Comment on the four Enchilada proposals

The architects of a sweeping proposal to improve the HP 3000 IMAGE/SQL database have pulled their Enchilada plan out of the deep freeze, posting summaries of four ways to implement the enhancement. HP hasn't committed to writing the Enhancement for Caching of Limited Authorized Data, or Enchilada. But advocates in the Special Interest Group for IMAGE have been debating the design for the last 18 months. The SIGIMAGE chairman Ken Sletten has announced the group now has four alternative designs for the Enchilada available for public comment.

Sletten explained in a posting to the 3000-L mailing list, "At first we thought (vain hope, it turned out) that we the user community should be able to come to a reasonably quick consensus on a design and implementation scheme for the Enchilada. But the concept quickly "diverged" into at least four substantially different variants. At the "Enchilada meeting" associated with IPROF-99, there was much good discussion, but end result was that the water seemed to become muddier than ever."

Inviting even more discussion on a limited number of designs is the next step in the Enchilada's progress. Sletten reports that there are still 11 items on the SIGIMAGE Ballot that would be facilitated by adoption of the Enchilada concept as an "enabling enhancement." Several of the items made the cut for the Interex 2000 System Improvement Ballot (SIB).

Take a look at the four designs at http://www.allegro.com/sigimage and post your comments to the 3000-L mailing list. SIGIMAGE will keep the discussion open until August 4. SIGIMAGE hopes the HP database labs will have enough time to look at the consensus that the lab reps can reply in the SIGIMAGE meeting at HP World (Monday, Sept. 11 at 10:30 AM).

The end for DeskManager mail is in sight

HP announced the obsolescence of one of its oldest office automation tools recently, pulling the plug on HP Open DeskManager as of November 1. Support for the e-mail and office workflow tool, which once ran all of HP's internal communications over HP 3000s, expires November of 2002. Existing functionality will be maintained during the two-year period after sales cease.

In truth, HP turned its back on DeskManager a long time ago, opting to enhance and promote its OpenMail product on NT and Unix systems as a replacement. It now even runs under Linux, and HP is selling that version at 70 percent off list price. HP was recommending its Desk customers migrate to OpenMail, but didn't mention a suitable replacement that runs natively on the same HP 3000 servers: 3k Associates' NetMail/3000. While NetMail won't step in for some of the more exotic workflow features of Desk, the mail application outshines the current functionality of Desk in so many other ways. The application is fully Internet compatible (something Desk never got to) and has sophisticated spam blocking capabilities. If you've got a Desk migration in your future, you can look at the features of NetMail/3000 at http://www.3kassociates.com/products/netmail.html. You can order the product from the USA and UK reseller, Entrix Computing at http://www.entrix-computing.com/internet_index.html

Cognos rolls out Axiant 3.0

Now that the company has rolled out PowerHouse 8.29 and PowerHouse Web for its customers, Cognos has introduced the latest version of Axiant, its client-server tool for visual development environment. Version 3.0 includes enhancements and new features such as applying its object-based inheritance to runtime toolbars, form events and field events, as well as supporting the recently introduced PowerHouse Web product as a deployment environment -- so you can access Axiant-developed applications through any standard Web browser. The product uses a networked multi-user repository for team development. From a single source it supports both platform and database independence, so applications can be deployed across clients and servers in topologies with Windows as a player: thin-client, fat-client, mobile and standalone, as well as 3000-only through terminals and now Web-based

The Axiant advantage to the 3000 base is the familiar PowerHouse engine for processing. Axiant supports simultaneous access to IMAGE/SQL and popular relational databases through native APIs, together with ODBC access to other data sources. Cognos said that Axiant also contains extensive facilities to help automate the migration of 3000-based PowerHouse 4GL applications to new deployment environments (if your application is being forced off your 3000). There's more detail at the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com/axiant.


Use Checkpoint Improvement option if you're on 6.0

Adager's Ken Paul pointed out a simple software setting for HP 3000 sites on the 6.0 release of MPE/iX (without any PowerPatches) that can save database headaches later on. Paul said that HP "believes that there is a corner case bug within the new Transaction Manager (XM) code for 6.0 which HP is now going to develop a patch. Until that patch becomes available, HP mentioned that users of 6.0 could utilize a new feature on 6.0 (and only 6.0) within the XM which would prevent the problem from happening." A Checkpoint Improvement feature can be enabled with two new commands in Volutil for showing and setting this new feature, Paul said.

The Checkpoint Improvement option is disabled by default in 6.0. Enabling it for your volume sets helps avoid the repair of IMAGE databases, something that Paul and Adager support do a regular basis for some of their supported customers. By using the commands

showchkptstat <volset-name>

alterchkptstat <volset-name> ENABLE

you'll be protecting your databases from the corner-case bug in XM. HP's documentation notes that the system ought to be restarted after enabling or disabling the Checkpoint Improvement.

Fiorina believes Unix sales are a bellwether for HP

Though she has yet to utter the words "HP e3000" or "MPE/iX" in public statements, CEO Carly Fiorina is able to focus on specific HP product lines while talking to the financial community. In the last HP semi-annual meeting with Wall Street investors, Fiorina was heard reporting that "Unix has in many ways become a bellwether for the reinvention of HP." The CEO was pointing out the good news in a 26 percent rebound in sales of Unix systems at HP over last year's same quarter results. The increase came over a 1999 quarter widely considered a flop for HP Unix sales. Fiorina's report had the intended effect, when HP stock jumped up 10 percent the next trading day. It gave back those gains in the two weeks that have followed, while the Unix comment lingers.

The focus on Unix could well make things harder for application providers trying to use the 3000 as the engine for new sales. Frustration is surfacing in the HP 3000 community, especially among resellers, that HP's top corporate officials can't give the platform any lift with mentions of its success inside high-profile industries such as catalogs and e-commerce. HP's top officers are conscious that the majority of the company's profits come out of the volatile printer and PC business, and hope to stress the more stable parts of their business. A Dow Jones report said that Fiorina believes the company's reinvention depends on the servers which run the Internet. While the financial analysts are asking about HP's Unix business, there may be more than one bellwether the company could ring outside its PC-printer profit center. Bellwether means leader. The company's e3000 is showing a leadership position in several industries, including 911 systems and non-store retail. Analysts might catch on that the back end of e-commerce fulfillment is expected to triple in revenues to $8.6 billion yearly by 2004, according to IDC reports.

Free scheduling tool will get update

MasterOp creator Carl Kemp is planning a new update release of MasterOp/3000, the job management software that's offered as shareware from the Allegro Web site:http://www.allegro.com/software/hp3000/other.html Kemp said in an Internet posting, "If you have in mind new features you'd like (or bugs you've discovered), now would be a perfect time to let me know. Also, I'm converting the manual to Microsoft Word format, so if you'd like a copy of the finished manual, let me know. Please send all requests to this e-mail address as I do not check the newsgroups very often. I'll try to get copies of the finished product to Allegro and Easy Does It (thanks again, guys), and if anyone else wants to make it available to the public on their own sites, I'll try to work with them on it as well. I'll send the manuals out via e-mail to everyone who asks for a copy." You can contact Kemp at CarlWKemp@AOL.COM

Apache Web server gets new features

The engineer who first ported the Apache Web server to the HP 3000 has released a new version of it for use on the platform, an advance copy that contains some features which HP will be supporting later on the next release of Apache/iX. Mark Bixby gave notice that the 1.3.12 version of Apache is available from his own Web site, at http://www.bixby.org/mark/apacheix.html

Bixby noted that "Many features are available on MPE for the first time with this release:

+ Support for DSO modules (mod_so). You can build add-on modules such as mod_perl or mod_php in NMXL libraries which Apache will load at startup time in order to extend the functionality of the server. Note that you no longer have to recompile all of Apache in order to add modules.

+ Support for the incredible power of mod_rewrite. + Support for the ftp/http proxy/caching abilities of mod_proxy.

+ Support for mod_vhost_alias which simplifies server configuration when dealing with large numbers of virtual hosts."

Bixby pointed out that "Yes, I do work for the HP CSY R&D lab, but ALL of the software you download from bixby.org is my personal freeware that is NOT supported by HP. Furthermore, versions of Apache that you download from bixby.org will probably be more current than what HP is supporting on MPE, including both the FOS Apache (currently based on Apache 1.3.4) and the extra-cost HP WebWise MPE/iX Secure Web Server (currently based on Apache 1.3.9) products. The bixby.org version of Apache may have exciting new functionality that does not exist in the HP versions of Apache. If you become addicted to the bixby.org version, you may have trouble moving back to the older HP supported versions."

HP posted online, searchable 3000 docs you can print

HP has had its documentation available on its Web site for the HP 3000 for some time now. But a new set of links gives customers the ability to download files they can print on their own devices, as well as search through manuals. The HP 3000 manuals have been put in PDF format, which can be browsed with the free Acrobat reader while not online or from PCs that don't have access to the Internet. Check out the manuals HP is making available at http://jazz.external.hp.com/papers/pdfdocs/index.html. Remember when paper manuals were only available by purchasing them?