TSG to offer tool to make resource managing social Kenandy cloud to get 3000-savvy app in plans to replace MANMAN The Support Group is preparing its first app to fit into the new Kenandy Independent HP 3000 Information February 2012 Manufacturing Cloud. The company’s founder Terry Floyd is convinced this new cloud software solution, which can eliminate a lot of onsite IT, is capable of 3000 ’s pricing, replacing the traditional MRP/ERP applications that have been WIRE S .CO written for HP 3000s over release schedule debuts EW M N / the last 30 years. 0 B 0 L Floyd calls it Social once the customer O Stromasys starts with custom 0 MRP, built upon the projects to polish powers of provides hosting 3 G hardware. Stromasys for Force.com application virtualized hardware 3 provides a USB key which is a cloud 0 G computing version Stromasys has announced the to transfer the 3000’s 0 HPSUSAN ID code, 0 O of salesforce.com. pricing and rollout schedule for its N L Kenandy is the company HPA/3000 emulator product, so software tools and E /B W M that is using Force.com a combination of Intel i7 PC hardware apps will recognize the S O emulated environment. WIRE. to create a manufacturing and the Stromasys software. The cloud. Manufacturing has been software recreates the chip architecture Stromasys says the strategy is designed to give the noted as one of the toughest apps which MPE/iX expects from a PA-RISC to put into the cloud. Social networking processor, the kind at the heart of HP’s vendor a six-month period to polish the product by working closely with early gives companies a reason to make the 3000 servers. leap up there. HPA/3000 received this debut plan this adopters. These companies will be spending between $25,000 to $50,000 Kenandy’s foundation includes a quarter: Custom installations, a solution feature called Chatter. “Between forms priced above $25,000 per emulated to create A-Class caliber servers with performance from two to 10 times that and reports, I can use Chatter to follow server. A virtual software-only license a product on a big order,” Floyd said. aimed at smaller 3000 sites is set for of a rock-bottom A400-100-110 server. From engineering, through purchasing this summer, priced at under $25,000 See Emulator lineup, page 10 and including the interaction with vendors, Chatter gives insights and control that using email notifications cannot deliver. HP’s 3000 support interests Chatter looks like Facebook, only better, Floyd added. Chatter in Social MRP would connect 25,000-seat clearing away for indies installation at companies as large as In its public face, HP relegated to a marginal player in a market Dell and Google, but it also scales down that’s been choosing independent support providers for useful implementation in much smaller, 3000-sized enterprises. With over 82,000 customers and After a full year of absence from the HP 3000 community, the support arm of more than 2 million users, salesforce. Hewlett-Packard has been disappearing from customer choices for 3000 maintenance. com already has a big footprint on the Hardware is the only public offer that the company pushes on its old clients, according more traditional IT enterprise. Using to reports from the field. But HP hasn’t retracted its reach for the insurance-only Salesforce as the introduction should support dollars backed by a declining set of resources. make it easier to spark a migration onto “Most people have aligned themselves with an independent provider at this point,” a cloud solution with social spark. said Pivital Solutions president Steve Suraci. The shop that’s completely devoted to “All the pipes are built for an app,” MPE/iX and HP 3000 systems runs across straggler accounts when customers say Floyd said. “That’s what the developers they’re in the last 18 months of a migration and stick with HP. But it’s a rare encounter say about it. So a Social MRP user by now, at least in public. would just do the app part of their “It’s not as much as it had been,” said Pivital Solutions president Steve Suraci. “In customization.” The Support Group will this new year I had two customers come to me that they never received a message develop its Kenandy Manufacturing App See Indie Support, page 8 See Social MRP, 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 February 2012 Virtual futures 3000 emulator’s pricing, release schedule debuts — After a wait of nearly 10 years, the 3000 community sees the first price lists and release dates for a range of virtualized hardware solutions to replace HP’s iron with i7-based PC boxes — 1 await for early TSG to offer tool to make resource managing social — Leveraging the opportu- 3000 readers nity to rethink MRP, the Support Group embraces an app for making ERP social — 1 HP’s 3000 support interests clearing away for indies — Even though Hewlett- A dream delayed is better than a dream Packard hasn’t vanished from the support field for 3000 hardware, independent ven- denied. It’s a natural element of being dors report a lot less HP offers to continue contracts and ample indie uptake — 1 human to look into the future, a skill Eloquence smoothing UX-Linux migrations — The multi-platform your community has polished over the designed to operate like IMAGE/SQL becomes the least complicated part of leaving last decade. Across the same period I’ve behind HP’s , according to one software vendor making the move — 6 done polishing of my own on a dream that looked denied, but has escaped its delays. 3000 connections still Padding in the future — With companies’ sales forces It’s Viral Times, the novel I began and executives bringing their own devices into the enterprise, 3000 IT managers are to write in earnest once HP stopped looking for iPad access to MPE apps, and finding it at first through telnet — 9 writing its futures for the 3000. This What becomes legacy? All tech, eventually — The 3000 emulator’s CTO outlines month the book is a reality in printed a new standard of expectations for the swell of vendor-centric technologies — 13 and ebook versions, available at Amazon. — An initial step towards 3000 migra- com and my Writer’s Workshop website, Decommissioning 3000 Application Data workshopwriter.com. I think of Viral tions moves their data to target platforms, using extraction tools for IMAGE — 15 Times as my 3000 emulator. It’s a project HP will migrate best of HP-UX to Linux x86 — Project Odyssey to put enterprise- devised from a sense of necessity, given grade features of Unix into a hardened version of Red Hat-based x86 Linux — 16 up for lost at least once, but revived and 3000 users examine migration, emulation — LinkedIn discussions include delivered after a surprising amount of developers, managers, consultants on manufacturing, hardware futures — 18 challenges in its creation. I’d also like to believe my novel has NewsWire Q&A: Birket Foster, Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future — fans waiting in their seats to experience After 35 years of service to the community, MB Foster’s leader and founder is still its magic. Not a bestseller’s number of looking forward to the future of the system, while marking lessons of the past — 19 readers, partly because a wide-scale Vendors preserve HP 3000s for historical uses — AICS joins ranks of vendors release is no more likely than the expanding 3000 outsourcing to sites which don’t use the vendors’ software — 21 prospects for the Stromasys Charon HPA/3000 to reverse the trends of 3000 The Wide World of the Web — 22 ownership. But you don’t need to be We would like to thank the following sponsors of The 3000 NewsWire a bestseller to tell a good story with whose support of the HP 3000 community has made this issue possible meaning for the future. On the other hand, if you don’t tell a good story, Phone Page there’s only a slim chance to become a bestseller. Of small books and modest Adager...... 208-726-9100 ...... 24 software projects come enduring Genisys Corporation ...... www genisys. corp c. om ...... 12 classics, if we’re patient and lucky. Marxmeier Software AG ...... www m. arxmeier c. om/eloquence ...... 5 There’s been plenty of time to practice MB Foster Associates, Ltd ...... 800-ANSWERS ...... 23 patience with the emulator. It was first Pivital Solutions ...... www pivit. alsolutions c. om ...... 4 discussed in the fall of 2002, the same Robelle Solutions Technology Inc . . . . 888-762-3553 ...... 19 time I started my training as a writer of ScreenJet...... www s. creenjet c. om ...... 9, 14 fiction with classes at the Austin Writer’s The MPE Support Group ...... www mpesupportgroup. c. om...... 11 League. The concepts of both these Speedware ...... 514-747-7007...... 7 ventures have changed a great deal, just the Support Group inc...... www supgrp. c. om...... 2 like the fields where they’re appearing. How to contact the 3000 NewsWire The ‘02 emulator was heading for a specialized hardware design that could Editor ISSN 1521-124X mimic PA-RISC processors. Software Ron Seybold ([email protected]) The 3000 NewsWire is published Publisher four times yearly, plus electronic would be essential, but at one point the Abby Lentz ([email protected]) updates, by 3000 NewsWire LLC. leading vendor was looking for PA-RISC Contents of this publication may Homesteading & Support Editor: Gilles Schipper not be reproduced in any form chips to be placed in a PC-slot card. Migration Editor: Nicolas Fortin without express permission of the Viral Times started off in a very At-Large Editor: Birket Foster publisher. Non-bylined articles are written by the editor. Publisher different place, too. This story of a star News blog with business-day reports: 3000newswire.com/blog believes all information printed reporter who’s disgraced and must here to be true, but cannot assume redeem himself and recover love in a Archived news & tech articles: 3000newswire.com/searchnw.html responsibility for errors. © 3000 Voicemail, alternate e-mail: 512.331.0075; [email protected] NewsWire LLC. All rights reserved. pandemic opened in 2044. I thought I Deliveries & mail: 11702 Buckingham Road, Austin, TX 78759 Printed in the U.S.A. See Early readers, page 4 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 3 software we’ve come to call the HP 3000. debut as a story printed with ink on Early readers Nothing was ever going to reverse the paper. I’ve published it using everything outflow of 3000 customers from this the 3000 community has given me the (Continued from page 3) community. Too much change took place chance to polish: deadlines and printer needed that much elbow room in the as a result of the dot-com Web boom to double-checks, research and feedback future to show a society locked down into give vendor-locked computing much of (we call that last one “workshopping” virtualized life, even virtualized love to a growth path. For business computing, in the fiction business). We used to call avoid disease. It now starts in 2020. By an open model fed by many allied such books “self-published,” a lot like the time it went into release this month, independent players is the only way to the 3000 market used to call most of its my shorthand for the tale was “It’s a grow. Within the last four years, this products “third-party.” story in a future closer than you think.” kind of virtualized community, working But independence from strategies In the emulator’s tale, the marketplace with open specifications, is spinning the of the past is driving both books and believed it needed a 3000 replacement story of the future of computing. And computers. Looking to the future right away to stem the departure of storytelling, too. The changes don’t signal provides the great spark of “what if.” HP customers from the platform. Anything the end of other kinds of computing, once enjoyed the same phrase when it that would arrive later than HP’s exit though — not any more than the rise of first introduced a touchscreen computer, would be meaningless. The reality of the ebooks means the demise of paperbacks. a 9-inch marvel of the MS-DOS heyday, 3000’s future was a more interesting Even through Viral Times will enjoy a too far ahead of its time. story. It turned out to be a tale of long life as an ebook — it will never go Viral Times needed eight years of preserving MPE, not the hardware and out of print — it’s also getting a loving planning and work (and another half- dozen of dreaming) to become a book I can sign and send to readers. There’s the ebook version to download to an e-reader like an Amazon or Apple tablet, yes — but just try signing that one. The act of a human hand pushing ink across paper is one of those pleasures we continue to enjoy. I enjoyed signing at a little release party here in Austin. People enjoyed seeing a writer at work, jotting down personal messages above a signature. Your community’s emulator needed futuristic changes in its strategy to become a reality, too. Virtualization grew stronger, like a chapter revised and edited, until it became a keystone to extending computing into any budget or set of human resources. The IT datacenter with a troop of white coats has become virtualized, so ethereal it’s called the cloud. We used to work with service bureaus because the computers were so expensive. Now we use the cloud because people are so expensive. And yet we can’t dream of a time when we don’t need people to manage computing, not any more than I could dream of a story where love wasn’t the most important part of staying healthy in a future filled with danger. What I didn’t see coming, but wished for, was virtualizing the publishing field. People tell stories that can be read without a wall of paper to prove their worth. Self-publishing, the old vanity press, has become indie publishing thanks to e-reader technology people slagged — just like emulation — for many years. What both the Stromasys emulator and my Viral Times need now are reviews. People need to try out the future to see how it fits them and report back. Take a ride on the indie express, and see if there’s joy for you in its future. — Ron Seybold 4 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 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] Eloquence smoothing UX-Linux migrations Multi-platform database makes Unix as well as Windows. HP’s Unix, on the Integrity servers for any reason migrations off HP-UX simpler the other hand, is locked into the bit- — including Oracle’s decision to drop map Endian issues of Integrity/Itanium Itanium and HP-UX support. The HP 3000 isn’t the only Business systems. HP-UX is Big-endian and the So in one sense, Eloquence will be Critical System that’s weathering the current Xeon hardware line is little- supporting the new platform for HP-UX winds of migration. Some companies are endian. That’s where the Eloquence list features — because the database is seeing the light at the end of their Unix chat began, when someone asked about already supported on Linux and Intel tunnel and making the move onto an a new Xeon-based BCS server for HP’s Xeon systems. open source environment. Linux has been Christian Scott of Softvoyage, a the choice for CASE, a maker of banking The Eloquence list chat software company that used Speedware software which had a 3000-using to create a travel agency app for 3000s customer base not so very long ago. began when someone and then moved to other environments, A recent chat on the mailing list said “I wouldn’t expect to see HP-UX on devoted to the database Eloquence asked about a new Xeon- Xeon.” He pointed out an HP webpage pointed to one more HP-UX refugee. Rick based BCS server for HP’s that answers questions about Project Gilligan of CASE commented during a Odyssey. “And HP was pretty clear to me discussion about HP-UX future platforms Unix. Turns out there is that there is no port of HP-UX to Xeon that the company had dumped HP’s Unix no such thing, despite in their long term strategy. HP-UX has at the close of 2011. The applications a roadmap of 10 years, so you can read made the move to Linux, where there repeated hopes from HP’s between the lines.” was “some minor amount of work in As for the features that HP will be going to Linux on x86_64, to handle the Unix market. moving from HP-UX to Linux, Gilligan [Big vs. Little] endian issues. Eloquence Unix. Turns out there is no such thing, is skeptical. “So what are these HP-UX was the trivial part of the port to Linux despite the hopes from HP’s Unix market. features they would bring to Linux? on x86_64.” HP does have a plan to move the best And are they going to only be on Linux That’s 64-bit Linux in Intel’s Xeon of its enterprise HP-UX features to Linux. running on HP hardware? If so, it’s still a lineup, usually presented to HP sites as There’s no timetable on this plan, called proprietary environment. There’s nothing a ProLiant server installation. Eloquence Project Odyssey. But it’s a migration from HP-UX which we lost when moving is a equal-opportunity database for 3000 destination point for the customer to Linux, except for perhaps the high migrators, operating on Linux, HP’s who won’t be remaining on HP-UX or price.”

a clean page to serve small companies migrations and outsourcing and clouds Social MRP that want streamlined operations to way out of the reach of the smaller IT get the most from their manufacturing shop. But Oracle and SAP become the (Continued from page 1) apps. ASK’s founder Sandy Kurzweil has default options for a migration, following for free use over the customer base. steered the Kenandy designs to get a the “nobody ever got fired for choosing The Support Group hung out its shingle simplified approach to manufacturing IBM” strategy of the ‘80s. for cloud-based manufacturing solutions software systems. Small companies that In contrast, Social MRP is “software by posting webpages that outline how fill the ranks of 3000 owners have a that fits the way you do business, not it will integrate the new offering of the surprising array of unique manufacturing forcing your business to fit the way Kenandy replacement for MANMAN. workflows and business rules. 3000 the software works,” said company Working on its target Social MRP, TSG’s users who need to move onto a new president David Floyd. Once TSG been chatting up the potential for the platform are in a position to leverage the customizes the look and feel for each Chatter networking feature inside transition into a new way of individual in a company to hide Kenandy’s software. thinking about MRP. that complexity, it “follows It’s early in the social-cloud evolution One key to the success of up on a monthly basis with cycle, but TSG will be one of the charter this adventure is using a guide each individual user as they Kenandy Consulting Partners. The who knows the landscape the learn more and expand their business model calls for migration, customer is leaving behind. productivity.” implementation and customization of a TSG’s already got 18 years of Manufacturing is a bedrock new manufacturing system. third-party support experience app in the 3000 world. Small TSG’s reminding the market that the for MANMAN users, plus the extra two companies that couldn’t afford a vendor was the original third-party decades that founder Terry Floyd and his mainframe in the 1980s picked HP 3000s support company for ASK’s MANMAN team supply from the ‘70s onward. instead, relying on cost efficiency. With system developed in the 1970s — TSG calls the concept “Hide the the cloud moving IT’s capital costs off software that’s still running a few Complexity.” The approach couldn’t be the books, and fine-tuned app services hundred manufacturing companies more different from the over-engineered from a veteran development staff, Social around the world. solutions from Oracle and SAP. In MRP has the potential to give migrators a Kenandy’s Rob Butters reported back particular, the mainframe foundation of new value model — one that won’t need in September that one objective of the SAP — with “10,000 software switches” large-scale elements that the big IT shops cloud-based solution was to start with by several IT managers’ counts — puts seem to crave. 6 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog

Michael Anderson, an IT consultant in the Bay Area and Indie Support director of the CAMUS MANMAN MRP users group, was an IT projects manager and applications manager at manufacturers (Continued from page 1) Tencor and ThermaWave, both using HP 3000s. Hewlett- from HP on support renewal — for the first time ever. In other Packard is off the radar at most of these manufacturing sites. cases I’ve continued to see HP.” “As far as HP support for the HP 3000, I dropped mine a Suraci adds that when Pivital does run across HP trying couple months after they announced the end-of-life,” Anderson to sell 3000 support, “it’s on a sales office-by-sales office said of the period in 2002 where he became Enterprise Wide basis, because that’s who’s doing support at this point. When Applications Manager at ThermaWave. “What are you spending you get your supported equipment list from HP today, there’s money for at that point? Long term there was not going to be three things on it. HP’s being very selective about what they’re any meaningful development for MANMAN, so there would also actually covering.” be no demand from the application for new features in MPE or Software support for the systems is just about IMAGE. My employer was going through tough times non-existent, at least on a public basis, Suraci said. and really needed the $58,000 in savings. “It’s really just been limited to hardware aspects of “As long as the old hardware continued to work support.” and you had a good boot tape, what could HP provide Newer CPUs and chassis are most likely to that third parties didn’t already provide better for make it onto HP’s supported devices list. N-Class less? The damage is done and most of the HP support or A-Class servers might be offered from a local customers are gone. Maybe if they had announced sales office as supportable items. MOD 20 storage there would be some support in the afterlife there units are another example of cherry-picked items would be more users holding on.” that would match up with only a small part of an User groups, which have some of the most independent support vendor’s lineup. seasoned managers in the community, offer a better But that HP coverage can be wildly uneven. “A lot application and system resource. “On the other of times they’re supporting the disk arrays, but not the drives in hand, for the companies that still use MANMAN on HP 3000s, the arrays,” Suraci said. HP offered to support just one of the CAMUS is still here to provide a supportive environment and two internal disk drives in a customer’s Series 928, and not the forum for knowledge exchange,” Anderson said. “But it’s getting internal tape drive. pretty quiet.” In a case such as that, a service call could devolve into While HP’s not making much on these soft feints into a determining which disk drive may have failed, with the case market that it’s abandoned, there’s no doubting the attempts ending with a report of unsupported devices. Lower-end 3000 will continue, however unsuccessful. MB Foster’s Birket Foster systems are rarely on an HP support account by now. Higher- predicted back in 2009 that HP would become a non-entity in end accounts are more likely to fall into the HP folds after the support field by now. years of more extensive attention. “Does the market miss the final level of HP’s 3000 support? No, these customers are already working with independent companies,” Foster said. “I’m sure that the only thing that annoys those [independent providers] is that HP keeps taking money for support. The long support tail of HP has already moved resources away from the 3000.” Off the books, however, the HP methods and pricing are still being applied in some places. “They’re still doing support for some customers under nondisclosure because they don’t want the unwashed masses to know,” Foster said. “They’re willing to ensure there’s a body providing support to those customers. It’s something they’ve managed, to keep employees on for an extra period of time to cover some of the support needs for some larger, more strategic customers. But HP is also working hard to ensure those customers have a plan to move off.” “They’re definitely there on the hardware side of 3000 support,” Foster said. “They’re offering support, but for certain devices. The list is growing smaller. When you get an HP renewal, it now says, ‘Except for these devices,’ with another set of devices falling off the list. For support, I’m sure you can get it if you’re paying enough money.” “Some of the people who used to work on the 3000 are still working inside HP. They’re very experienced and support certain customers. But I would say HP’s definitely reduced the number of personnel skilled in HP 3000 support.” . The departure of HP from the field follows a pattern of receding that started long before the vendor closed up its 3000 labs. At MANMAN and 3000 support provider The Support Group, “We felt like we were supporting legacy products already in 2001,” said founder Terry Floyd. “Most of our MANMAN customers were off of applications software support anyway, so it didn’t change our plans much.” 8 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 3000 connections still Padding into the future iPad requests for 3000 access “We were all set to do this with Neal terminal and connectivity solution. prompt requests to link up and then had to postpone,” Greenup Minisoft sells a Mac-capable version said. “He is back working on a number of Javelin. You might have known this HP business server users have begun of projects here at Minisoft. The Javelin Minisoft software as MS/92 in an earlier to ask about iPad connectivity once port to iPad is still on the to do list. I life. The whole kit’s been rewritten in again. Some of the answers include know there are people interested in a Java, which makes the software capable pretty good advice on getting access robust HP connectivity app for iPad. of running on a wider range of clients, all to HP’s Unix servers. The HP 3000 We just haven’t had the development to attach to servers including the 3000, connectivity, which would be best served resources to finish the project.” Unix and even the AS/400 lineup. There’s with 700/92 emulation nuances, looks to So while we’ll keep an eye on the App also a Minisoft Secure 92 solution with be a more complex prospect. Store for the first 3000-savvy iOS app, SSH tunneling that’s been released Back in the summer of 2010 we were there might be another solution available recently. waiting on the arrival of a 3000-grown in the meantime. Something demoed But back to that desktop control solution. Minisoft intended to release on the 2012 Macworld show floor, just solution. Splashtop Remote Desktop its Javelin connection for iOS. It had getting on its feet, can give users control requires a wi-fi connection between the even set a $9.95 price. But then the over their desktop back at the office — desktop and the tablet. It even supports developer Neal Kazmi weathered some and so they’d be able to use a Windows Android devices. So you can use this health issues and the project had to be PC running 3000 connectivity solutions, app, plus a free Streamer client on that tabled. But it’s not canceled, according to or even something hosted on the Mac. desktop, to control any interface you can Minisoft’s founder Doug Greenup. Yes, there is one Mac-based 3000 See Pad links, page 12 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 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 9 and for ourselves.” He said this is older, smaller 3000s. The first release Emulator lineup how Stromasys started marketing its of HPA/3000 was only matching A-Class VAX and Alpha , which have 400MhZ horsepower as we took this (Continued from page 1) been available for six and three years story to press. Stromasys has proven Hardware as well as installation services respectively, and now emulate the work lab resources to boost that. The rollout are included in these 3410, 3510 and of more than 4,000 of those Digital schedule promises an N-Class powered, 3520 models. By April, according to the servers. multiple processor version by the third released plan, one- and two-processor But the initial high price for a single- quarter of 2012, but sold at a price above A500-class servers can be emulated processor model of HPA/3000 is giving $50,000. using 8GB of RAM. The larger of these some community members some pause Anderson doubts there’s enough of an configurations will provide 10 times the in purchasing. One former OpenMPE offer yet from Stromasys to spark any performance of the two-CPU A500s on volunteer said that a $25,000 emulator growth of MPE application use during the market today. wouldn’t serve his needs. Martin 2012. CEO Jean-Paul Bergmans of Gorfinkel said he doesn’t have his Series “It’s been a couple years since I’ve Stromasys said in December the 9x9 3000 turned on much anymore, had to worry about it, but I don’t see the emulator was running with FiberChannel and he’d like to have an archival emulator swelling the ranks of MPE or connectivity in the labs, a key element in replacement. application users,” Anderson said. ”Does replacing the N-Class 3000s where FC is almost universally used. Bergmans said that the “Son of Zelus” package running under $25,000 can have adopters who want a 3000 they can operate in archival mode. “There’s a different opportunity for everybody, which is to provide them HP 3000 archival services based on a cloud implementation,” Bergmans said. “It’s something for people who want to store off the data and just access it occasionally. They probably don’t even want to keep a live system anymore.” Stromasys products all run with VMware, he added, and the company releases “appliances” which come fully packaged and come with the supporting operating system — in this case Linux. “We would prefer not to run on VMware before July” with the HPA/3000 Charon, he added. “But there is no technical reason why you couldn’t do this with the very first release of these products.” The initial release months for the product give Stromasys the chance Shades of Emulation: In the chart above, the versions of the Charon HPA/3000 emula- “to be very closely in touch with our tor are priced by shades of grey. The initial release of the virtualized server solution that customers directly,” he said. Starting in puts MPE/iX on Intel chips will be sold as projects until mid-2012, with prices running mid-year some kind of reseller channel between $25,000 and $100,000. A software-only version, sold without an Intel i7 Core will be available, probably focused on the PC, hits the market in July, priced below $25,000. N-Class sized emulators running on software-only implementation at first. multiple processors will be sold for more than $100,000. Until July it’s quality, rather than quantity that’s the goal of the rollout. “We don’t expect to have hundreds of Bergmans agreed with Gorfinkel. “He is Stromasys have a sales or marketing customers by the middle of the year,” absolutely right,” Bergmans said. “But I department? I think they are mistaking Bergmans said. “We’re really looking at would say that almost whatever the price the ardor of the enthusiast as market working hand-in-hand on the reasonably- of the emulator and the equipment would demand.” sized systems, probably multi-systems. be, a better answer to a need like this is “I think there’s a lot of interest in the We’ll have our engineers on site and do a cloud-based HP 3000/MPE compatible emulator for contractors who can finally this in an in-depth, fully controlled way.” service, billed on usage. This would be put a development system into their home “The last thing you want to do is a far better solution, and we are indeed office,” he added. “I don’t think we’re to pre-release a product prematurely, looking at that service model.” the point yet when you can’t get parts to and then have negative feedback,” he Michael Anderson, a director of keep old hardware running — just rob added. “To be able to afford to give such the CAMUS user group of MANMAN them from an equivalent HP 9000.” close and intensive support, it needs MRP sites, says the premiere of the Even the 3000 sites which have to be worthwhile for both the customer HPA/3000 offer may not fit the users of definite plans to migrate could find an 10 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog newsgroup. “Maybe longer, as the process to convert to our new Emulator lineup system was hampered by the amount of budget we are allowed. (Continued from facing page) Then again, why the rush? It is still the best out there.” “We have three-year migration plan,” said another manager role for the emulator to play, said consultant Brian Edminster on the 3000 mailing list. “And I doubt my last three HP 3000 of Applied Technologies. shops have a plan in place yet.” “For migrations that are really replacements rather than Brett Forsyth, a reseller who has more than 20 years just re-hosting, it could well be much cheaper to keep a experience in the 3000 market, did a survey of his client list emulated instance of the application at time of conversion, and found almost 200 HP 3000s still active within the last rather than try to mothball a server, and hope it’ll come up year or so. okay later.” “My number totaled 197 known active,” he said. “These are HP 3000s in a range running from Micro XEs to N-Class A lull for migrations? 750 4-way systems — and those are just the ones that I know Some of the migration tool and service of personally. Keep in mind that some suppliers are expecting migrations from of these clients have multiple units in the 3000 to slow to a trickle this year. Alan “The last thing you want multiple locations. This is the beast that Yeo of ScreenJet says that the chance of just won’t die, in spite of Carly [Fiorina] extending the life of 3000 applications, to do is pre-release a and all the other MBAs who thought they by using the HPA/3000 software, is going product prematurely, knew better.” to put on the brakes for sites that didn’t The largest and best-known have a clear future strategy for their 3000 and then have negative installation might be at Navitaire, the servers. feedback,” Bergmans airline billing company. Mark Ranft last Even without the possibility of replacing reported that the enterprise which was Series 900 hardware with the PC hardware added. “To be able to once known as Open Skies runs more plus software that starts at $15,000, most than a dozen of the largest HP 3000s that of the 3000 programs in production are afford to give such close Hewlett-Packard ever sold. not broken. They continue to do the job and intensive support, it “We have 21 HP 3000s. Eighteen of they were built for, although they could them are the largest, fully-loaded N4000- work faster, or connect better to new needs to be worthwhile 4-750 systems you can get. We have peripherals. migrations to Windows in various stages, 3000 managers wonder about these for both the customer and but there is also a very real need for things. “Am I the only one out here?” they for ourselves.” legacy data access after the migration. ask, in public forums like the 3000-L The alternative is to migrate all the data mailing list and newsgroup. The answer is and all the archival history, and that can no. In fact, the populace of 3000 customers is surprising, both be costly.” in its numbers and the work these systems do. The brand-new These are the sites that Stromasys will hope to attract chairman of the Connect user group’s board has managed a with an emulator, pushing the horsepower of every emulated 3000 shop for many years. Steve Davidek is on the record as a system to a minimum of an A-Class, while the product line fan of the 3000, even while his shop at the City of Sparks has grows to a top end even higher than those 750s. migrated numerous 3000 apps. For those companies and organizations constrained by “The City of Sparks, Nevada will be running an HP 3000 budgets, the goal of maintaining “the best out there” may and BiTech Payroll at least through 2011,” he’s said on the dictate a lull in the march to migration. 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 • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 11 $5.99. There’s even a Lite version that’s free. Pad links The IT manager using Mocha will need to know telnet well (Continued from page 9) enough to configure a telnet server. If that’s your HP 3000, good for you. But telnet might be managed from another server. drive from the desktop. There’s one level of connectivity while It’s entirely possible that a free Windows client is doing the inside the same wi-fi network. But Splashtop can also reach traffic management for telnet-enabled hosts. outside of a company’s net for even greater remote range. If it’s an all-3000 solution you need for the 3000, there’s A connection through a working Gmail account lets the a great telnet webpage on the 3k Associates Technical Wiki desktop certify itself to the iPad or Android tablet. Using this (Twiki) for the server. The page covers the details of using network, a worker in a secured wi-fi net in another location can an indie bit of software, the contributed NQTELNET program touch the software on his written by Eric Schubert of Notre Dame. NQTELNET is a desktop. I saw the on-the- It’s a wave that’s not host-based telnet server which will handle terminal same-net demonstration going to be stopped; operations. at Macworld and was What’s this about a Twiki for the HP 3000? It’s a tech surprised at the level of it’s a Bring Your Own resource set up years ago to capture as much tech expertise control. I don’t know if I’d as possible from community 3000 managers such as Schubert. try this with an iPad 1, Device world now You’d be surprised how much is online at the site managed by because more processing 3k Associates founder Chris Bartram. But then you might have power is better. It will hum along even faster in a little while been surprised to learn that telnet is the interface that keeps when the iPad 3 is released this spring. on giving to the 3000, even while the community waits for a There are three kinds of IT managers who respond to these block mode tablet app to touch all of the MPE/iX apps. mobile connection needs. The first wants to wall off IT from For a better background on the possibilities of the HP 3000’s mobile access. The second is willing to see why mobile will connectivity, comparing telnet to NS/VT, have a look at the make the enterprise better. The third knows that mobile is 3000 connectivity webpage at AICS Research. One of the great essential to keeping a company abreast of modern access. gifts that AICS gave to the community was the free QCTerm You don’t want to be the first for very much longer. This is a terminal emulator. There’s top-grade telnet support inside that wave that’s not going to be stopped; it’s a Bring Your product, so much so that the freeware recognizes two Own Device (BYOD) world out there now. Apple’s levels of telnet access. sold 55 million iPads already, not to mention the Put a problem or a possibility in front of HP 100 million iPhones. Android will bring even more 3000 veterans and they will share what they know devices into the shop. And there’s usually a good about solutions, usually on the 3000 newsgroup chance they arrive under the arm or in the pocket of and mailing list. Once the community took note, the a VP who simply wants to use their favorite laptop problem of connecting the iPad or iPhone to a 3000 replacement. — or the possibility of enabling this most mobile of As for entrusting Google to certify a remote clients — sparked some tests and suggestions from computer’s indentity, it’s better than nothing. Even your community. the developers of Splashtop understand Gmail is “I’ve had a couple of requests from sales people a stopgap. But an internal wi-fi linkup is a great way to be wanting to log on to the HP 3000 to do lookups,” said Randy responsive to a request for mobile 3000 access. The ultrabooks Stanfield of Unisource. It’s a company using the HP 3000 will make laptops lighter, but those are not the devices causing in support of its business selling printing materials such the BYOD wave. You can get ready for tablets now, and keep an as papers, facility supplies and equipment, and packaging eye on what else will emerge this year. materials and equipment. “Our reps connect via the Internet and laptops,” said Luen Telnet is the state of the art for apps to communicate with Miller on the Eloquence newsgroup. “But they are all dying to the 3000. A telnet client walk around with the iPad.” A typical situation for IT to handle: will most probably not Some of your most persuasive and eloquent users, making If your 3000 can be know anything about HP a case for bringing their own devices to connect with your accessed via Telnet? escape sequences, so the corporate server. app access will be nothing Ask a few mobile-savvy consultants about how to marry an Then the app Mocha more than character- iPad with an HP server and you hear the word telnet. One mode. manager reported that the iOS app Mocha Telnet has 700/92 Telnet is worth taking Consultant and security emulation. Of course, there’s a bit of the 3000’s world missing a shot towards expert Art Bahrs reports from that solution — NS/VT. he’s found a couple of Now it might seem an odd match to require a 3000 app telnet emulators, and that’s old enough to use NS/VT to link with a mobile tablet that wondered if WRQ might have one that runs on iOS. Alas no, owns more than 95 percent of the tablet marketplace. A 3000 and WRQ became a part of Attachmate years ago. Its Reflection system probably designed in the 1980s, still being delivered to line still offers NS/VT and telnet links to 3000s. Attachmate a mobile device that didn’t even exist two years ago. If that’s has no iOS apps, a fact that’s easy to confirm because the the challenge, the full range of 3000 interfaces — including Apple App Store is the only source of apps that don’t need a some of the oldest block mode response — is not yet being jailbroken phone or pad. Jailbreaking adds power and options served directly. (The Splashtop Remote Desktop app offers the to these devices, but deploying jailbroken iPads to a sales force best chance of that, since it controls a PC desktop over a wi-fi is a strategy that can change a career. network link.) Then Bahrs checked back in to report on zaTelnet v 3.3, from But if your 3000 can be accessed via Telnet? Well, then the zaTelnet. Bahrs and other 3000 vets are running tests to see app Mocha Telnet is worth taking a shot towards. It’s only See Pad links, facing page 12 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog What becomes legacy? All tech, eventually 3000 emulator’s Chief Technology Officer outlines vendor. Once that day arrives the IT customer can choose to new standard for adopting vendor-centric technology go independent. But at some point a PA-RISC system like the 3000 or old HP 9000s, or the Itanium servers hosting HP-UX, What can you do about legacy IT? Embrace virtualized future it all becomes a legacy system — even the relatively nouveau for any platform you use, or migrate onto. It’s the only way to platform of Windows NT. All of these computers host business keep the business of your older republic vital. critical applications. Boers said the average lifespan of such When Stromasys showed off its first test an app is now 22.5 years. It’s not tough to runs of the HPA/3000 Charon emulator, the find in-house software that was created company pointed out that the market for Boers says that “over more than 20 years ago in your community. virtualization is only getting larger. Some What’s become harder to do is find gear to companies have retained environments no the next decade we keep it running which has room to grow in longer supported by the vendor. While HP will see an unusually performance and connectivity. comes to mind here, this is also true of “There’s still more and more legacy Microsoft. Some people are surprised when large number of systems around,” Boers said. “if you look at they learn MPE/iX drives manufacturing business applications the growth of the worldwide installed base of companies as large as Measurement computers, there’s a very interesting period Specialties. That’s only a few dozen servers, which are clearly at between 1980 and 1990. The worldwide however. We’ve heard of one organization that installed base multiplied by a factor of 22 has more than 3,000 Windows NT systems to the end of life.” times. The IT installed base kept growing, but support. it has never hit a factor of 22 in any single That story comes from Robert Boers, the CTO of Stromasys decade since then.” who makes a compelling case for virtualization of all “If you combine the two numbers — 20-30 years of environments, whether a dated Windows release or the classic application life, and a growth of 22 times — over the next MPE/iX. “The industry is looking away from a growing problem decade we will see an unusually large number of business of legacy systems,” he said, “one that’s got nothing to do with applications which are clearly at the end of life. It’s accentuated HP or VAX and Alpha servers.” Stromasys has sold more than 4,000 installations of those DEC systems, developing a See Legacy tech, page 14 business model and tech design they’re applying to HPA/3000. He cited a military organization “who have 3,500 Windows NT 4 servers. They can’t run that stuff anymore on a modern [hardware] platform.” While Boers said this legacy wave has little to do with the HP 3000 opportunity, the issues remain the same. Everything which IT purchases has an end-of-life date coming from the Pad links (Continued from facing page) if an iOS device can manage a 3000, access that’s a few steps short of user-grade interfaces to 3000 applications. Bahrs said that he was able to test the free version of the telnet iPad app zaTelnet. Many apps are free in this category, with a more fully-featured complement for a few dollars more. “It definitely would work for a quick and dirty trouble shooting session, or to check on a job, or support a user with an abortio or such,” he said. Security is another testing point. ZaTelnet is a SSH2 client for iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. It emulates terminal VT100 and partially xterm — enough for console programs. ZaTelnet supports SSH2 authorization by plain password, interactive password and private key file. “SSH is an option,” Bahrs said of the secure shell handler on ZaTelnet, “and it did work successfully both ways. There are times that good old fashioned telnet really does come in handy when doing testing, so I test both.” Mocha Telnet gets the job done for 3000 management. “It works perfectly on my iPhone,” said support provider Gilles Schipper, “even the Lite (free) version. I can even run HP Glance on it. While it doesn’t look too pretty, one can decipher the output. I set the termtype to “hp,” rather than the default “vt220.” The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 13 Burroughs, Sun, HP, IBM and more. So Rdb helps make a case for choosing Legacy tech many have seen the end of their vendor virtualization as a starting point, rather life. Some of those are supported in than a migration target. VMware has (Continued from page 13) virtualization, even today. thorough IT buy-in as an enterprise by the growth bubble of the 80s. It’s the Boers said he believes that if the IT solution as well as a future on the equivalent of the post-WW II birth rate.” industry is maturing — “which I hope HPA/3000 solution. Buying specialized IT managers put the HP 3000 on the map it does, it will come up with newer servers might build an ecosystem for as a popular enterprise destination in technologies to deal with this growing a vendor to develop. But one business that decade. Unix wasn’t an option and problem of legacy software. I’ll be decision like Oracle’s — built upon Windows wasn’t a practical release. less modest: one of the things we at competition instead of technical Whether you homestead or migrate Stromasys have invented is a little bit of ability — can sweep an ecosystem into the future, this baby boom of IT will that newer technology.” into hibernation. Although HP’s biggest impact your plans. “We’re going into a The legacy market will be getting competitor, IBM, has usually given decade where there will be an extreme larger once Oracle sets customers a way to need for replacing something to keep down the end-of-life To deal with the protect applications, these applications running, or find a for its database on the HP is only learning more efficient way of replacing them,” Itanium servers, he said. growing problem of this now. The prospect Boers said. “There is not enough time Oracle’s engineering of being hibernated and money in the world or not enough for the Rdb database legacy software, Boers doesn’t seem to keep people to rewrite the applications or put has been done for believes “one of the HP’s customers from them into SAP. This symbolizes there years on the Stromasys buying without a have to be other things to be done with emulators, he said. Over things we at Stromasys thought for a multiple- legacy applications.” in that DEC community, decade app lifespan, “We simply can’t cope with them over Oracle provides free have invented is a though. the next 10 years. And very few people transfer licenses little bit of that newer “Large users of IT know that, because the average of the for this database technology should be computer salesman is less than the time onto the Stromasys technology.” more vocal,” Boers when these [legacy] machines were emulator. Oracle has a said. “They seem to created. They don’t know about them, presentation “that shows that the Rdb swallow everything the industry does. they don’t like them — and they have no database runs about 10 times faster on I am puzzled why large IT consumers clue how important these machines are.” our emulator than on the original Alpha of tons of HP systems do this. They Boers waxes philosophical about the hardware,” Boers said. should be technically savvy enough to situation once he starts talking about In a spot of irony, those Alpha tell HP, “It’s nice to go to a new platform caring for legacy technology. “In the last customers were being forced to move — but are there other ways in which 200 years or so, every time something to Itanium servers to preserve their you can sustain my existing business was really needed in society to keep environments, although there was a lot critical applications? A company like it moving, it was invented,” he said. of re-engineering to make that migration IBM has done this forever. In between “Sometimes multiple people invented a success. Oracle’s talk of “terminal companies I worked for the biggest bank multiple things in different places in the releases” of Rdb reminds every IT in the Netherlands. On the Series 360s world.” IT managers will recall the wave planner that Father Time outruns every they had emulation mode for the older of built in the 1980s technology eventually. But Oracle’s applications. They never had a need to by Wang, DEC, Data General, NCR, support of a hardware emulator for replace them.” 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].

14 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog Decommissioning 3000 Application Data An initial step to migrations migrate data to the new app as required, application replaces the legacy system?” moves data into targets you separate data into transaction You’ll want ask questions, too, like categories. For active data, figure out “What is an acceptable decommissioning When companies decide their HP 3000 a data migration. For inactive data, timeframe?” will not serve the same role as it has for determine a historic data plan. A single Like any good project that impacts many years, there’s a decommissioning plan doesn’t fit both types of data very a company asset like data, yours will along that path. An MB Foster webinar well. demand that you create a plan for took note of the two types of pulling a Because the company has specialized data integrity validation and auditing. 3000’s contribution offline. The most in data and reports for so many years, Articulate what quality data means, and obvious one, and perhaps the hardest, is MB Foster reminds share it across the hardware decommissioning. Everything managers that enterprise must be moved away by the time the plug reporting requirements The step doesn’t “The integrity of your gets pulled and a reseller or recycler is are a key element of signal the total data is vital,” Foster located. both kinds of plan. said, and there are But a preliminary decommissioning is Longer-term reporting shutdown of a 3000, many threats to data a much more common occurrence. It’s requirements are often quality.” For example also a step that doesn’t signal the total not considered during a but can lead to that there are hardware shutdown of a 3000, although it can data decommissioning problems, old tape contribute to that. MB Foster calls this process. When you need that kind of archive issues, data entry errors or application data decommissioning. The information, how will it be presented carelessness. company’s UDA Central product can help. back to the users who need it? One Decommissioning legacy data often But that’s information MB Foster only best practice is collecting line of must consider who owns it. Issues of shared after a half-hour of discussing the business and departmental-level regulatory and governance have got to issues everybody needs to be aware of, reporting requirements — before you be met, including access to historic data regardless of tools used. decommission legacy applications and over required periods of time. Some Data decommissioning typically occurs data. The apps and platform may change, alternatives in these instances include when but the reporting needs are likely to moving the data, providing searchable • An application is being replaced – by remain the same. formatted data, and having an auditable a new application or an upgrade. In some cases, HP 3000 apps are instance for the “system of record” — the • Hardware or an application no longer part of a larger, global IT structure. retiring HP 3000 application or server. has support It’s a good idea to document corporate MB Foster’s interest in this, apart • When a OS vendor obsoletes a data retention policies with the global from serving its customers, is the platform or chipset perspective as a guide. Factor in rules Extract, Cleanse, Transform and Load • When an operating system has according to individual countries, and abilities of UDA Central. The software reached its usable lifecycle remember that specific industries will does ECTL to and from Sybase, Ingres, • When a company has sometimes dictate compliance Informix, Oracle, DB2, MySQL, SQL a change in status – being policies. It’s possible to reach Server, Progress, PostgreSQL, CACHE, merged into or acquired, or out to corporate internal Eloquence and MPE. an insolvency — and the resources which deal with application will no longer be records management to address Automate notices used. their policies. In order to begin such a Once the policies and decommissioning, IT managers processes have been of 3000 news should determine owners and established, it’s time to Links to reports on our NewsWire key stakeholders. With the patience and standardize on an archiving system. blog can arrive in your in-box, thanks savvy that 3000 managers are known for, This is the time to work on unifying data to the reach of Twitter or the Emma discover the data owners’ requirements and content. That’s a process that will Mail email service. An automated for the movement and maintenance of proceed smoothly if you can provide a feed of stories and news items arrive legacy application data. “It’s not only complete view of the archiving system to via Twitter. The tweets also include important from a compliance perspective, the data stakeholders and departments. news links related to HP enterprise but it may be critical to a line of business Rules for access to the data will include computing. Using a free Twitter or department,” said MB Foster’s the issues of security, privacy, and account, follow us at our address: CEO Birket Foster. He advises that IT compliance with regulations such as 3000newswire. managers adopt a business process and HIPAA for health care, or PCI credit card In addition to Twitter, once each legal view of the long-term requirements, transactions. week a simple and concise email can rather than just a technology approach.” A plan and schedule for decommission arrive in your inbox, summarizing During this ID phase, understand that will impact plenty of departments and the latest stories, with a link to each. data is indelible. “They say there are two people. When presenting the plan, be Sign up for this reminder of our things to count on, death and taxes,” prepared to address questions such as week’s news, with easy unsubscribes, Foster said. “Now there are three — let’s “Where will the information go once with a “Mail news” email subject to add data to the list.” When you plan to it’s decommissioned?” and “What new [email protected]. The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 15 HP will migrate best of HP-UX to Linux x86 Project Odyssey puts enterprise-grade Unix features moving HP-UX programs to a new platform. into a hardened version of RedHat Linux “HP-UX and Integrity support and development are continuing, so Project Odyssey is not “designed to get your HP-UX apps It wasn’t exactly an announcement while customers were and systems to HPx86,” Shaw wrote. “Rather, it is designed to sleeping, but HP slipped in the news of its Unix customers’ provide an option for apps to either stay on HP-UX, or migrate migration during a very slow Thanksgiving business week. For to mission-critical x86 (Linux and Windows) — whatever is best some customers the plan might be a turkey. For others who for the customer/app/situation, all providing the mission-critical want to get onto Unix for the short term, or stay there and see experience that’s been delivered by HP-UX over the years.” an HP future, they may be thankful. There may be an echo in the mind of any HP 3000 customer HP will start development of a next-gen platform for the future who’s made this odyssey before, however. After a formal of HP-UX users, one that runs on Intel’s Xeon x86 chips, the announcement of Itanium tech work for HP 3000 users, HP company announced Nov. 21. HP’s Unix will continue to run on pulled back. Dave Snow delivered the news that the 3000 the almost-proprietary Itanium chips inside Integrity blades and wouldn’t lead the way in such servers. In 2000 he said it wasn’t servers — and as recently as September HP said it wouldn’t needed. port HP-UX. HP’s Unix is still not making the x86 jump, but the What’s not stated in that HP press release is the future of things that make HP’s Unix special will make a leap to Linux, a Itanium in the HP server line. A “single platform” signals that “hardened” version of that platform. There might be a lot of Unix the Intel Xeon chip family is going to win out in HP’s near future. application rewrites going on, although the GM of the HP Unix This probably means the end of the Itanium developments unit, Martin Fink, will insist otherwise. For awhile. from Intel, after its next two processor rolls become a reality. The arrival of HP’s new CEO , the Perhaps sooner, if the demand for Itanium servers need to halt the slide in the Business Critical Systems keeps sliding. (BCS) sales, and flat HP sales overall must have done For the next few years Itanium is likely to remain the trick. “The BCS business is a declining business,” as key to HP’s Unix as it has during the period of said Whitman during HP’s Q4 2011 briefing. “It is a its decline, if the HP history of bringing an OS to a slow decline, but I don’t think you’re going to see an platform holds up. For more than three years during accelerating growth rate in that business. And so we the previous decade, HP worked on getting HP-UX just have to manage that as best we can and invest in to run as fast on Itanium as it did on the company’s R&D, so we get to a new platform as fast as we possibly can that prior proprietary chips, PA-RISC. In that case there was more allows us to service the clients who need this kind of power.” development going on inside the chips than in the OS. This The project that HP is calling Odyssey will “redefine the future time around it’s HP’s primary job to make its Unix distinctions a of mission-critical computing with a development roadmap that choice for the more common and popular x86-Linux line. will unify Unix and x86 server architectures, to bring industry- Bad news for the users of the other Itanium-locked leading availability, increased performance and uncompromising environments, however: NonStop and OpenVMS transitions to client choice to a single platform.” What this amounts to is a x86 are not part mentioned in Project Odyssey. The language migration path away from HP-UX to Linux, something many to be teased apart in the announcement says there will be of HP’s Unix customers have seen in their futures for some “innovations to HP Integrity servers, HP NonStop systems time. HP told the website the Register that it is “systematically and the HP-UX and OpenVMS operating systems.” But only evaluating the arsenal of intellectual property for HP-UX and Unix customers will be given a path for their enterprise mapping that to x86 platforms,” according to the BCS chief advantages onto the industry standard (read: x86) among HP’s technologist. environments. HP is likely to tell NonStop “Some of the technologies that make HP-UX and VMS users they won’t need such industry and its Integrity and Superdome platforms rock- HP says its clients standard pathways to keep their servers solid will end up being donated to the Linux have been asking to growing and on par with the x86 line. Itanium kernel,” the article adds. is going to go far enough. No problem, HP says, if you’re an HP-UX expand the mission- HP 3000 customers will recall a similar customer who’s just purchased an Integrity stance from HP back in the earliest days when server to replace anything else — whether critical experience the vendor hawked Itanium futures. We all that’s from an HP 3000 or just an older HP of HP-UX on Integrity know how turning MPE away from Itanium Unix system. The HP Odyssey project is not turned out, although the difference is that the a signal of any new future for your Business to an x86-based VMS and NonStop lines have more users than Critical Systems server choice. infrastructure MPE/iX did in 2001. Both VMS and NonStop The popular belief among customers — who have a lot fewer installations than HP’s Unix, still ask HP about it — as well as the market however. and resellers is that “Oracle is turning the screws on HP-UX, There’s no risk of an overnight HP exit from Integrity which is dead anyway, because Itanium processors are now and HP-UX, not like the deal that was done on 3000 sites. too far behind x86s to ever catch up.” Okay, that last part’s not STR Software’s Ben Bruno just reported a story about one completely fair to the Itanium systems. The big-scale customers spectacular dump of 3000s onto a customer within days of the love their hardware and OS. Well, they did until recently, but it exit announcement. That situation resulted in a migration to now remains to be seen how good the solution looks in the face Sun — and some customers are figuring Odyssey will trigger the of HP’s traipse into the Odyssey. same kind of exit to another vendor. Steve Shaw, Chief Technologist at HP Canada, reports at Linux can become the destination for Unix-wary customers, the LinkedIn HP-UX users group that the project is not about Continued on next page 16 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog packaged in the robust c-Class enclosures that correlates to the Superdome systems Moving HP-UX of HP BladeSystem. of today. Then there’s HydraLynx, which • Increase availability of critical Linux maps to the C3000 Itanium blade systems (Continued from page 16) applications with the HP Serviceguard in the current line — plus migrating HP seems to be saying. “Customers need solution, which automatically moves Serviceguard, nPartions technology, the the availability and resilience of Unix- application workloads between servers Analysis Engine and engineering the based platforms along with the familiarity in the event of a failure or an on-demand Crossbar Fabric into x86 systems. These and cost-efficiency of industry-standard request. last four items appeal to the large-scale platforms,” HP said in a statement. • Boost flexibility and availability of x86 enterprise customer who’s been sticking HP specifically cites Oracle as a heavy systems with HP nPartitions technology with HP-UX. anchor to Itanium sales. This Odyssey (nPars), which provides precise HP didn’t announce a timetable for move has a lot to do with Oracle’s pullout partitioning of system resources across delivering its new generation of Unix- from Itanium development. Although HP multiple or variable workloads. HP nPars migration x86 hardware systems. There’s is suing Oracle to back off of that plan, is electrically isolated to eliminate failure some talk of two years, and HP didn’t getting Unix users onto a path to x86 will points, which allows clients to “scale out” cancel HP-UX futures or the Itanium let HP continue to sell HP-UX servers as within a single, robust system. hardware outright. But now the company Oracle servers — until the Odyssey is • Enhance business continuity with HP gets to make an announcement, in complete. Analysis Engine for x86 embedded into order to stop the questions from BCS Martin Fink, the GM of the beleaguered the system firmware. HP Analysis Engine customers, about a transition away from BCS unit — its sales dropped 23 percent goes beyond error logging to ensure its Unix. Mainly, that when a customer in Q4 — said that customer demands are efficient diagnoses and automatic repair wants to make a Linux migration, HP will driving this odyssey. of complex system errors while restoring have consolidated hardware to do so, iron “Clients have been asking us to system stability in seconds. that provides the best of HP-UX features expand the mission-critical experience • Boost reliability and resiliency of x86 on Linux and Windows. Whether Oracle that is delivered today with HP-UX on systems with fault-tolerant HP Crossbar is going to keep its place running on Integrity to an x86-based infrastructure,” Fabric that intelligently routes data within HP-UX servers in the future — no matter he said. “HP plans to transform the the system for redundancy and high what Oracle decides to do, or be sued server landscape for mission-critical availability. into doing — is now going to be about computing by using the flexibility of There’s not a word about HP-UX in Itanium, not keeping the large-scale HP BladeSystem and bringing key HP the Odyssey summary above. It’s a lot enterprise customer on HP iron. technology innovations from Integrity of hardware that will not come close to Building up HP-UX hardware is pretty and HP-UX to the x86 ecosystem. Unlike serving HP’s Unix customer. much over with in the futures department. the competition, HP offers an open, So in a nutshell, that’s symmetrical HP talks about retaining the best of integrated, single platform approach.” processing with a new 32-socket design HP-UX — but not NonStop and VMS — Note that the word “migrated” is of x86 systems, the DragonHawk line and building up Windows and Linux. omitted from Fink’s “innovations” sentence above. HP’s got to do that migrating. HP-UX apps will be making their own transition, this time to a new OS (Linux) instead of a new HP chipset (PA-RISC to Itanium). There doesn’t seem SSOOLLIIDD SSOOFFTTWWAARREE to be a HP-UX 11 v4 in the fortune teller’s cards. ffoorr The key to the HP strategy is going be moving those mission-critical and high- HHPP SSeerrvveerrss!! performance elements of HP’s Unix to x86 hardware. That’s going to translate, if HP Suprtool and Qedit: can pull it off, to giving a Hewlett-Packard • Suprtool and Qedit: still enhancing, always backward compatible instance of Windows or Linux a leg up in a competitive market against IBM and Oracle — even while HP says Oracle is Homesteading: running a distant third in the Unix server • We will support MPE until at least 2016 race of this year. HP’s promises include: • Increase scalability with 32-socket “DragonHawk” symmetrical Migrating: multiprocessing x86 systems that will • Same powerful commands on HP-UX scale to hundreds of cores and support large, complex workloads. The systems will enable clients to deploy the smallest to the largest workloads in a dynamic, [email protected] highly scalable pool of IT resources. • Increase reliability and flexibility with robelle.com two-, four- and eight-socket “HydraLynx” scalable x86 server blades with mission- 1-888-762-3553 critical virtualization and availability, all The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 17 3000 users examine migration, emulation LinkedIn discussions include developers, managers, also having special features built into the compilers just for the consultants on manufacturing and hardware futures application did not simplify the issue, either. - Scott T. Petersen A lively discussion of migrating off the HP 3000 sprang up Technical possibilities aside, what really happened is that on the LinkedIn HP 3000 Community discussion boards during eXegeSys management realized that a fully migrated MM/3000 February. Members there included developers of the MM/3000 would not compete for new sales in the then current market MRP application built for MPE/iX, maintained by HP until it was and de-funded and, thus, terribly hampered the effort late in sold to eXegeSys, and revamped as an independent app. Others its cycle in the hope of developing a new technology ERP. I’m sharing their experience included consultants from Speedware pretty sure that Scott et. al could have gotten it done, but the and MB Foster migration teams, plus some advice about the new sales market was uninterested and the existing MM/3000 hardware emulator alternative that might pump more useful base was tired of waiting. years into such an MPE app. We’ll be having this same conversation about SAP 20 years Randy Thon of Cessna aircraft said that “one of the main from now. reasons we are still on this application and platform is that it is - Jeffrey Lyon cost effective and solid, and all development and management Any thought of trying the Charon-HPA/3000 product from of the system is within the Maintenance Department. But this Stromasys? Seems like your 969 license would qualify for for year we as a company are looking at moving from the HP 3000 the emulator. Then hardware would no longer be an issue. due to supportability, mainly due to hardware.” - Tracy Johnson Advice below followed a line of study about size of migrations I know very little about that system, only what I’ve been as well as other alternatives. following in the 3000 NewsWire. I would like to know more. - Randy Thon Randy, why not move to the newer A-class hardware? It Randy, feel free to contact me directly. Currently the emulator supports native fibre for high speed fault tolerant arrays. Plus it is running at about 140-150mhz. And it is only one processor. would run circles around the KS969. That will change later this year. What Charon-HPA/3000 is - Craig Lalley doing is emulating the PA-RISC processor in software. It run You could also consider using MB Foster to migrate the same on the Intel I7 chipset. I have a system currently running and application over to Unix. would be happy to give you access to it. - Tony Ray - Craig Lalley Tony, the eXegeSys team spent years trying to migrate MM/3000 to Unix and ultimately gave up and sold the intellectual property. 11.7 million lines of COBOL, SPL, and LinkedIn 3000 Group grows Pascal is a big beast to move. - Jeffrey Lyon beyond 400 members Ah, the COBOL is not a problem, but re-creating the SPL and Pascal would be the problem. I understand. It is quite Even while some members seem to be experiencing 2012 unfortunate that the HP 3000 had to stop. There will never be doldrums, there’s already expansion afoot in the HP 3000 a better machine. I have worked on them since 1976 and know community. that several are still running. I own two myself. Specifically, the LinkedIn HP 3000 Community now numbers - Tony Ray more than 430 members. Fresh faces include Peter Prager, The SPL and Pascal can be done; the issues are with the whose company sells XML solutions that work with MPE/iX; tight integration of the application and the hardware platform. AMISYS/3000 developer Blanchard Carter; Lendy Middendorf, There were many things done in the application that cannot be Senior System Administrator at Smurfit-Stone; Gavin Scott, VP replicated on other platforms. I am sure with enough time and of development at Allegro Consultants. Some are homesteading, money these could be overcome or replaced. But the size of the others have moved to new platforms. And sure, there are application is daunting. recruiters in there, but they do have a line on jobs. - Scott T. Petersen LinkedIn is a go-to destination to expand your career options. Scott, correct me if I’m wrong, but it wasn’t its integration One of our favorite members, Scott Hirsh, used to manage with the e3000 the made the MM/3000 port difficult - it was the HP 3000 System Manager’s Special Interest Group. He’s its integration with MPE. I seem to remember you explaining long beyond the 3000 community these days, tending to cloud to me that there were MPE system calls which were provided computing storage needs at Nirvanix. But Hirsh said that specifically for MM/3000. showing a strong LinkedIn profile with plenty of connections - Jeffrey Lyon scores you higher when an employer or partner researches you. The 11.7 million is not that big. I did a migration at In an article on the 3000 NewsWire blog, job search specialist Speedware; think it was about 4 million lines of COBOL and Linda Teurk says that adding Groups related to your professional 300,000 Pascal and SPL in about a year. Our team was 14 field increases the odds of you ranking high in searches for IT members and we started not knowing the app. A bigger team, personnel. “Add ones that seem relevant and have at least 100 knowing the app, could get the MM/3000 migration done in members. Most have jobs tabs. Link to Group members you like under two years. or those who have 500+ connections.” - Brian Stephens If you don’t belong to the HP 3000 Community group, join Jeffrey is correct, the integration with MPE and the features today. There’s hundreds of people there who will make good of the platform increased the complexity of the problem. And contacts for you, as well as a news feed and discussions about 3000 issues and the future we’re headed for in this new year. 18 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog NewsWire Q&A: Birket Foster Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future A span of 35 years is pretty much all of the HP 3000’s useful HIPAA regulations were going to be a factor in lifetime. Birket Foster’s company has lived and thrived on the migrations, you believed. stage of your community for 35 years this spring, stretching More and more people are moving to packaged software back to the days when his custom-written programs had to there, because the cost of administering healthcare is now reside in a space of less than 8 kilobytes and exchanging infor- being regulated by the amount of funding people get from the mation about 3000s was best done in person at a user group government. The government won’t give them the money if the meeting. Foster’s MB Foster Associates was one of the first to administration cost is too high, and the 3000 packages won’t deliver an alternative information stream for 3000 solutions, necessarily meet that. creating a catalog of MPE applications and tools. That one was a good enough idea that HP copied the catalog concept in And the difficulty of getting 3000 IT professionals? those days when a thick book of HP and third-party apps was It’s still harder to get an HP 3000 programmer. Have you part of a 3000 manager’s toolset. Foster moved right on to tried to find one lately? I know where to find them, but if you the next solution, whether it was selling millions of dollars of were just putting an ad in the local paper, I don’t think you’d 3000 connectivity software, or building an ODBC engine robust get as many resumes as you’d get for a Windows, .NET, Java or enough for HP to ship inside MPE/iX, or Linux programmer. For the people who thought becoming one of the first Migration partners they’d cut the expensive programmer positions after HP made its 2001 exit announcement. and leave the operators, even their operators are Lately it’s added a Windows scheduler and retiring. They don’t even call them operators now; even more database access through its UDA they’re sysadmins. But without a programmer Link lineup. you can’t make any changes. That means if your On the anniversary of this MB Foster mile- business evolves, you’re stuck. stone, we wanted to let its founder tell his stories of how your group grew experience You believed there would mostly be small and connections. The old warning that braced companies using the 3000 by now. conversations in the 1970s was “don’t trust The big guys haven’t all moved. But I was told anyone over 30.” It’s probably flipped over for by one company we’re dealing with, “Our SAP the advice to 3000 customers today, since team, which is replacing all the apps around the the over-30s have the best set of resources world, has us scheduled for this year.” There are and reminders of how to move into a confi- some large customers who know they’re a merger dent future. Much of his research is gathered and acquisition candidate, so they’re not going to in classic style, in person, wearing confer- mess with migration right now. ence badges like the one shown at right. Birket Foster It’s not all just looking backward after 35 years Founder You were predicting a real embrace of what with Foster. When we last interviewed him in MB Foster Associates we call cloud services, and hardware would be 2009, he made predictions about the state of the becoming irrelevant. 3000 community in 2012. He gave a forthright It’s no different than any other invention. It review of how those turned out, including those that could be started with service bureaus, moved to Application Service judged either way. Providers which failed, so then we called it Software as a We spoke with Birket — a first-name fellow that we consider Service, which kind of set some stages that would allow cloud one of the best hubs for 3000 data — just before Superbowl to happen. It’s only different because you have much higher Weekend started. A few community veterans have a saying speed Internet. People from 1977 when we started business about him. “He was the Internet before there was an Internet. would think they had unlimited resources. You can roll your And he’s still the Internet.” We like to stay online, and believe own machine, on Amazon or other places on the fly. You can you’ll benefit from his connections, too, whether it’s links to a say you want this much memory, this many CPUs, running this 3000 foundation, or connecting the dots for the future. OS and these . This machine is built and ready to go in 20 minutes now, all virtual. Do you care what hardware it’s Before we validate the past of the 3000 and how you’ve on? Hardware is not relevant. The application is the thing that’s played a part in it, let’s look over your three-year-old relevant. predictions for this year. How’d you do on who remains in the market? You said maybe 10 percent of the original So speaking of 1977, how did you enter this community installed base is left. back in those very different days? There’s still hundreds of machines out there. There might I’m just out of undergraduate school and I’m in charge of even be low thousands. getting the next computing jobs for a team of us. I decide I’m should start a company to do this, so I talk to my law professor You believed PCI credit card security would be an issue in and he says he could give me part of my grade for my second getting migrations underway. year law class for just opening a company. I took the theory PCI has been an issue with some customers. Some have and turned it into practice. At the time I’d taken income tax worked it out by installing a PC between the 3000 and all those law. I could deduct the $400 worth of textbooks and reference PCI requirements, and the PC manages it properly for them. books I’d purchased to build a random number generator that The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 19 would support benchmarking software — written in COBOL But those reports remained on the HP 3000. How did they and platform-neutral — we were building. make the transition to being PC tools accessed easily by end users? Platform-neutral suggests a lot of server vendors, right? We did some work inside the 3000 to do what we were In addition to HP, I’d worked on Burroughs, IBM, DEC and calling Host Initiated File Transfer. We worked with Doug even a Xerox Sigma system. So I’d written things in , Walker of Reflection makers WRQ to have the PCs put BASIC, assembler and COBOL. When people would themselves in receive mode to get handed a file, put a problem in front of me, I had to pull a team mostly spreadsheets at the time. We’d figured out together to solve it. In the 1977 ecosystem there how to download things to PCs by 1989, so I was were a lot of different languages available. Every teaching classes in Reflection. We were helping manufacturer had its own proprietary stuff. I had people put PCs on a desk instead of a terminal. an assignment to train government DP staff to use As more PCs showed up, people wanted terminals instead of punching card decks. these 3000 numbers in a spreadsheet so the Terminals were just terminals, grey screens. Lots finance people could look up stuff. Although of line printers around. I liked terminals with big memories, so DataExpress ended up with 33 formats it supported for data you could actually scroll back a lot of pages. At that time the extraction, in the beginning it was things like Lotus 1-2-3, default terminal memory had two pages in it. Disk space was VisiCalc and Word Perfect mail-merge files. Now that the really expensive then: 120MB was $60,000. product is UDA Link, we’ve just added MySQL, Postgres, People had service bureaus. I worked with one for one of Cache, Ingres and Progress databases, plus those already my customers. The reason we were there was because the supported. 3000 was so expensive. Now the reason people are looking at cloud, the new service bureaus, is because the people are so How about the database work with HP on IMAGE? expensive. We got a contract with HP from 1996- 2006 to supply the ODBC middleware for PCs were not an accepted part of In 1977 people had service IMAGE/SQL, included software people business server strategy when you remember as ODBCLink/SE. It was started. How did you get in on the bureaus. I worked with one supposed to be called ODBCLink Jr. but start of that? somebody in HP marketing decided that We’ve been fortunate to be in the for one of my customers. wasn’t a good idea, so they changed it to right place at the right time a number The reason we were there Special Edition. of times over 35 years. We were helping In 1999 we got involved in a project customers out with some pretty big at the service bureau was for a Large Midwestern-Based Insurance problems, like integrating PCs with Company. Our job was to connect 80 HP their 3000s. We sold millions of dollars because the 3000 was so 3000s with 8,000 Windows servers. We of Reflection that way. This helped expensive. Now the reason had to write code called XA Compliant automate processes that went between Two-Phase commit to do this. It gave us a the 3000 and the desktops. This led to us people are looking at the lot of experience in cross-database access working with David Dummer, using his cloud, the new service and understanding deeply how SQL Server DataExpress, to move that product into worked. We could melt down Microsoft’s working on spreadsheet formats. We sold bureaus, is because the OS before our middleware driver would DataExpress starting in 1985, and by fail. It gave us experience in cross-platform 1989 we made him an offer and ended up people are so expensive. databases, the next stage in the 3000’s life. owning the product, with David working on it from an office in Seattle. DataExpress gave us worldwide And that would be HP’s plans to exit this 3000 market? customers, which was another thing we’d been working on. HP announced in 2001 that the 3000 would fade to black in a mere five years. Ha-ha-ha. It made it to 2010 before it went At least once a year you travel to Texas to visit customers away at HP. and colleagues. What’s that about, since MB Foster’s Southern Ontario HQ is so far away? How did the customers use cross-platform databases at When I started in this market it was before the Internet. first? You couldn’t look anything up. You had to know somebody, get Our first project was with a company that made corrugated ahold of them and find out what they were doing. I cartons. One of the their large customers was a had a huge advantage because I traveled a lot starting beer company that had to dispatch beer trucks, and in 1979. I got exposed to the Quiz report writer because it was summer they literally timed their in the earliest days, before it became Quiz. I sold trucks. They wanted the website updated in real time [Cognos’] Quiz before Quick and QTP existed. I got so they could look at those schedules. We did some of to see people all over my district of Texas, Colorado, the first real time posting to a SQL Server database Oklahoma and New Mexico. I met people as a result from a 3000. We also did posting from an HP 3000 of coming out to speak at regional users groups. running Amisys to Oracle running on a Unix box. People didn’t feel the need to call each other. They just got together once a month to talk about a topic. I did With all those years serving 3000 customer needs and the initial deal for [MANMAN creators] ASK Computing. As a expansions, you became an HP Platinum Migration result of that, at one point 25 percent of all HP 3000s were Partner right out of the box in 2002. When did the using Quiz as a report writer. migrations start in earnest? People started getting serious in 2006. But we still have 20 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog customers that are running on an HP 3000 today, hundreds of them. They’re doing what they need to do to stay where they are. I was talking to one yesterday running a very big contracting Vendors preserve HP 3000s business. They were just getting their SAP live and now realizing they have to decommission their 3000. People get their for historical uses replacement application but forget they have regulatory reasons The ongoing mission to help clean up the hp3000links.com to keep their data around. website helped us discover a new line of business at AICS It’s really important that people think these things through Research. Once known mostly for its QueryCalc reporting before they start migrations, because they can do things software, AICS has expanded its 3000 oursourcing for sites that during the migration that will simplify things during the don’t use its software. AICS calls this Keeping History Alive. It’s decommissioning process. aiming the product at migrating users of HP 3000s. Archival HP 3000s will be increasing in number over 2012. What are the latest prospects, from the perspective of a System migrations will be complete this year. Even though these company working 35 years in this market, for the long-term 3000s will go to recyclers or resellers, the systems’ data lives HP 3000 user? forever. What’s more, the applications refuse to fall to IT’s axe. We’re just in the beginning of setting things up at MB Foster Enter companies like AICS, The Support Group, Speedware to work with Stromasys, and others, all who will move applications and data onto offsite benchmarking the access of People get their servers. The accounts will live in password-protected volumes our ODBC and JDBC access on disks or arrays. And the software needed to run those to data. We’re making sure our replacement apps? Support must be maintained for third party tools such UDA product line will run in as Adager, Suprtool, byRequest, UDA Central or MPEX. This the Stromasys 3000 emulator application surround code — even extensive products such as PowerHouse environment. That environment but forget they — will continue to be crucial to make such historic systems was cleared by a little side deliver accurate reports. project I did as a volunteer: have regulatory “You may be concerned about how you will access the mass helping the 3000 world deal reasons to keep of data you currently have on the HP3000 in five or 10 years with Hewlett-Packard from from now,” says the AICS website. Migrating customers who an advocacy point of view. data around. It’s come off a reliable server that’s been active for several decades OpenMPE was something I need to include this aspect in project planning. chaired, after being recruited by important to think Given enough time, the applications can be replaced on John Marrah of Amisys. these things through non-3000 environments. However, that’s a task that will either We’ve had tremendous people demand an outside expense or require in-house resources. If there to carry the ball and before they start an IT manager can delay that expense, there’s more budget that make things happen, like Tracy can be spent keeping up with Windows updates. Johnson making the Invent3k migrations, because So far there’s no Archival-Level support agreements on the server happen. We ran an they can do things market for these historic installations. The software companies emulator project in conjunction may not be quick to extend these kinds of discounts — not in an with HP. The OpenMPE folks during the migration era when the number of support contracts are declining. did the work to make sure there The emulator for HP 3000s will play a role in this change was a license transfer process that will simplify to the MPE/iX business ecosystem. Stromasys CEO Jean-Paul in place for that. Making that things during Bergmans says the company sees its software-only “Son of legal has been a huge element Zelus” package as a solution ready for archival 3000 needs. In in the potential for the emulator decommissioning. this model a 3000 shop operates its own archival server, hosted market. in a cloud that Stromasys will maintain. That’s Intel hardware running MPE/iX, a configuration that’s A little while ago, in addition to your ventures in Storm.ca being tested by third parties this month. The technical ability of wireless Internet and Canada’s Stay at Home assisted living a 3000 manager must be considered for this kind of archiving, services, you got more involved with a local restaurant to too. Bergmans said the first wave of interest in the emulator is help out a friend. What new tricks has that taught you that coming from less-technical 3000 managers. can apply, 35 years later, to the HP 3000 market? “It’s fascinating to realize most of the CIOs that we’re talking Two years ago I got into an investment for a friend who with do not really understand what the HP 3000 is which they wanted to run a restaurant. I put a management team in place have inherited when they took their position,” Bergmans said. in 2011. When I got more involved to try to recoup some of “They’re looking for a solution to that.” my investment, it taught me some technologies that I’d had no There’s no shame in relying on technology that’s unfamiliar. exposure to. When you have a 240-seat license, you need to One clue we’ve noticed over a quarter-century of talking to fill the room. So I learned a lot more about Facebook to put up customers is when the IT manager refers to the system as “the a page for the Kemptville Pub to drive events. Once Facebook HP” rather than use the 3000 to name it. They are, however, users Like us, they automatically get messages that tell them the kind of CIO that won’t know about surround code and tools about us. which have made the server so reliable and cost-effective. From that Facebook piece I’m applying what I learned back to Bergmans understands that the archival role for a 3000 in the MB Foster. We’ve done our first page for MB Foster Associates. Stromasys cloud demands more MPE savvy. “We need to bring Not so much because people buy from that page, but it’s a good in skilled people with us,” he said. “We’re going to have to take placeholder — if they’re buying our Windows scheduler, they’ll the problem out of the hands of the CIOs, so we can give them find us on Facebook. It’s a different twist from the days when a turnkey solution including support, and possibly a move from you’d go to visit people in person, back in 1977. MPE/iX 6.0 to 7.5.” Son of Zelus won’t run anything but 7.5. The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog 21 Winter 2011 Articles, Only on the Blog Homesteading String some perls on a day for love 2/14/12 Third Party Futures Revisited, Maintained 2/9/12 Amping up 3000s becoming commonplace 1/26/12 Windows 7 hosts MPE/iX admin software 1/18/12 Emulator Promise, 3000’s Security, Invent3K 12/20/12 Engineering from the past permits us to take the future for granted. In your community the connections between past and present run Stealing or Scrapping Older HP 3000s 12/14/11 strong, ties which are now lashed tight by the links of the Web. Emulator makers add tweaks in final tests 12/13/11 Programming from long ago stands a chance of tying tomorrow’s 3000 emulator cost queried, speeding certain 12/7/11 computers with the 3000s put into service on a distant yesterday. Two Dev Editors for One Classic Platform 12/5/11 This technology lay under appreciated for years — which makes it a Migration lot like the 3000’s design. Once the executives and sales wizards and marketing mavens HP-UX users consider virtualized future 2/10/12 grab their tablets and go into your offices, they’ll want to use their HP’s not dumping Itanium apps, says editor 1/30/12 iPads to work with information residing in safety on the HP 3000. Where Automated Migrations Excise Work 1/19/12 This year the conduit for the connection is telnet, a protocol given A Peek into the Next Year for You 12/30/11 the pshaw in the ‘90s when nobody could see a tablet anywhere but Alas, Oracle, you’ve blown off HP’s Unix 12/8/11 Star Trek episodes. HP starts to suggest an Oracle alternative 12/1/11 I remember telnet gaining traction in feature lists for connectivity HP relents, aims Unix sites at x86 futures 11/25/11 software from WRQ and Minisoft. The access method got strong As holiday looms, research migration today 11/23/11 praise from Wirt Atmar at AICS Research, too. His engineers were Coming soon: HP’s year-end business report 11/21/11 building their own 3000 terminal emulator, QCTerm, and the NS/VT How much did Oracle hurt HP’s 3000s? 11/16/11 mysteries were not the primary path for data through that free software. Web Resources That engineering choice flew in the 3000 group links up to LinkedIn job advice 2/8/12 face of enabling access to the oldest Links last longer in latest survey for 3000 2/1/12 of 3000 programs. A wide majority of More changes resound at 3000links.com 1/25/12 MPE applications used block mode Tracing 3000links to Their Breaking Points 1/4/12 to exchange data with terminals and Holiday Gifts and Promises for All 12/23/12 desktop clients, largely because telnet was deemed too slow. Atmar, however, Renovating Links for the 3000 Community 12/15/11 took exception to the accepted wisdom News Outta HP about telnet. The protocol was a Living with Licenses All Around (Tech) Life 2/3/12 standard and vendor-neutral, something HP’s 3000 License Time, Then and Now 2/2/12 NS/VT would never be — and network 2011’s Leading 3000 Stories: Even More 12/29/11 speeds and bandwidth were on the rise. QCTerm even used an Advanced Telnet Ron Seybold, Editor What You Might’ve Missed: 2011’s Biggest 12/28/11 setting to take full advantage of a faster HP news mortal, legal, financial this month 12/6/11 network whenever and wherever available. HP vows to get its R&D back on track 11/22/11 Now the world’s networks pulse at a common rate we couldn’t History conceive just 15 years ago. No, the block mode interfaces written Picturing your community’s future history 1/16/12 in the 1980s are not going to transmit data this year to mobile tablets. A more extensive project needs to pass that protocol to HP’s 3000 software practice once wide open 1/11/12 the latest of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) computers. But Oracle Harm to 3000s & HP, Past and Present 11/21/11 in the meantime the 3000 can Last Words from First Users on HP’s Pullout 11/18/11 prove itself worthy of a spot in Some couldn’t believe the pullout at first 11/17/11 the IT future, so long as it can Things change, some 3000s remain the same 11/16/11 link some of its programs to a One Decade Later, You Survived HP’s Pullout 11/14/11 tablet. Telnet never got much newswire.com/blog respect from the developer ranks Newsmakers of your community in the era Macworld makes Apple work for business 1/27/12 of the terminal emulator. But now telnet feels like a piece of 3000 Relying on a Product That’s Market-Proof 1/24/12 engineering which is finally no longer ahead of its time. Once networking standards swept through the industry, the gamble that HP took to break open 3000 connections became Users & Reports essential. This was catch-up engineering that followed the magic Now in an 11th year of post-HP: user reports 11/15/11 of PA-RISC emulation. There’s other fundamental technology that’s Oracle serves Nordstrom’s ex-3000 users 1/12/12 been built or ported to make the 3000 a web-capable database host. The miracle that paves the way into tomorrow is that there is Hidden Value any Perl, or telnet, available for an environment first launched 40 Good foundations support 3000 managers 1/5/12 years ago. In a fall when America still hadn’t felt the pulse of disco, a computer took its first steps on a path that would lead to tablets. Get first notice of news on Twitter: @3000newswire 22 The 3000 NewsWire • February 2012 • 3000newswire.com/blog we remove

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