advantage of the juggernaut of tablets launched How shooting off Moonshot can hit your IT Jun 10, 2013 by the iPad. This summer they’ve got scores of magazines online, Find invention at Discover’s web, or garages Jun 7, 2013 readable through an app or displayed in glorious 27-inch MPE’s Hidden Value color on a desktop screen. I read Esquire and love the Techniques of CSV Importing, Revealed Aug 9, 2013 online version — which I pay Delete disks completely after replacement Jul 24, 2013 newswire.com/blog for— better than the print. I An MPE Power Tool: Byte Stream Files Jul 17, 2013 still keep print copies around How to Transfer Data Files on a 3000 Jun 21, 2013 for reference, but they’re not easy to dig into. There’s that index Many Different Ways to Move Your Console May 17, 2013 and searching thing that’s tough to offer on paper. The same sort of quantum leap is on the edge of the cloud revolution. We’ve heard this month of a project to offer proof Newsmakers of concept installations for the Stromasys emulator — that’s the tested emulator, proven at sites and fully licensed for MPE IT’s print populace loses a weekly citizen Jul 23, 2013 — via the cloud. A company called Datapipe is working with When needed, 3000 can stick to the fax Jul 22, 2013 Stromasys to offer these proofs. Some 3000 customers don’t want What Else Everyone is Doing These Days May 31, 2013 the hardware in their shop anymore. Just MPE, IMAGE and a 10 Simple Steps to Security Compliance May 30, 2013 proven set of applications. The Web takes away old-school habits How to Comply with Security Audit Requests May 28, 2013 whenever it can improve, and then prove. What will never go away is our need for stories. How we deliver them can always evolve. Get first notice of news on Twitter: @3000newswire 22 The 3000 NewsWire • August 2013 • 3000newswire.com/blog we remove

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