INFO-VAX Tue, 26 Aug 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 466 Contents: Re: DEFCON 16 and Hacking OpenVMS OT: SYSMAN Equiv. on AIX? Re: OT: SYSMAN Equiv. on AIX? Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Re: SAS 9.2 on HP OpenVMS Integrity Re: strange tcpip issue Re: strange tcpip issue Re: strange tcpip issue Re: strange tcpip issue Re: strange tcpip issue ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:13:29 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: DEFCON 16 and Hacking OpenVMS Message-ID: <48b2f654$0$1525$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Main, Kerry wrote: > Yeah, and what about the mountains of supporting DCL, RMS ACL's, > SYSUAF rights identifiers, third party support utilities, licenses, > backup environments, code management systems, clustered print queues > etc that one typically has on a Cobol/Fortran/Basic/C/PL1 - OpenVMS > environment? Consider also that management are unaware of those things. In Unix, they know files are just streams of bytes and that is it. They have no concept of indexed files, record formats etc etc etc. So they do not consider the difficulty of migrating COBOL apps that may use all those features to an environment that doesn't provide any of it. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:54:35 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: OT: SYSMAN Equiv. on AIX? Message-ID: <48B3625B.3A442F5F@spam.comcast.net> Again, I apologize for the off-topic post. I know some of my fellow VMS folks also deal with AIX. Is anyone aware of a SYSMAN-like utility for AIX? I need to be able to execute the same command on multiple LPARs, HACMP not withstanding. Any ideas anyone has would be useful. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:29:27 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.info (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: OT: SYSMAN Equiv. on AIX? Message-ID: <08082521292780_20201F08@antinode.info> From: David J Dachtera > Is anyone aware of a SYSMAN-like utility for AIX? I need to be able to > execute the same command on multiple LPARs, HACMP not withstanding. Don't know aboit the multiple hosts part, but SMIT was the handy tool for system management when I was young. (Sure miss the SMIT dude falling on his face when a command failed.) There is an AIX forum somewhere at ibm.com. Search the ITRC HP-UX forum for AIX. > Any ideas anyone has would be useful. Optimistic or just confused? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-info 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:58:01 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Message-ID: <48b2f2b4$0$9673$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > OSI networking (which was the foundation for Phase V) solved loads of > problems that the IP world has hardly noticed yet (and at least one > which will be all too familiar with folks around the world). Like the > VMS world vs the PC world, VMS and OSI benefit from an "architecture", > rather than from an anarchic growth over decades. One need not forget that OSI had been seen as the future of enterprise networking, able to link machines from different vendors together, and more importantly, there was demand from government and industry to implement such a thing. Digital was a world leader in that regards. What happened was that Digital was blindsighted by TCPIP which speeded way ahead and everyone jumping onto the TCPIP bandwagon, while Digital remain sort of blind to the fact that TCPIP had just made OSI irrelevant. However, at the time DEC decided to go OSI, it was the right decision because at that time, TCPIP had not yet become a enterprise networking porotocol, it was still used by research/universities. Also remember that at that time, the Internet was still a "non profit cooperative" for non-commercial use and there were no telecom commercial offerings for TCPIP based networks. X.25 and dedicated lines were what was available commercially back then. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 2008 16:15:46 -0400 From: Rich Alderson Subject: Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Message-ID: johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk writes: > The mail protocols SMTP and POP date back to an era of 110 baud teletypes and > computers with 32kwords of memory. SMTP was designed in the early 1980s. The implementation on which I worked ran on a 2MW DEC-20. POP was designed on the back of a napkin in a Palo Alto-area restaurant in the late 1980s. It never saw a Teletype, having been designed with the Macintosh and (*hxack*tpfui) Windows in mind. -- Rich Alderson "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." news@alderson.users.panix.com --Death, of the Endless ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 2008 16:16:56 -0400 From: Rich Alderson Subject: Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Message-ID: "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > Somehow, I can't get excited about a product that solves problems I > didn't have when it was introduced, and which, ten or so years later, I > still don't have. SMTP and POP may be "obsolete" but they have been > delivering mail for the last 25 years or so and may be good for another > ten or twenty years. DECnet Phase IV may be obsolete but it does the > job I need done! SMTP is a bit over 25 years old, POP just over 20. Just keeping things straight. -- Rich Alderson "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." news@alderson.users.panix.com --Death, of the Endless ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:31:17 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Message-ID: Rich Alderson wrote: > "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > >> Somehow, I can't get excited about a product that solves problems I >> didn't have when it was introduced, and which, ten or so years later, I >> still don't have. SMTP and POP may be "obsolete" but they have been >> delivering mail for the last 25 years or so and may be good for another >> ten or twenty years. DECnet Phase IV may be obsolete but it does the >> job I need done! > > SMTP is a bit over 25 years old, POP just over 20. > > Just keeping things straight. > Make that about 26 years old for SMTP. RFC 821 is dated August 1982! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:33:10 -0700 (PDT) From: johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk Subject: Re: Phase V: it's not just the UI, U know. Message-ID: On Aug 25, 9:31 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote: > Rich Alderson wrote: > > "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > > >> Somehow, I can't get excited about a product that solves problems I > >> didn't have when it was introduced, and which, ten or so years later, I > >> still don't have. SMTP and POP may be "obsolete" but they have been > >> delivering mail for the last 25 years or so and may be good for another > >> ten or twenty years. DECnet Phase IV may be obsolete but it does the > >> job I need done! > > > SMTP is a bit over 25 years old, POP just over 20. > > > Just keeping things straight. > > Make that about 26 years old for SMTP. RFC 821 is dated August 1982! And in 1982 my then employers still had RSX (32kw address space) as did many other companies. They may well have had a few VT100s by that time, but when VT200s were introduced in 1983 they optionally had 20mA current loop, as Teletype interface compatibility still wasn't that unusual a requirement. OK I was a few years off with POP (sorry, it was a while ago). Dedicated routers weren't just a Cisco concept, though I can't quickly find any references to the ancient DEC routers which lived in the first DEC office I visited (which was indeed in the days of X.25 and dedicated DDCMP lines). Host-based routing in the world of DECnet and OSI has been (is?) a bit of a passing phase, whether the router of the day is one of the originals whose name I forget, which filled a few feet high of 19" rack next to the Gandalf terminal switch, or one a little bit more recent which takes up two inches width on a DEChub 90 backplane next to the Gandalf-replacement DECserver 90. These days lots of homes have their own IP router, some of them are made by Linksys/Cisco, but I'm still not sure what the connection between the enterprise market and the high volume/low margin market is. Do IBM think they need a "low cost" (ie low margin) product for any of their markets, or have they explicitly departed from the "low margin" market (hello Lenovo) and stuck to what they think they're traditionally good at (high value high margin, just like Cisco Classic)? (Incidentally, wasn't getting rid of IBM SNA one of the real drivers behind OSI?) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:45:44 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: SAS 9.2 on HP OpenVMS Integrity Message-ID: <48B36048.3C3A759F@spam.comcast.net> "Main, Kerry" wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@spam.comcast.net] > > Sent: August 22, 2008 9:45 PM > > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > > Subject: Re: SAS 9.2 on HP OpenVMS Integrity > > > > [snip] > > Well, that looks good from an engineering viewpoint. > > > > (Need I say it?) Now, how 'bout promotion? What's being done at either > > HP or SAS to "put the word in the streets"? > > > > D.J.D. > > Attend the session and find out. > > :-) Thought so. "Silly Rabbit! ..." D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:20:16 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: strange tcpip issue Message-ID: <48b2f7ef$0$12374$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Rich Jordan wrote: > It was the government weaseling out of the POSIX and OSI mandates that > pulled the rug out from under DEC and the other folks that had > bothered to implement it. I am not sure "weaseling" is the correct word. TCPIP grew phenomenally because all of a sudden, Unix started to be taken seriously. (Sun may have had a lot to do with it, stealing DEC customers and moving them to TCPIP based Unix). I think that the US government maintained the OSI mandate long enough for DEC (and I think HP and IBM) to implement their stack and then admitted that TCPIP had become the de-facto standard that allowed computers from any manufacturer to talk to each other (the primary purpose of OSI). The governmments (this includes europe as well) had a vision of a neutral stack (OSI). Something commercial was developped, but meanwhile TCPIP came along at a much faster pace and responded to the needs of a neutral networking platform. You also need to look at Cisco. They came out with a gizmo called a "router" which allowed simple boxes to do that routing job, which made it possible to have simple TCPIP nodes without needing the equivalent of "DECnet routing". And that gave TCPIP a big push. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 2008 16:11:43 -0400 From: Rich Alderson Subject: Re: strange tcpip issue Message-ID: "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote: >> DEC manufactured DECnet, which was superior. Why should they have >> pushed something inferior? Non-DEC stuff could speak DECnet as well, so >> it wasn't clear that TCPIP would win in the end. > DECNet Phase IV or Phase V? TCP/IP was in development in the Phase III timeframe, and went live on the ARPANET about the time Phase IV was announced. -- Rich Alderson "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." news@alderson.users.panix.com --Death, of the Endless ------------------------------ Date: 25 Aug 2008 16:25:07 -0400 From: Rich Alderson Subject: Re: strange tcpip issue Message-ID: JF Mezei writes: > Rich Jordan wrote: >> It was the government weaseling out of the POSIX and OSI mandates that >> pulled the rug out from under DEC and the other folks that had >> bothered to implement it. > I am not sure "weaseling" is the correct word. TCPIP grew phenomenally > because all of a sudden, Unix started to be taken seriously. (Sun may > have had a lot to do with it, stealing DEC customers and moving them to > TCPIP based Unix). [snip] > You also need to look at Cisco. They came out with a gizmo called a > "router" which allowed simple boxes to do that routing job, which made > it possible to have simple TCPIP nodes without needing the equivalent of > "DECnet routing". And that gave TCPIP a big push. I think you ... Scratch that, I *know* you have this backwards. cisco Systems brought out their router, which originally used the SUN-1 processor board designed for the Stanford University Network, before BSD was released. The original target was the sites already running TCP/IP for ARPANET connectivity. (Another of cisco's early products was the MEIS, a Massbus-based Ethernet interface for the KL-10 processor designed by one of the cisco founders while at Stanford.) -- Rich Alderson "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." news@alderson.users.panix.com --Death, of the Endless ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:44:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Rich Jordan Subject: Re: strange tcpip issue Message-ID: <2b9b2847-4b54-4b51-9851-26f2bcfc372e@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On Aug 25, 1:20=A0pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Rich Jordan wrote: > > It was the government weaseling out of the POSIX and OSI mandates that > > pulled the rug out from under DEC and the other folks that had > > bothered to implement it. > > I am not sure "weaseling" is the correct word. TCPIP grew phenomenally > because all of a sudden, Unix started to be taken seriously. (Sun may > have had a lot to do with it, stealing DEC customers and moving them to > TCPIP based Unix). > > I think that the US government maintained the OSI mandate long enough > for DEC (and I think HP and IBM) to implement their stack and then > admitted that TCPIP had become the de-facto standard that allowed > computers from any manufacturer to talk to each other (the primary > purpose of OSI). > > The governmments (this includes europe as well) had a vision of a > neutral stack (OSI). Something commercial was developped, but meanwhile > TCPIP came along at a much faster pace and responded to the needs of a > neutral networking platform. > > You also need to look at Cisco. They came out with a gizmo called a > "router" which allowed simple boxes to do that routing job, which made > it possible to have simple TCPIP nodes without needing the equivalent of > "DECnet routing". And that gave TCPIP a big push. JF, I'm working on memories without hardcopy here, but we had meetings with company management and DOE suits, seminars, boxes of documentation about the "mandatory" use of OSI, POSIX, (GOSIP???) for any and all government contracts after a certain point. Our company did a fair amount of research, some of the IT group was working with DEC (and possibly Sun, we had those too) on OSI early testing, gotchas, etc. I know there were many many man hours spent in my group (which was not that big). Then suddenly 'never mind' use TCPIP. I'm not saying it was a good or bad decision overall, but it was a suckerpunch to people who had been told in no uncertain terms 'you will do this if you want to keep working with and selling stuff to us'. There's an element of 'weasel' there. Rich ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:17:34 -0700 (PDT) From: johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk Subject: Re: strange tcpip issue Message-ID: On Aug 25, 10:44 pm, Rich Jordan wrote: > On Aug 25, 1:20 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > > > > > Rich Jordan wrote: > > > It was the government weaseling out of the POSIX and OSI mandates that > > > pulled the rug out from under DEC and the other folks that had > > > bothered to implement it. > > > I am not sure "weaseling" is the correct word. TCPIP grew phenomenally > > because all of a sudden, Unix started to be taken seriously. (Sun may > > have had a lot to do with it, stealing DEC customers and moving them to > > TCPIP based Unix). > > > I think that the US government maintained the OSI mandate long enough > > for DEC (and I think HP and IBM) to implement their stack and then > > admitted that TCPIP had become the de-facto standard that allowed > > computers from any manufacturer to talk to each other (the primary > > purpose of OSI). > > > The governmments (this includes europe as well) had a vision of a > > neutral stack (OSI). Something commercial was developped, but meanwhile > > TCPIP came along at a much faster pace and responded to the needs of a > > neutral networking platform. > > > You also need to look at Cisco. They came out with a gizmo called a > > "router" which allowed simple boxes to do that routing job, which made > > it possible to have simple TCPIP nodes without needing the equivalent of > > "DECnet routing". And that gave TCPIP a big push. > > JF, > I'm working on memories without hardcopy here, but we had > meetings with company management and DOE suits, seminars, boxes of > documentation about the "mandatory" use of OSI, POSIX, (GOSIP???) for > any and all government contracts after a certain point. > > Our company did a fair amount of research, some of the IT group > was working with DEC (and possibly Sun, we had those too) on OSI early > testing, gotchas, etc. I know there were many many man hours spent in > my group (which was not that big). > > Then suddenly 'never mind' use TCPIP. > > I'm not saying it was a good or bad decision overall, but it was > a suckerpunch to people who had been told in no uncertain terms 'you > will do this if you want to keep working with and selling stuff to > us'. > > There's an element of 'weasel' there. > > Rich GOSIP = Government OSI Profile. There were different OSI "profiles" depending on required application environment. For example, a desktop environment might follow the TOP (aka Technical and Office) one, and manufacturing automation networks might follow the MAP one. There would be conformance tests to ensure that anything claiming conformance was actually vaguely capable of doing the job, and maybe there'd even be interoperability tests too, just to make sure that end users and vendors understood that conformance .ne. interoperability. As you point out, big vendors of the time such as DEC, IBM, and Sun (and/or systems houses on those platforms) did put a fair amount of effort in to supporting this stuff by the mid 1980s, together with players in specific fields (for example, in the automation sector, Modicon and Siemens and GE Fanuc and others). There was one big name in the computer world who weren't (afaik) playing along, but back in those days their volume OS was still stuck in the 8086 era with a 640K address space (maybe more so long as you didn't mind jumping through various hoops) and didn't really do networking except as an afterthought; it would be 1993 before they had the first release of a proper 32bit OS with something resembling proper networking, and another few more years again before NT caught on in volume. NT was originally going to be POSIX compliant but iirc eventually they got "grandfathered" out of the POSIX requirement somehow, and the OSI requirement probably went the same convenient way. Such is the way that IT history is made (and is repeated, just look at the current situation with open document formats...). ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.466 ************************