Number 82 (Update of Volume 8, Issue 3)

HP still calling on migration business

Tuesday morning Jan 21 (afternoon in Europe and points further east) HP makes another shot at convincing customers to push off the 3000 platform. From the looks of the mailing sent out in early January, you might think many sites haven't planned their migration yet. Surveys show a very small portion of the customer base is acting on HP's migration wishes, although a serious chunk of the surveyed customers say they intend to leave the platform by 2006. Still, what can we infer from a HP's question of "Is not having a transition plan weighing you down?" At the least, that few have completed their plans.

The migration mantra for managers gets the spotlight Tuesday, starting at 8:30 AM on the Pacific coast, 90 minutes clipped from the all-day Transition tour presentations of last fall. HP hopes to draw the C-level management of its 3000 customers, the CIO, CEO, CFO. If you haven't signed up your top manager for this briefing, you can register them at www.hp.com/go/e3000reg.

Surveys over the fall showed that a not-insignificant part of the customer base hasn't even told its corporate-level management about HP's changed position on the 3000. If you're no good at bad news in the boardroom, perhaps the Webcast (PowerPoint slides) and telephone audio can deliver the news for you. You might bone up beforehand at the HP Web site with specifics on migration programs, the kind of details that might not be included in a C-level presentation. HP's marshaled its mantra details at www.hp.com/go/e3000guide.

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IBM to spark its iSeries alternative

One morning earlier than the HP broadcast for your executives, IBM will be pushing out information about improved offers in its iSeries line. These are the integrated systems (that's what the i stands for) better known as the AS400, and we hear there's big changes in the way the systems will be packaged. Everybody in the server business has to respond to the Intel-based systems' cost of acquisition, a low-ball price that's setting the pace for the rest of the offerings.

The iSeries Nation, an online user group run from the IBM Web sites, will have a chat with customers Monday morning about the improvements in on-demand solutions. You can register over the Web using confirmation code 721730, at www.ibm.com/eserver/nation/chate1.

IBM already made a key management change in its iSeries management, moving its general manager of the business into contact with application software firms while moving in the head of its Lotus software operations. Analysts say that shift might help sell the iSeries to app providers, while the platform will get a bigger chunk of software included. If IBM's already in your organization's IT plans, or you want a more integrated alternative than the HP-UX message at the heart of HP's briefings, you can get the latest at the iSeries chat. It never hurts to have more information than your vendor provides to your executive management, including some alternatives they haven't mentioned. We'll keep our migrating readers up to date on the IBM alternative in future issues of the NewsWire.

Interex Symposium offers homestead answers, too

Details for this spring's Solutions Symposia are starting to appear on the Interex Web site this week, and the meetings are showing more new wrinkles than just a second date in the Eastern US at Valley Forge. Two of the three tracks do focus on migration, an area where the 3000 customers are doing diligent research to make the idea of migration prove its mettle. There's both a Planning track of talks and an Implementation track, with information about moving to Linux as well as the ubiquitous HP-UX choice.

We've also spotted a track that the Symposia's content organizers -- led by MPE Forum chair Paul Edwards -- call Systems Fundamentals and Homesteading. Customers electing not to make any changes in their 3000 future, at least one third of the installed base by our random survey results, can attend sessions on Examining Application Support Strategies, review Homesteading's hardware, software, personnel and technology considerations, and learn what 3000 hardware emulation products are being developed and if they are a good fit for your environment. If your preference is to hunkering down for 2007 and beyond, there's help coming from the Interex shows. We'll have a Q&A interview with the show's executive organizer Deb Lawson, who also heads up the user group's advocacy effort, in our February NewsWire. Head out to the Interex Web site at www.interex.org/conference/hpe3k2003/index.html to get details on attending. The conference is $695, less than half what the HP World conference costs, and it's all 3000-related -- even the sessions on learning Unix compare the environment to the HP 3000's MPE.

At $129 a night, the accomodations at the main Valley Forge conference hotel are pretty competitive with online rates. You can shop for a nearby hotel at the Valley Forge Convention Center Web lodging Web page, valleyforge.conventioncenterhotels.net/convcenterhotels.html. You can hold down expenses on the East Coast by skipping car rental for the week, we've learned, using a shuttle service between the Philadelphia airport and the King of Prussia Radisson hotel at $20 a ride. Contact the Radisson for details. Of course, the conference is being held just a few minutes from the Valley Forge National Historical Park, so maybe having a car and a few extra hours could bring a smile to history hounds' faces. We've also heard of a Discount Computer Products Show in the Valley Forge convention center attached to the Radisson over the weekend, maybe a better excursion than the Symposium's usual side trip to Fry's.

BIND troubles don't hit 3000s very hard

Back in November we reported in our FlashPaper that the BIND software for Domain Name Services had developed a security hole, one that might have an impact for HP 3000s. You can review the details at the Internet Security Services Web site, bvlive01.iss.net/issEn/delivery/xforce/alertdetail.jsp?oid=21469. Mark Bixby, the HP engineer who's crafted the BIND release for MPE, got back to us with a detailed report on these security bugs, especially what your exposure is while connected to the Internet:

"At most these new bugs will result in process aborts on MPE," Bixby said, "so the impact is low, compared to other OSes where application buffer overflows can result in the execution of arbitrary code.

"The exposure to MPE systems is also low. Few if any customers are running the BIND named daemon on MPE, so those bugs do not apply. The only HP product affected by libbind bugs is Sendmail, and most MPE customers who run Sendmail do it in intranet applications that are safe from Internet e-mail attacks.

"After I finish Samba 2.2.6, the next item on the CSY Internet & Interoperability roadmap is to update the MPE BIND to the latest and greatest 9.x version that is available at the time that I start work on the project. So these recent BIND bugs will all be fixed on MPE sometime in 2003.

"FYI, Sendmail A.01.00 is linked with the libbind from BIND 8.2.5. The most recent version of BIND that I have internally tested on MPE is 8.3.0."

Bradmark, Beechglen tie up in service deal

HP 3000 longtime vendors Bradmark Technologies and Beechglen Development announced a marketing partnership, pairing a company that sells 3000 database and management software with a firm offering 3000 hardware and software solutions and support. Company officials said the pact "signifies a continued commitment to the support base for HP 3000 customers, well past the date when Hewlett Packard will no longer support that platform."

Bradmark's VP of sales and marketing John Mitchell said his company "first learned of Beechglen through our DBGeneral customer base. They told us about the high-quality support they received from friendly, courteous and helpful people." Like lots of the 3000 installed base in North America, Mitchell said "We were impressed with Beechglen's round-the-clock support, immediate access to experts on the first phone call, and emphasis on customer satisfaction."

Mike Hornsby, CTO of Beechglen said "We are happy to be able to add Bradmark as a reference for the support and education of our customer base." Beechglen can be reached at 513.922.0509.

ScreenJet puts demo in online movie

Even if you don't have travel budget for planning a migration at one of this spring's shows, you can get a demo from the comfort of your office chair. If you have 10 minutes to put your feet up and browse in the coming weeks, ScreenJet Ltd is running its latest Migration Movie at www.screenjet.com/sjetacudemov2.asp

The 2Mb Flash file runs in any browser equipped with the free Macromedia Flash plug-in. For Windows users, it can also be downloaded as an EXE file. The movie is an on-line demonstration of the migration of an HP 3000 COBOL and VPLUS program to ACUCOBOL-GT and AcuBench.

The demo shows off the latest version of the ScreenJet VPLUS to ACUCOBOL Migration Tools, including the recently-launched ScreenJet VPLUS API in ACUCOBOL. The API allows optional retention of all VPLUS calls, and the translation of Processing Specifications into COBOL Functions in migrated code.