INFO-VAX Thu, 29 May 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 298 Contents: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Job Opportunity in Jersey City, NJ msl50xx documentation? Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons RE: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Re: VAX Media Re: VAX Media Re: VAX Media Re: VAX Media Re: VAX Media Re: VAX Media ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:17:30 -0400 From: "Ken Robinson" Subject: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Message-ID: <7dd80f60805281817w1191eb3fp6fd8f27350beed1f@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 7:55 PM, Sue wrote: > On May 26, 5:00 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >> While Las Vegas brags about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", they >> also like to break that rule by showing in TV ads what actually happens >> in Vegas :-) :-) :-) >> I finally got the pictures I took uploaded to my site. You can see them at . There are pictures from both 2006 & 2008 on this site. Ken ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 01:20:21 GMT From: Hal Kuff Subject: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Message-ID: In article <483b5dcc$0$15163$607ed4bc@cv.net>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <483b4c7b$0$7264$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei > writes: > >bradhamilton wrote: > > > >> Check Hoff's blogs for his take on this issue... > > > >Thanks. Should have thought about going to his site. (I wonder how many > >nominations he got ? (and number of votes :-) > > > >It would be interesting to get off the record information on just how > >much information was *really* NDA and how much was easily releasable > >information. > > > >It is a shame that the only remaining VMS event is getting such clamped > >down security. > > JF, > > Most people that attended are probably still in transit. Couple that with > the US Memorial Day holiday and I doubt you will hear much for another few > days. > > That said, bootcamp was comprised of many of the usual and unusual -- my- > self included -- suspects. > > I must say that I felt quite honored by all of the people who approached > me on Tuesday evening when I'd arrived to thank me for coming. It's just > little ol' me but somehow it meant more to people by my being there. I > can only say thanks*1E+06 to those who welcomed me. > > The only sad or negative news to report from bootcamp is that the draught > Guinness faucet in the Granite Lounge never once poured me a proper pint; > in fact, it never poured a pint period. hey Brian, your e-mail address working? Trying to reach you. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 21:25:40 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Any news from Bootcamp ? Message-ID: Hal Kuff wrote: > In article <483b5dcc$0$15163$607ed4bc@cv.net>, > VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > >> In article <483b4c7b$0$7264$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei >> writes: >>> bradhamilton wrote: >>> >>>> Check Hoff's blogs for his take on this issue... >>> Thanks. Should have thought about going to his site. (I wonder how many >>> nominations he got ? (and number of votes :-) >>> >>> It would be interesting to get off the record information on just how >>> much information was *really* NDA and how much was easily releasable >>> information. >>> >>> It is a shame that the only remaining VMS event is getting such clamped >>> down security. >> JF, >> >> Most people that attended are probably still in transit. Couple that with >> the US Memorial Day holiday and I doubt you will hear much for another few >> days. >> >> That said, bootcamp was comprised of many of the usual and unusual -- my- >> self included -- suspects. >> >> I must say that I felt quite honored by all of the people who approached >> me on Tuesday evening when I'd arrived to thank me for coming. It's just >> little ol' me but somehow it meant more to people by my being there. I >> can only say thanks*1E+06 to those who welcomed me. >> >> The only sad or negative news to report from bootcamp is that the draught >> Guinness faucet in the Granite Lounge never once poured me a proper pint; >> in fact, it never poured a pint period. > > hey Brian, your e-mail address working? Trying to reach you. I think Brian has some pretty heavy spam filtering in place. If you're not on his "white list" he may never see your e-mail. Comcast does my filtering and thank God for that! It's a jungle out there!!!! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 18:26:43 GMT From: Alfred Falk Subject: Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Message-ID: Keith Cayemberg wrote in news:d6b625f4-6dfe-4b31-9e6f-85893797c4c1@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com: > On May 27, 6:42 pm, Alfred Falk wrote: >> marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote in news:7f1ab094-5e0d-455a-88af- >> 7b7172b2a...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com: >> >> > I am talking to some ops people to find out how our internally used >> > product can be improved. One area they have mentioned is that there >> > is a job that is currently launched manually. As we know, easily >> > automated tedious boring repeatative jobs that are done manually >> >> This generally works well. There are situations under which jobs may >> fail to run - such as disk failures. Then the next submission won't >> happen and you have to manually re-submit the job. A "cron" facility >> can be more robust. > > > In reference to the robustness of the OpenVMS Batch Facility: > There are three aspects of the OpenVMS Batch Facility which I rarely > see being mentioned when this theme comes up. I agree the VMS batch facility is quite robust. The problem I was referring to involved situations where the drive containing the .COM file for the batch job was on a disk that was not available at the time the job was supposed to run. This has occurred for at least two reasons 1. Disk actually had failed 2. Cluster node serving the disk was not up (usually in cluster re-boot.) So, if the time has come to execute the job, and the disk isn't there, the job "runs" and fails. No repeated self-submission. Now you need to manually re-submit the job. > First, the OpenVMS Batch Facility will leverage OpenVMS Cluster > capability by performing job fail-over when the execution queues are > bundled as AUTOSTART queues. See... > http://zinser.no-ip.info/HELP/INITIALIZE/ _QUEUE/QUALIFIERS#AUTOSTART_ON > http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/aa-pv5mj-tk/aa-pv5mj-tk.HTMl > > We have had good experience with this capability in our customer's > mission-critical OpenVMS Computer Integrate Manufacturing systems in > several factories throughout Europe. > > Second, the OpenVMS Batch Facility supports Job Checkpoints and > resumption of processing at the point where a job was stopped. See... > http://zinser.no-ip.info/HELP/SET/RESTART_VALUE > http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_036.html#index_x_ 15 > 89 > > Third the Batch Facility also supports cluster-wide Job > Synchronization... > http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_046.html#114 _synchr > onizingbatchjobexecut -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- A L B E R T A Alfred Falk falk@arc.ab.ca R E S E A R C H Information Systems Dept (780)450-5185 C O U N C I L 250 Karl Clark Road Edmonton, Alberta, Canada http://www.arc.ab.ca/ T6N 1E4 http://outside.arc.ab.ca/staff/falk/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 20:54:01 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: cron facility wanted for VMS Message-ID: <483E0CB9.A3F2D33A@spam.comcast.net> marlow.andrew@googlemail.com wrote: > > Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote: > > > I do not like "self-submitting" jobs very much. > > Neither do I. The trick is to have the job reSUBMIT itself before it does anything that might bomb-out. You could end up with a job that errors out every run, but at least it runs on schedule. A useful trick is to get he job's /AFTER time using F$GETJPI() for "THIS_JOB", and add the appropriate offset to it. For example, if F$GETJPI() returns 12-MAy-2008 20:00:00.00, then this will produce a new /AFTER time so the job's run time does not "slip": $ NEXT = F$CVTI( F$ELEM( 0, ".", AFTER_TIME ) + "+01:00:00", "ABSOLUTE" ) Note that the hundredth-seconds are trimmed off before the offset is added. > > It's a mess to get the full picture of all periodical jobs runed. > > I prefer one single crontab.dat file where all jobs are listed > > together. > > Me too. "aol"? If you consistently use the technique described above, "SHOW QUEUE/ALL/BATCH" will display a list of all the batch jobs and their next run-time, but not the actual schedule. Since I routinely use logical names to contain such parameters as the next run offset, I can get that information via SHOW LOGICAL. Here's some examples: $ SHOW LOG *INTERVAL* $ SHOW LOGICAL *NEXT_OFFSET* ...and so on. Each of my scheduled facilities has a _STARTUP.COM procedure that gets invoked at system startup time to define the needed logicals before the ENABLE AUTOSTART command appears in SYSTARTUP. Each facility also has some suitable hard-coded defaults in case the job runs before the startup executes at system startup time (ENABLE AUTOSTART may happen before everything is ready). Some even use a default interval to reSUBMIT themselves without doing anything else if key LNMs are missing when the proc. runs. "cron" is useful, as far as it goes. However, I've found too much use for manually changing a job's next run time (SET ENTRY/AFTER=...) when I need to, for example, skip the daily BCV sync/split/backup cycle for a day or so due to other activities on the cluster. I'll miss being able to do that when we are stuck with AIX. David J Dachtera (formerly dba) DJE Systems ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 19:13:54 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: How to spot an orphan in VMS Message-ID: <483de83e$0$7233$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> You can do a test. get one known user to login and run the application. While the application is running, do the following: show users/full this will give you the username, PID (process id) and the terminal device being used. TX: hardware serial port LTA: LAT terminal (via ethernet) TN: telnet RT: via DECNET (CTERM) while the process is running, if your version of VMS is sufficiently up to date: PIPE SHOW DEV/FILES/NOSYS | search sys$input diskname: something like DUA1: $4$dka1: or something like that What this will do is give you a full list of files opened by that PID. Then, get the user to abnormally disconnect (on purpose) and do the same afterwards. You can also do a SHOW SYSTEM and look for the PID to see its status (normal processes have statuses such as LEF HIB CUR COM ) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:09:37 -0400 From: "Ken Robinson" Subject: Job Opportunity in Jersey City, NJ Message-ID: <7dd80f60805281409w3e8b5312id1f380a04c1ba1cb@mail.gmail.com> I received the following email message today from Kathy Maskery that read in part: [quote] I have a 6 month+ consulting opportunity in Jersey City for an OpenVMS Server Administrator. [/quote] I have no more details. If anyone is interested, please contact Kathy. Ken ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:16:05 -0600 From: Jim Mehlhop Subject: msl50xx documentation? Message-ID: <483de7b5$0$87072$815e3792@news.qwest.net> I picked up a used msl5060 the other day and need manuals. I have not been able to find any online at this time. Anyone have a good pointer or a machine readable copy I can get? Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 11:19:01 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: On May 27, 9:27 am, marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote: > I am considering the cost benefits or otherwise of moving some sw off > OpenVMS to Linux. I would like to hear about the pros and cons. > Hopefully this will not start a flamewar, I really do want to know! > > Here, as I see it, are the main issues: > > OpenVMS does not support the latest version of third party products we > use (e.g only Oracle 10g is supported). Hey, I'm running OpenVMS V6.2 on MicroVAXes from the 1990s! It can be done. > > Most companies wont train people in VMS even if they use VMS kit. This > makes developers shy away (they prefer to know about they platform > they work on). Well, what say *your* company?! > > OpenVMS offers better reliability due to clustering. Yes. > > VMS hardware is very reliable. It varies. > > A port away from VMS would be a generic Unix port rather than a port > that ties it to Linux. This would enable commercial unix > implementations such as Solaris to be used. Why is this an advantage? > > Unix SAs are very thin on the ground these days. At least my client > already has the VMS ops people it needs. Thin? Take 'em to some fast food joints! > > Regards, > > Andrew Marlow AEF ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 18:36:05 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Arne Vajh=F8j [mailto:arne@vajhoej.dk] > Sent: May 28, 2008 9:21 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons > > Main, Kerry wrote: > >> If you have sufficient customers that want your stuff on *nix > >> and will not accept it on VMS, then you need to add *nix as > >> supported platform. > > > You forgot one scenario under the current scenario. Instead of "do > nothing", > > you could also add > > - upgrade current environment to use latest gui mgmt tools which will > simplify > > the Operational support environment such that any Operator who can > handle a mouse > > can manage an OpenVMS system. > > Most customers has more requirements for their platforms than > "it can be managed with a mouse". > > > Other consideration as well- > > - is your management under extreme pressures to reduce IT costs and > have in > > place a 2-3 year plan to consolidate servers, OS instances (where > biggest > > staff costs are hidden) and Data Centers? > > > > If yes, one bus app per OS instance platforms may not be the right > target > > environment. There are cultural and technical challenges to be > considered > > which will make it extremely difficult to consolidate at some future > point. > > Consolidation is not working *for* VMS but *against* VMS. > > Consolidations works for the platforms where all the software is > available for. > > The all VMS shop is a rare animal today. > > Arne So is an all Wintel or an all UNIX shop. Reality is that today's world is multi-vendor, multi-platform. I am sure there are some examples of each today, but there are not many - especially in med-large companies. Only exceptions might be Microsoft (only Microsoft products) or Sun (no Microsoft products allowed) .. :-) On your consolidation note - perhaps you can explain to me what the Cust CIO response should be to the CEO who says "that's great that you have reduced our HW by 20% by implementing VMware, but please explain why the number of VM OS's we are supporting grew by 40% and our staffing numbers are not going down? Please explain to me how you plan to reduce all of these VM's that have sprung up like rabbits in the last year .." I am not saying they will move to OpenVMS, but the answer to this question is going to be extremely difficult to answer when you have a "one bus App, one OS" culture in place. Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-254-8911 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 13:58:55 -0700 (PDT) From: ultradwc@gmail.com Subject: Re: OpenVMS and linux, pros and cons Message-ID: On May 27, 9:27 am, marlow.and...@googlemail.com wrote: > I am considering the cost benefits or otherwise of moving some sw off > OpenVMS to Linux. I would like to hear about the pros and cons. > Hopefully this will not start a flamewar, I really do want to know! > > Here, as I see it, are the main issues: > > OpenVMS does not support the latest version of third party products we > use (e.g only Oracle 10g is supported). > > Most companies wont train people in VMS even if they use VMS kit. This > makes developers shy away (they prefer to know about they platform > they work on). > > OpenVMS offers better reliability due to clustering. > > VMS hardware is very reliable. > > A port away from VMS would be a generic Unix port rather than a port > that ties it to Linux. This would enable commercial unix > implementations such as Solaris to be used. > > Unix SAs are very thin on the ground these days. At least my client > already has the VMS ops people it needs. > > Regards, > > Andrew Marlow you forgot the most important point - SECURITY ... OpenVMS people really need to get away from the I need to be able to buy an app ... if you cannot buy it, WRITE IT ... has development stopped in the IT world where noone knows how to write the apps they need and they are toast if they cannot buy it? you are also forgetting that you can always buy an app on a windoze or other box and link or port it with vms ...you do not need to get rid of your reliable and secure backend for some front end app ... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:14:15 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483dcb1e$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Michael Kraemer wrote: > In article <483cb28e$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, > =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: >> but it is correct that VAX => no Java. > > just curious, why ? > > Of course it is a moot point nowadays, since VAX was already a dead platform > when Java started to become hip. > But there was a technical excuse, ISTR, that IEEE FP support > is mandatory for Java, but not available in VAX hardware. > In this case, one could have emulated it in software. > Slow, of course, but would it be show stopper ? > I can't imagine that many FP intensive work being done in Java. There are people doing FP stuff in Java. (and complain loudly over no operator overloading ...) But: - it is only a small fraction of Java usage - when Java arrived at the scene, then VAX was not a preferred platform for number crunching Arne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:16:47 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483dcbb6$0$90274$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Tom Linden wrote: > On Wed, 28 May 2008 06:31:40 -0700, Bob Koehler > wrote: >> In article , m.kraemer@gsi.de >> (Michael Kraemer) writes: >>> But there was a technical excuse, ISTR, that IEEE FP support >>> is mandatory for Java, but not available in VAX hardware. >>> In this case, one could have emulated it in software. >>> Slow, of course, but would it be show stopper ? >>> I can't imagine that many FP intensive work being done in Java. >> >> DEC looked into doing it via an emulator and fonud it to be so slow >> as to be worthless. So they didn't go any farther. > > OTOH, It likely would have been masked by Java anyway, which is an > interpreted > language. JIT compiled not interpreted. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:21:25 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483dcccd$0$90269$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Bob Koehler wrote: > If you think it's worthwhile, go ahead and port the JRE to VAX and > write emulator code for the floating point operations. It would not make sense as a commercial activity. It would be for fun by someone that would like to create JVM. (but they would be missing all the native stuff in the library also) Arne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 19:06:05 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483de666$0$7300$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> IanMiller wrote: > It was so sloooow as to be unusable. There is a BIG difference between running very slowly and being unusable. Unusable is when some java app won't run at all. Which is basically my experience with most (but not all) JAVA stuff running under mozilla on Alpha VMS. They just didn't run at all. (the "X" in the Java logo indicating it won't run). Running slowly, it means that while you can't use java in daily production, you can still use various java utilities now and then when you need them. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 18:33:46 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: On Wed, 28 May 2008 14:16:47 -0700, Arne Vajhøj wrote: > OTOH, It likely would have been masked by Java anyway, which is an > interpreted > language. > JIT compiled not interpreted. Is there much difference between JIT compiled and interpreted? I don't think so/ -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 22:13:47 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VAX Media Message-ID: <483e1151$0$90266$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Tom Linden wrote: > On Wed, 28 May 2008 14:16:47 -0700, Arne Vajhøj wrote: >> OTOH, It likely would have been masked by Java anyway, which is an >> interpreted >> language. >> JIT compiled not interpreted. > > Is there much difference between JIT compiled and interpreted? > I don't think so/ They do not have much in common implementation wise nor performance wise, so yes. Arne ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.298 ************************