What happens in Vegas?

[Richard Maher]

Hi,

So what happened at the HPTF? I didn't see anyone twittering about VMS.

The RoadMap presentation/session, which was sheduled for an hour, must have
left 55mins for drinkipoos and a quick punt on Lucky 7? Ann MacQuaid now on
light-duties?

Who was older - The Beach-Boys or those leaving VMS Enguneering :-)

Regards Richard Maher

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by Richard Maher
Hi,
So what happened at the HPTF? I didn't see anyone twittering about VMS.

I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on the
number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

Post by Richard Maher
The RoadMap presentation/session, which was sheduled for an hour, must have
left 55mins for drinkipoos and a quick punt on Lucky 7? Ann MacQuaid now on
light-duties?

An hour of lively discussion, and another hour of lively discussion at the
Connect VMS Sig meeting.

Post by Richard Maher
Who was older - The Beach-Boys or those leaving VMS Enguneering :-)

The Beach Boys had various ringers, including a 46-year-old John Stamos (who
turns out to be a pretty decent drummer, guitarist, and singer.

I think he was well under the average age of attendees.

-- Alan

[JF Mezei]

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

Could you caracterize "HP employee" ? Would those be HP heritage
employees (ink, PC, HP-UX) or would they be related to Itanium/VMS in
some ways ? Did they ask any questions ?

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
An hour of lively discussion, and another hour of lively discussion at the
Connect VMS Sig meeting.

Were they able to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the future of
VMS (as Sue was able to to to even the extreme cynics here) ? Or were
the non HP attendees not so trusting of HP ? (would be interested in
your gut feeling on the tone of the meetings).

Did HP fess up to the fact thet VMS engineering was moved to India or
are they still in denial mode ?

[news]

Did HP fess up to the fact thet VMS engineering was moved to India or are
they still in denial mode ?

er, has moved, surely....
Unless the business cards were wrong...

[Mark Daniel]

Post by news

Did HP fess up to the fact thet VMS engineering was moved to India or are
they still in denial mode ?

er, has moved, surely....
Unless the business cards were wrong...

Perhaps a little late in the "India" discussion (and having worked with
a small number of subcontinental scientists and engineers over the years
can attest to at least their professionalism and expertise, so it must
be purely cost-cutting or out-of-sight-out-of-mind) but I'm curious
about the proportions of all HP product development done in various
global locales. Might be generally instructive as to the emphasis given
to each; NSK by way of compare and contrast.

[yyyc186]

Post by Mark Daniel
Perhaps a little late in the "India" discussion (and having worked with
a small number of subcontinental scientists and engineers over the years
can attest to at least their professionalism and expertise, so it must
be purely cost-cutting or out-of-sight-out-of-mind) but I'm curious
about the proportions of all HP product development done in various
global locales.  Might be generally instructive as to the emphasis given
to each; NSK by way of compare and contrast.

I've worked with many off-shore teams from India on the OpenVMS
platform. These teams came from companies like U.S. Tech, IBM, EDS,
Accenture and a few other places. Not one successfully delivered a
product. Not one. Most had success redefined to be "whatever was
delivered" along with all documentation destroyed about what was
actually requested for delivery.

Unlike the worthless platform of HP-UX, OpenVMS had severe
restrictions about where it could be sold. (I believe HP was actually
encouraged to sell as much UX as they could into the Soviet Union
during the Cold War to help bring about the end of Communism.)

Now, even HP is trying to "manufacture" veterans with 20 years of
experience in just a couple of months like every other off-shore
company.

It will be interesting to see just how much "cost cutting" this
actually is now that the tax break for creating jobs in third world
countries has been removed and a head tax is being imposed. That,
coupled with a crack down next year on the wanton abuse of vacation-
Visa-for-months-of-work-paid-off-shore should really criple companies
trying to rape America for its last dollar.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by yyyc186

Post by Mark Daniel
Perhaps a little late in the "India" discussion (and having worked with
a small number of subcontinental scientists and engineers over the years
can attest to at least their professionalism and expertise, so it must
be purely cost-cutting or out-of-sight-out-of-mind) but I'm curious
about the proportions of all HP product development done in various
global locales. Might be generally instructive as to the emphasis given
to each; NSK by way of compare and contrast.

I've worked with many off-shore teams from India on the OpenVMS
platform. These teams came from companies like U.S. Tech, IBM, EDS,
Accenture and a few other places. Not one successfully delivered a
product. Not one. Most had success redefined to be "whatever was
delivered" along with all documentation destroyed about what was
actually requested for delivery.

This is by no means unusual. The ethnicity of the developers has little
or nothing to do with it. If you have never read "The Mythical Man
Month", do so. I consider it required reading for anyone managing a
software development project!

[news]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
This is by no means unusual. The ethnicity of the developers has little
or nothing to do with it.

My experience in using external deveopers for financial applications is that
these developers have to be very tightly managed or disasters will happen:
every time. One issue is language, the other issue is that although many are
technically very strong, coding will be done in such as way so that only the
person who wrote the code can understand it - which makes it impossible to
maintain - oh and there appears to be no word, in any language other than
English, for the phrase 'software documentation'.

[P. Sture]

Post by news

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
This is by no means unusual. The ethnicity of the developers has little
or nothing to do with it.

My experience in using external deveopers for financial applications is that
every time. One issue is language, the other issue is that although many are
technically very strong, coding will be done in such as way so that only the
person who wrote the code can understand it - which makes it impossible to
maintain -

One problem I have identified here is the lack of familiarity with
business processes in another country. I'm just thinking of simple
accounting and tax procedures for this discussion. For example in the
early to mid-1990s it was plain to me that the
Quicken/Quicktax/Quickbooks product developers (Intuit, a US based
company) didn't understand the UK VAT and tax systems in sufficient
depth to get their products right.

Wind back to the early 1980s, and the UK providers of at least one
accounting system didn't provide the style of double entry book-keeping
that was required in Europe. I am sure the list goes on.

When it comes to financial systems, it really can be a cultural problem,
and the only answer is in detailed specifications, tight project
management, and adequate testing. You don't get a second chance here,
as if the auditors won't sign the books because data isn't presented the
right way, you are probably bankrupt.

Post by news
oh and there appears to be no word, in any language other than
English, for the phrase 'software documentation'.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've worked with detailed software
documentation in Dutch, French, German...

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert
This is by no means unusual. The ethnicity of the developers has little
or nothing to do with it.

My experience in using external developers for financial applications is that
every time. One issue is language, the other issue is that although many are
technically very strong, coding will be done in such as way so that only the
person who wrote the code can understand it - which makes it impossible to
maintain - oh and there appears to be no word, in any language other than
English, for the phrase 'software documentation'.

Any time you have two or more people writing code for a project, you
need to manage the project very well. There are always at least two
products, or two pieces of a single product; the code and the
documentation. When somebody says "Get the code out the door and to
hell with the documentation" that is when you get the documentation from
hell!!!

It's not a bad idea to cross reference the code to the requirements
documentation; e.g. /*This is where we meet the requirement for XYZZY as
specified in section 23b of the requirements document. */

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

Could you caracterize "HP employee" ? Would those be HP heritage
employees (ink, PC, HP-UX) or would they be related to Itanium/VMS in
some ways ? Did they ask any questions ?

VMS/Itanium related people.

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
An hour of lively discussion, and another hour of lively discussion at the
Connect VMS Sig meeting.

Were they able to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the future of
VMS (as Sue was able to to to even the extreme cynics here) ? Or were
the non HP attendees not so trusting of HP ? (would be interested in
your gut feeling on the tone of the meetings).
Did HP fess up to the fact thet VMS engineering was moved to India or
are they still in denial mode ?

HP fessed up. Not just engineering,but the whole organization.

I ended up convinced that the VMS organization as it is now is serious about
it.

-- Alan

[JF Mezei]

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
HP fessed up. Not just engineering,but the whole organization.

Have they clarified the second level support from Colorado ? Have they
confirmed that this is moving to India as well, except for those whose
contracts specify Colorado support ?

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
I ended up convinced that the VMS organization as it is now is serious about
it.

I have never had doubts that the people inheriting VMS would make a
valiant effort at doing what HP is contracting them to do. They will
want to prove they are capable.

The question is what HP will tell them their mandate is.


But without the "real" VMS engineers to guide them and give them the
right coding philosophies and provide a sanity check for their ideas, it
is not sure that thew few experienced folks there will be able to
instill the right philosophy/culture to the large influx of newbies.

Say, for sake of discussion, there there are 2 very experienced
engineers, and 100 newbies. That ration is such that the 2 guys will not
be able to push the right philosophy to everyone, especially if there is
a high turnover. And if those few experienced ones are busy being tutors
to the newbies, then they won't be doing heavy duty coding which only
they are capable of doing.

There is a lot of history to VMS, a lot of reasons why certain
structures were chosen and it isn't obvious to a newbie who, if given a
role to modify low level code, might make serious mistakes because he
didn't realise why something had been done that way.

One of the possibilities I see is that shortage of resources may result
in 8.4 being the last release for Alpha. If they have insufficent
available man hours, then removing the need to cross compile, qualify
and productize Alpha releases would save a lot of man hours, and HP
could then be able to continue to release a new version of VMS with its
limited resources.

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Post by JF Mezei
Say, for sake of discussion, there there are 2 very experienced
engineers, and 100 newbies.

40 % if the VMS-eng in India has been with VMS > 10 years.

Now, you didn't qualify what you put into "very experienced" and
"newbies", but I'd still say that your guesses have absolutely
zero value (as usual).

Post by JF Mezei
There is a lot of history to VMS, a lot of reasons why certain
structures were chosen and it isn't obvious to a newbie who, if given a
role to modify low level code, might make serious mistakes because he
didn't realise why something had been done that way.
One of the possibilities I see is that shortage...

What "shortage" ?

Post by JF Mezei
...of resources may result
in 8.4 being the last release for Alpha.

Yet another wild guess with zero value or substance.
Heck, the sky could fall down on our heads any day also... :-)

[news]

I actually was impressed by the enthusiasm shown by the VMS people, who were
actually looking forward to the prospect of working on VMS, rather than the
usual disillusioned etc etc etc

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Post by news
I actually was impressed by the enthusiasm shown by the VMS people, who were
actually looking forward to the prospect of working on VMS, rather than the
usual disillusioned etc etc etc

That was also my impression after meeting with the VMS
folks at HP in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago.
Give them a break, and let the next year tell...

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
HP fessed up. Not just engineering,but the whole organization.

Have they clarified the second level support from Colorado ? Have they
confirmed that this is moving to India as well, except for those whose
contracts specify Colorado support ?

No discussion of this point.

-- Alan

[Richard Maher]

Hi Alan,

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing

Post by Richard Maher
Hi,
So what happened at the HPTF? I didn't see anyone twittering about VMS.

I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on the
number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

Looks like the bait-balls are getting smaller :-( That's what happens when
the fishery isn't managed. Still the good news is there's at least 15 more
HP(VMS?) employees with nothing productive to do that could have their
exorbitant salaries freed up for something useful. (Of course only after
they've reported back hope wonderfully happy all the VMS customers are withe
the WSIT and RTR functionality - full steam ahead!)

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing

Post by Richard Maher
The RoadMap presentation/session, which was sheduled for an hour, must have
left 55mins for drinkipoos and a quick punt on Lucky 7? Ann MacQuaid now on
light-duties?

An hour of lively discussion, and another hour of lively discussion at the
Connect VMS Sig meeting.

Let me guess, no one even mentioned IPsec but they announced the
Chrome4OpenVMS project with much fanfare and, as Java has become boring (and
not as useful on the CV) for HP/VMS, the next five years will be spent
evaluating customer feedback on a port of .NET Mono?

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing

Post by Richard Maher
Who was older - The Beach-Boys or those leaving VMS Enguneering :-)

The Beach Boys had various ringers, including a 46-year-old John Stamos (who
turns out to be a pretty decent drummer, guitarist, and singer.
I think he was well under the average age of attendees.

Thanks for the update Alan.

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
-- Alan

Cheers Richard Maher

[Neil Rieck]

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on the
number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

I'm not sure why HP went through with the Las Vegas thing at this
time. Didn't anyone notice that the world wide economy is in the
doldrums? Out here in the tranches, money is so tight that I would
have only been able to attend this if my primary work location was in
Las Vegas.

HP upper management is probably interpreting the low Las Vegas turn
out as proof that OpenVMS is finally irrelavent. (if true, maybe
they'll sell their OpenVMS division to Oracle)

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/

[sapienzaf]

Post by Neil Rieck
I'm not sure why HP went through with the Las Vegas thing at this
time. Didn't anyone notice that the world wide economy is in the
doldrums?

Yes, HP certainly noticed. Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.

Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

[JF Mezei]

Post by sapienzaf
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Do you seriously think that people like Mr VAXman would pay real money
to attend a conference where the speakers are just fresh out of their 2
weeks of training on VMS while Mr VAXman has experience dating back from
the last century ?

(replace "VAXman" with most posters on this group).

What they should have done is a reverse bootcamp where they would pay
customers train the newbie engineers.

Now once VMS engineers have gotten their training, settled into their
jobs and gotten familiar with the code, the "Bootcamp" concept remains
the best one in my opinion. Whether you fly 15 engineers from India to
Vegas to to some other location makes no difference. But you don't want
to fly them to some event where VMS has a token presence and not worth
it for VMS customers to go.

You want to fly those engineers to one event that has sufficient VMS
content in it to justify customers going to. And that is Bootcamp, or
whatever HP might want to call it. (Sue, did you copyright "Bootcamp" ?
perhaps you could get HP to pay you royalties if they use your concept).

Lets not forget that Bootcamp was a "Sue" event that was *tolerated* by
HP. Sue certaintly put her personal touches to it (like the quilt). Sue
was able to do this because hotel, engineers and hardware were all next
to each other.

It isn't so easy to organise an event from another continent.

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by sapienzaf
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Do you seriously think that people like Mr VAXman would pay real money
to attend a conference where the speakers are just fresh out of their 2
weeks of training on VMS...

One of the speakers at the meeting i Stockholm had been with VMS
since the DEC times and the other for 14 years. That's a little
more then "2 weeks of training on VMS". Not that *you* care,
but anyway...

Post by JF Mezei
while Mr VAXman has experience dating back from
the last century ?

Just as close to half of the engineeing group. So what ?

Post by JF Mezei
...the "Bootcamp" concept remains
the best one in my opinion. Whether you fly 15 engineers from India...

Future Bootcamps seems to be evaluated and they will probably be
placed where the engineers are (just as before, if I'm not wrong).

Post by JF Mezei
Lets not forget that Bootcamp was a "Sue" event ...

And Sue was "HP". So what ?

Post by JF Mezei
It isn't so easy to organise an event from another continent.

Right, and as was told, it will probably be the same continent.

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by Jan-Erik Söderholm

Post by JF Mezei

Post by sapienzaf
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Do you seriously think that people like Mr VAXman would pay real money
to attend a conference where the speakers are just fresh out of their 2
weeks of training on VMS...

One of the speakers at the meeting i Stockholm had been with VMS
since the DEC times and the other for 14 years. That's a little
more then "2 weeks of training on VMS". Not that *you* care,
but anyway...

Post by JF Mezei
while Mr VAXman has experience dating back from
the last century ?

Just as close to half of the engineeing group. So what ?

Post by JF Mezei
...the "Bootcamp" concept remains
the best one in my opinion. Whether you fly 15 engineers from India...

Future Bootcamps seems to be evaluated and they will probably be
placed where the engineers are (just as before, if I'm not wrong).

While I don't actually see how you can do it economically, I heard an HP
employee answer the bootcamp question at a VMS session by saying that they
were looking at doing one next year, probably on the East Coast of the US.

-- Alan

[John Smith (not the one @ HP)]

Post by Neil Rieck
I'm not sure why HP went through with the Las Vegas thing at this
time. Didn't anyone notice that the world wide economy is in the
doldrums?

Yes, HP certainly noticed. Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.

Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

And since it as Vegas, Bootcamp attendees would have had a chance to make
back their cost of attending....or to pay double or more ;-)

[JF Mezei]

Post by sapienzaf
Yes, HP certainly noticed. Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.

No. They used it as an excuse for not holding bootcamp.

The news of bootcamp being cancelled started in december 2008 but not
announced beause of the hope of minds being changed. Then, first week of
january, when the staff were told that VMS engineering was being moved
to india, they had no choice but to formally cancel it and announce the
cancellation because they had to let go of hotel booking etc etc.

Bootcamp was revenue neutral for HP. HP did not give any formal budgets
for it.

And being in contact with customers, Sue was confident she could have
filled the room as in the past. She did not need to fill the room to
break-even.

[Neil Rieck]

[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed.  Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year.  A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.

The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.

NSR

[IanMiller]

Post by Neil Rieck
[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed.  Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year.  A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.
The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.
NSR

USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.

The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.

[V***@SendSpamHere.ORG]

Post by IanMiller

Post by Neil Rieck
[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed. =A0Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. =A0A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.
The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.
NSR

USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.
The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.

They're going to hold it in Bangladesh now and it will be known as
Bindicamp. :)

I summoned my local soothsayer's all-seeing all-knowing powers and
the prognostication is that there will never be another bootcamp.

[Bob Gezelter]

Post by V***@SendSpamHere.ORG

Post by IanMiller

Post by Neil Rieck
[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed. =A0Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year. =A0A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.
The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.
NSR

USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.
The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.

They're going to hold it in Bangladesh now and it will be known as
Bindicamp. :)
I summoned my local soothsayer's all-seeing all-knowing powers and
the prognostication is that there will never be another bootcamp.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
 http://www.quirkfactory.com/popart/asskey/eqn2.png
  "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

VAXman,

With all due respect, Bangladesh is a country, roughly located in the
northeast corner of the Indian sub-continent.

Bangalore is a city, located in the southwest of India.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[John Reagan]

Post by Bob Gezelter
VAXman,
With all due respect, Bangladesh is a country, roughly located in the
northeast corner of the Indian sub-continent.
Bangalore is a city, located in the southwest of India.

Unless it has an "exit number", I don't think VAXman can find it. :)

John

[JF Mezei]

Post by Bob Gezelter
With all due respect, Bangladesh is a country, roughly located in the
northeast corner of the Indian sub-continent.
Bangalore is a city, located in the southwest of India.

From the perspective of the average c.o.v. reader, this is not too
different. Both locations involve very long and very expensive flights.

Mind you, if you're going to hold it in India, you might as well hold it
in some beach resort.

[V***@SendSpamHere.ORG]

Post by John Reagan

Post by Bob Gezelter
VAXman,
With all due respect, Bangladesh is a country, roughly located in the
northeast corner of the Indian sub-continent.
Bangalore is a city, located in the southwest of India.

Unless it has an "exit number", I don't think VAXman can find it. :)

VAXman's new COMP.OS.VMS rules for posting...

1. Never post in the morning until at least the third cup of coffee.
2. Never post after three day weekends of photographing concert gigs
and partying with bands until day break.
3. Remember to bring the spectacles from the bedroom in the morning
instead of squinting at the screen.

Sorry, Bangalore.

[IanMiller]

Post by IanMiller

Post by Neil Rieck
[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed.  Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year.  A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.
The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.
NSR

USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.
The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.

A report from Camiel Vanderhoeven, who presented at this years HPTF,
can be found at
http://www.openvms.org/stories.php?story=09/06/23/6727831

[DaveG]

Post by IanMiller

Post by IanMiller

Post by Neil Rieck
[...snip...]

Yes, HP certainly noticed.  Or at least they used it as a rationale
for not holding Bootcamp this year.
Considering all the OpenVMS engineers and management that we hear were
at HPTF, it kind of makes me wonder why bootcamp wasn't co-located
with HPTF in Vegas this year.  A "kill two birds with one stone" kind
of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that "OpenVMS
bootcamp" is permanently killed (collateral damage?) coincident with
the decision to shut down "US-based support of OpenVMS", and that the
Las Vegas trip was more of a retirement trip for OpenVMS retirees.
The whole reason for having the bootcamp in New England was to get
close to OpenVMS engineers. Once retired, these people will probably
disperse to other US locations.
NSR

USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.
The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.

A report from Camiel Vanderhoeven, who presented at this years HPTF,
can be found athttp://www.openvms.org/stories.php?story=09/06/23/6727831- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -

Nice writeup. Thanks for the link.

Dave...

[John Smith (not the one @ HP)]

"IanMiller" <***@uk2.net> wrote in message news:90dbaa3e-d1f7-42ed-831c-***@k15g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...


USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.

The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.


The 'current VMS management"???? WTF???

That would be Hurd, et. al., correct? Same as before, correct?

So, 'splain to me how things are different now? Is it just the rose coloured
glasses you're looking through?

[IanMiller]

Post by IanMiller
USA based support of OpenVMS continues - you will find them via the
CSC in CO, as before.
The bootcamp has not been permanently killed - the current VMS
Management are aware of the demand for the event and are considering
options.
The 'current VMS management"???? WTF???
That would be Hurd, et. al., correct?  Same as before, correct?
So, 'splain to me how things are different now? Is it just the rose coloured
glasses you're looking through?

I was referring to the Management of the OpenVMS Division in HP India
and not higher management of HP

[JF Mezei]

Post by Neil Rieck
HP upper management is probably interpreting the low Las Vegas turn
out as proof that OpenVMS is finally irrelavent. (if true, maybe
they'll sell their OpenVMS division to Oracle)

How many people did Sue draw to her world famous bootcamps ? That would
be a better indication of potetial for attendance. If HP is smart, they
would know that HPTF didn't provide sufficient VMS content to justify
VMS customers paying the big bucks to go.

Also, what is not known is out of the 3800 attendees, how many were HP
employees. I am sure the ratio would be less than 50% as it appeasr to
have been for the VMS sessions, but it could still be significant.

In case of the VMS employees being there, perhaps this is part of their
training.



If this was the "user group" symposium, I'd say that 3800 was a very
very good attendance number, especially when you consider the economic
situation. One coudl argue that since this is not DECUS, you can't
expect to have much VMS content and attendance in it.

[Bob Gezelter]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Neil Rieck
HP upper management is probably interpreting the low Las Vegas turn
out as proof that OpenVMS is finally irrelavent. (if true, maybe
they'll sell their OpenVMS division to Oracle)

How many people did Sue draw to her world famous bootcamps ? That would
be a better indication of potetial for attendance. If HP is smart, they
would know that HPTF didn't provide sufficient VMS content to justify
VMS customers paying the big bucks to go.
Also, what is not known is out of the 3800 attendees, how many were HP
employees. I am sure the ratio would be less than 50% as it appeasr to
have been for the VMS sessions, but it could still be significant.
In case of the VMS employees being there, perhaps this is part of their
training.
If this was the "user group" symposium, I'd say that 3800 was a very
very good attendance number, especially when you consider the economic
situation. One coudl argue that since this is not DECUS, you can't
expect to have much VMS content and attendance in it.

JF,

First, the Bootcamps in Nashua typically sold out, or came within
epsilon of selling out (last minute cancellations).

The OpenVMS engineers who were at the HP Tech Forum were experienced
at working with OpenVMS. I did not keep a scorecard, but apparently
the experience with OpenVMS engineering dated from the Digital India
days. The conversations about technical issues (in sessions, and
informally around tables were productive).

I cannot divine the pros and cons of holding the event in this
economy, but know well that the upfront costs are often substantial,
and guarantees are non-refundable. In effect, canceling an event does
not save as much as one might think. On large events, there are
substantial contractual commitments which remain. I have no special
knowledge, but would not be surprised if the savings from canceling
would not have been worth it.

In addition to the sessions presented by HP, Wayne Sauer, Brad
McCusker, Camiel Vanderhoeven, and I presented sessions on OpenVMS-
related topics.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[JF Mezei]

Post by Bob Gezelter
The OpenVMS engineers who were at the HP Tech Forum were experienced
at working with OpenVMS. I did not keep a scorecard, but apparently
the experience with OpenVMS engineering dated from the Digital India
days.

I know this is a valid point. However, someone who has been with "VMS"
for 14 years and whose job was to test TPU and MAIL withe every new
release of VMS doesn't exactly have much experience thinkering with the
VMS kernel.

Remember that much of what HP India had since the Palmer days were
"mature" products that not longer got developped, they were just being
maintained.

Yes, there are some bright and very experienced people there. For
someone to do IP clustering, one needs to have good experience. However,
we don't know if the person who did IP clustering did it all by himself,
of if he had guidance and access to the real VMS engineers who had done
the clustering code to begin with.

With the real engineers gone, it isn't obvious how the new team will be
able to solve problems (or avoid problems) without guidance from the
seasoned folks.

To put it bluntly: just because you ahve been a cashier at a supermarket
for 14 years doesn't make you eligible to become CEO of the supermarket
chain.

[JF Mezei]

Another point:

One needs to consider turnover.

Lets say that 40% of the new team is truly experienced and capable. But
60% are real newbies who need a lot of training.

How long will the 40% have to spend to train the newbies, and how long
will the newbies remain with that group after tghey have become
sufficiently trained to be productive.

If there is a high turnover rate, then you may end up in a situation
where the 40% spend 99% of their time training newbies and in the end,
not much ends up getting done, or, they just forget about the newbies,
and the 40% become the core VMS engineering group which means that the
engineering group has just got downsized significantly and also has to
carry 60% deadweight with untrained/unproductive newbies bothering the
40% of experienced folks.

[Bob Gezelter]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Bob Gezelter
The OpenVMS engineers who were at the HP Tech Forum were experienced
at working with OpenVMS. I did not keep a scorecard, but apparently
the experience with OpenVMS engineering dated from the Digital India
days.

I know this is a valid point. However, someone who has been with "VMS"
for 14 years and whose job was to test TPU and MAIL withe every new
release of VMS doesn't exactly have much experience thinkering with the
VMS kernel.
Remember that much of what HP India had since the Palmer days were
"mature" products that not longer got developped, they were just being
maintained.
Yes, there are some bright and very experienced people there. For
someone to do IP clustering, one needs to have good experience. However,
we don't know if the person who did IP clustering did it all by himself,
of if he had guidance and access to the real VMS engineers who had done
the clustering code to begin with.
With the real engineers gone, it isn't obvious how the new team will be
able to solve problems (or avoid problems) without guidance from the
seasoned folks.
To put it bluntly: just because you ahve been a cashier at a supermarket
for 14 years doesn't make you eligible to become CEO of the supermarket
chain.

JF,

I am impressed with your ability to evaluate the technical knowledge
of people whom you have never met.

On the other hand, I was at last years bootcamp, and did attend the
session given by the gentleman from Bangalore who is leading the IP
cluster work (who also presented in Las Vegas).

As I have said previously, the team should be judged by their work,
not by the location of their offices, ethnicity, religion, gender, or
other factors other than proficiency. The proficiency of the
engineering team should not be judged by the difficulties with the
customer support line. I have had both good and bad experiences with
support personnel, and accents, drawls, and language difficulties are
only part of the problem. Several years ago, I was impressed by a call
center (if I recall correctly, Cisco's) where the Irish
representatives actually had the IATA phonetic alphabet taped to their
terminals (a commendable measure that is singularly lacking in most
call centers). I have encountered competent individuals in the US and
overseas, and I have encountered less than competent individuals in
the US and overseas. Judge them by their work.

As many well know, I am proud to be able to count many friends in the
OpenVMS engineering community, and am certainly distressed at what has
happened. However, that distress is a personal matter. I will judge
the team from Bangalore solely on the quality of their work, as I did
the work of the team that was originally headquartered at the Mill,
before the ZK facility was built. Their work was worthy of respect,
and they became my friends over the years.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Mark Daniel]

Post by Bob Gezelter

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Bob Gezelter
The OpenVMS engineers who were at the HP Tech Forum were experienced
at working with OpenVMS. I did not keep a scorecard, but apparently
the experience with OpenVMS engineering dated from the Digital India
days.

I know this is a valid point. However, someone who has been with "VMS"
for 14 years and whose job was to test TPU and MAIL withe every new
release of VMS doesn't exactly have much experience thinkering with the
VMS kernel.
Remember that much of what HP India had since the Palmer days were
"mature" products that not longer got developped, they were just being
maintained.
Yes, there are some bright and very experienced people there. For
someone to do IP clustering, one needs to have good experience. However,
we don't know if the person who did IP clustering did it all by himself,
of if he had guidance and access to the real VMS engineers who had done
the clustering code to begin with.
With the real engineers gone, it isn't obvious how the new team will be
able to solve problems (or avoid problems) without guidance from the
seasoned folks.
To put it bluntly: just because you ahve been a cashier at a supermarket
for 14 years doesn't make you eligible to become CEO of the supermarket
chain.

JF,
I am impressed with your ability to evaluate the technical knowledge
of people whom you have never met.
On the other hand, I was at last years bootcamp, and did attend the
session given by the gentleman from Bangalore who is leading the IP
cluster work (who also presented in Las Vegas).
As I have said previously, the team should be judged by their work,
not by the location of their offices, ethnicity, religion, gender, or
other factors other than proficiency. The proficiency of the
engineering team should not be judged by the difficulties with the
customer support line. I have had both good and bad experiences with
support personnel, and accents, drawls, and language difficulties are
only part of the problem. Several years ago, I was impressed by a call
center (if I recall correctly, Cisco's) where the Irish
representatives actually had the IATA phonetic alphabet taped to their
terminals (a commendable measure that is singularly lacking in most
call centers). I have encountered competent individuals in the US and
overseas, and I have encountered less than competent individuals in
the US and overseas. Judge them by their work.
As many well know, I am proud to be able to count many friends in the
OpenVMS engineering community, and am certainly distressed at what has
happened. However, that distress is a personal matter. I will judge
the team from Bangalore solely on the quality of their work, as I did
the work of the team that was originally headquartered at the Mill,
before the ZK facility was built. Their work was worthy of respect,
and they became my friends over the years.
- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Well put Robert.

I'd be surprised if these weren't the sentiments of the silent majority
(to coin a phrase) of c.o.v. denizens.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Bob Gezelter
I am impressed with your ability to evaluate the technical knowledge
of people whom you have never met.

I am not judging their abilities. What I am saying is that I know very
little about them.

Post by Bob Gezelter
On the other hand, I was at last years bootcamp, and did attend the
session given by the gentleman from Bangalore who is leading the IP
cluster work (who also presented in Las Vegas).

Just because you met one who had excellent skills and experience does
not automatically mean that the rest of the 40% have equal levels of
skills and experience with VMS. And we knwo nothing about the 60% of the
group that has just been hired and given 2 weeks of training.

Post by Bob Gezelter
As I have said previously, the team should be judged by their work,
not by the location of their offices, ethnicity, religion, gender, or
other factors other than proficiency.

Nobody is judging the people by any of the racial/social/ethnic features.

VMS got to be VMS because of the high quality and standards of its
engineering. Consider all the right design decisions made from day 1
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any
lanaguage to be called from any language, the use of string descriptiors
to avoid buffer overflows and even the damned RWAST status that everyone
hates to ensure that show incomplete IO complete, the buffer where the
IO will wrote the results to will still be there.

That is a lot of stuff that newbies would not think about, even white
anglo saxon protestants in Redmond Washington. This is not about race.


Because VMS is considered a serious OS, used in mission critical
applications, the remaining customer base expects a higher quality level
than for Windows or Linux.

The "undocumented" changes to VMS engineering bring a large degree of
uncertainty with regards to continued high quality standards for VMS.
And this uncertainty will hurt VMS because even if HP really does intend
to grow and develop VMS in the long term, it will take a few years (when
8.5 is released) before we can judge if the new team is capable or not.

They may surprise everyone and end up being better and more productive
than the old team. Or they may end up like many "outsourced to india"
projects where the goal of the coproation was to reduce costs and scale
down product so it can be retired/made mature in a couple of years.


And I am susprised that any american would support the export of their
own wealth to a distant country that will end up being richer than the
USA and end up buying the USA like China is doing now. When a country's
debt is onwed by another country, that other country ends up controlling
it. That is why you won't see the USa criticising (too much) china's
human rights issues anymore, and you won't see the USA being able to
tell India to get rid of its nuclear arsenal. (in fact, Bush sanctioned
it and got USA companies to try to sell nuclear stuff to India, a
country that refuses to signs the NPT treaty.)


USA corporations need to learn that exporting wealth means that they are
killing their own market. They may reduce their won costs, but they are
reducing, by far more, their own market opportunities.

[Michael Kraemer]

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

[John Smith (not the one @ HP)]

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

It's Klingon, I think.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by John Smith (not the one @ HP)

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

It's Klingon, I think.

Bingo!

[Michael Kraemer]

Post by John Smith (not the one @ HP)

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

It's Klingon, I think.

But not as we know it.
Too many vocals.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by John Smith (not the one @ HP)

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

It's Klingon, I think.

But not as we know it.
Too many vocals.

There is much to be said for using a spelling checker. I do! I can no
longer rely on my eyesight, typing, or even my mind!

[Michael Kraemer]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by John Smith (not the one @ HP)

Post by Michael Kraemer

Post by JF Mezei
with regards to snadrad calling standards allowing modules from any

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
what?
A new standardization committee?
A new language?

It's Klingon, I think.

But not as we know it.
Too many vocals.

There is much to be said for using a spelling checker. I do! I can no
longer rely on my eyesight, typing, or even my mind!

I've seen a Unicode code page for Klingon,
but I was not aware a spell checker exists too.

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Bob Gezelter
I am impressed with your ability to evaluate the technical knowledge
of people whom you have never met.

I am not judging their abilities. What I am saying is that I know very
little about them.

I've been working with VMS för aprox 20 years and love it.
Still I do know very little about *any* VMS engineer,
past or present. Why whould I need to ? Why would *you*
need to know them ?

Post by JF Mezei
And we knwo nothing about the 60% of the
group that has just been hired and given 2 weeks of training.

There are those "2 weeks" again. What 2 weeks are they ?

[IanMiller]

Post by Bob Gezelter

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Bob Gezelter
The OpenVMS engineers who were at the HP Tech Forum were experienced
at working with OpenVMS. I did not keep a scorecard, but apparently
the experience with OpenVMS engineering dated from the Digital India
days.

I know this is a valid point. However, someone who has been with "VMS"
for 14 years and whose job was to test TPU and MAIL withe every new
release of VMS doesn't exactly have much experience thinkering with the
VMS kernel.
Remember that much of what HP India had since the Palmer days were
"mature" products that not longer got developped, they were just being
maintained.
Yes, there are some bright and very experienced people there. For
someone to do IP clustering, one needs to have good experience. However,
we don't know if the person who did IP clustering did it all by himself,
of if he had guidance and access to the real VMS engineers who had done
the clustering code to begin with.
With the real engineers gone, it isn't obvious how the new team will be
able to solve problems (or avoid problems) without guidance from the
seasoned folks.
To put it bluntly: just because you ahve been a cashier at a supermarket
for 14 years doesn't make you eligible to become CEO of the supermarket
chain.

JF,
I am impressed with your ability to evaluate the technical knowledge
of people whom you have never met.
On the other hand, I was at last years bootcamp, and did attend the
session given by the gentleman from Bangalore who is leading the IP
cluster work (who also presented in Las Vegas).
As I have said previously, the team should be judged by their work,
not by the location of their offices, ethnicity, religion, gender, or
other factors other than proficiency. The proficiency of the
engineering team should not be judged by the difficulties with the
customer support line. I have had both good and bad experiences with
support personnel, and accents, drawls, and language difficulties are
only part of the problem. Several years ago, I was impressed by a call
center (if I recall correctly, Cisco's) where the Irish
representatives actually had the IATA phonetic alphabet taped to their
terminals (a commendable measure that is singularly lacking in most
call centers). I have encountered competent individuals in the US and
overseas, and I have encountered less than competent individuals in
the US and overseas. Judge them by their work.
As many well know, I am proud to be able to count many friends in the
OpenVMS engineering community, and am certainly distressed at what has
happened. However, that distress is a personal matter. I will judge
the team from Bangalore solely on the quality of their work, as I did
the work of the team that was originally headquartered at the Mill,
before the ZK facility was built. Their work was worthy of respect,
and they became my friends over the years.
- Bob Gezelter,http://www.rlgsc.com

Well said Bob, as always.

and now back to the ranting and repeating of speculation... :-(

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by Neil Rieck

I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on =

the

number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I t=

hink

the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

I'm not sure why HP went through with the Las Vegas thing at this
time. Didn't anyone notice that the world wide economy is in the
doldrums? Out here in the tranches, money is so tight that I would
have only been able to attend this if my primary work location was in
Las Vegas.

I expect that they signed the contracts a little over a year ago, and by the
time they saw what registration was, it was a little late to cancel.

Post by Neil Rieck
HP upper management is probably interpreting the low Las Vegas turn
out as proof that OpenVMS is finally irrelavent. (if true, maybe
they'll sell their OpenVMS division to Oracle)

I attended some non-VMS sessions with lower attendance than the VMS OS
sessions. (Very interesting session on extracting and validating business
rules - that is, how you get people to tell you how the process works, how you
validate that it really does work that way, etc - that had 5 people in the
chairs and one presenter.)

I don't know what conclusions they'll draw.

-- Alan

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing

Post by Neil Rieck

I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on =

the

number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I t=

hink

the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

I'm not sure why HP went through with the Las Vegas thing at this
time. Didn't anyone notice that the world wide economy is in the
doldrums? Out here in the tranches, money is so tight that I would
have only been able to attend this if my primary work location was in
Las Vegas.

I expect that they signed the contracts a little over a year ago, and by the
time they saw what registration was, it was a little late to cancel.

Post by Neil Rieck
HP upper management is probably interpreting the low Las Vegas turn
out as proof that OpenVMS is finally irrelavent. (if true, maybe
they'll sell their OpenVMS division to Oracle)

I attended some non-VMS sessions with lower attendance than the VMS OS
sessions. (Very interesting session on extracting and validating business
rules - that is, how you get people to tell you how the process works, how you
validate that it really does work that way, etc - that had 5 people in the
chairs and one presenter.)

I'm sorry I missed it! If it was well done, it was probably one of the
most valuable courses ever offered at such an event!

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

Post by Richard B. Gilbert

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
I attended some non-VMS sessions with lower attendance than the VMS OS
sessions. (Very interesting session on extracting and validating business
rules - that is, how you get people to tell you how the process works, how you
validate that it really does work that way, etc - that had 5 people in the
chairs and one presenter.)

I'm sorry I missed it! If it was well done, it was probably one of the
most valuable courses ever offered at such an event!

I found it interesting and potentially useful. It's hard to be
life-transforming in 50 minutes.

I guess the bullet points would be:

Work simultaneously top-down (how does the organization work, what can
the users tell you) and bottom-up (read the existing code).

The code readers and the interviewers have to be on the same team - the
two kinds of info require each other to be meaningful.

Have some kind of tool - and there is no general tool - that lets you
do taxonomy, with alternate definitions.

Sometimes you can extract your rules from a user by setting up a prototype
and having them use it and tell you where it's wrong.

Sometimes the people who know stuff are worried about being replaced and
don't cooperate. Get their managers to find spots for them to go if their
domain knowledge isn't going to be useful.

Don't expect it to be easy.

-- Alan

[Richard Maher]

Hi Alan,

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing

Post by Richard Maher
Hi,
So what happened at the HPTF? I didn't see anyone twittering about VMS.

I'd say that the VMS customer turnout at HPTF was pretty light, based on the
number of people (out of 3800) who showed up at VMS-related sessions; I think
the best-attended had about 30 people, half of them HP employees.

Post by Richard Maher
The RoadMap presentation/session, which was sheduled for an hour, must have
left 55mins for drinkipoos and a quick punt on Lucky 7? Ann MacQuaid now on
light-duties?

An hour of lively discussion, and another hour of lively discussion at the
Connect VMS Sig meeting.

Post by Richard Maher
Who was older - The Beach-Boys or those leaving VMS Enguneering :-)

The Beach Boys had various ringers, including a 46-year-old John Stamos (who
turns out to be a pretty decent drummer, guitarist, and singer.
I think he was well under the average age of attendees.

Thanks again for the spin-free feedback and for omitting the mutual
admiration society pleasantries.

Any other *customers* or bait-ballers willing to share their experiences?

Post by Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing
-- Alan

Regards Richard Maher

[news]

It wasn't that bad, in fact I would say there was more interest considering
the numbers were way down on last year (I heard, unofficially, that 3,300
people turned up -was 50% down on 2008)

1. VMS engineering from India turned up and saw a few people.
2. Sue (in her new job) got together a some VMS warriors in posh penthouse
room for drinks/meeting.
3 Charon VAX people turned up and had booth.

regards

pos

Post by Richard Maher
Hi,
So what happened at the HPTF? I didn't see anyone twittering about VMS.
The RoadMap presentation/session, which was sheduled for an hour, must have
left 55mins for drinkipoos and a quick punt on Lucky 7? Ann MacQuaid now on
light-duties?
Who was older - The Beach-Boys or those leaving VMS Enguneering :-)
Regards Richard Maher

[news]

Post by news
3 Charon VAX people turned up and had booth.

A good game was to taunt them by asking how much the software was to emulate
a two cpu workgroup server...

[Keith Parris]

Post by Richard Maher
So what happened at the HPTF?

The state of the economy certainly had an effect. There were a little
less than 4,000 attendees this year. Last year we had something between
6,000 and 7,000. The VMS sessions had perhaps 2/3 the attendance we
might have seen last year, with between 30 and 40 in the largest
sessions that I attended. My two talks had about 16 to 18 people. The
organizers did a good job of scheduling, I thought, and there was a VMS
topic available during most of the time slots during the entire
conference. One time slot where there wasn't a VMS session I went to a
Linux Virtualization session, and it had about 18 people, so I didn't
feel so bad.

I was pleased to be able to meet and talk with those on the OpenVMS
team, including Shobha Benakatti, who is replacing Ann McQuaid, and
Sujatha Ramani, who is replacing Sue Skonetski, Prashanth K.E., expert
on Blades, Nilakantan Mahadevan, who wrote Clusters over IP, and Shyam
Gopalakrishnan, expert on OpenVMS within HP Virtual Machine (HPVM).

I was very impressed with the level of energy and enthusiasm of all the
members of the OpenVMS team.

I got a call from Prashanth K.E. last week. He was calling each of the
OpenVMS Ambassadors to find out who their customers were, what issues
they were facing, and what roadblocks they faced in selling OpenVMS. He
is one of the team of four (two high technical people and two high
managers) behind the ***@hp.com e-mail address.

The OpenVMS team met and talked with a large number of customers during
the week.

The impression given in some discussions here that VMS folks in India
are neophytes is wrong. I taught a class on clusters and disaster
tolerance to a group about 2.5 years ago as they were preparing to take
over maintenance of major kernel pieces, including clusters and I/O, and
these are sharp and experienced folks. These are people who, in an
environment where people are rarely in a job longer than 18 months, have
chosen (undoubtedly at personal sacrifice) to stay with HP and OpenVMS,
as many as 14 years for some, 10 or 11 years for others. They are
working with OpenVMS out of love, not for money.

And I'm told that the OpenVMS Team plans to continue the Bootcamp. The
details have not been worked out yet.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Keith Parris
I was very impressed with the level of energy and enthusiasm of all the
members of the OpenVMS team.

And they should be. They have just seen their responsabilities and
autonomy significantly increased.

However, no matter how gung-ho they may be, they must still abide by HP
rules,dictates and budgets.


In the end, the future of VMS doesn't hang with the grunt in India (or
wherever) who will be trying to debug an interrupt problem, it lies with
people like Hurd, Robison and Livermore who are the ones who have
decided that there is no strategic value in re-animating VMS, no return
on investment for any marketing, not even extremely low cost press
releases about VMS' 30th anniversary.

BTW, does anyone have the "chain of command" between Shobba and
Livermore ? (names, and titles if possible).

[Keith Parris]

Post by JF Mezei
BTW, does anyone have the "chain of command" between Shobba and
Livermore ? (names, and titles if possible).

There are only two managers between Shobha Benakatti and Ann Livermore.
Neither one of them is Martin Fink or Scott Stallard. This
reorganization appears to have put VMS one level higher in the
organization than before.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Keith Parris

Post by JF Mezei
BTW, does anyone have the "chain of command" between Shobba and
Livermore ? (names, and titles if possible).

There are only two managers between Shobha Benakatti and Ann Livermore.
Neither one of them is Martin Fink or Scott Stallard. This
reorganization appears to have put VMS one level higher in the
organization than before.

BTW, does anyone have the "chain of command" between Shobba and
Livermore ? (names, and titles if possible).

From what I had gathered, the guy in charge of the indian unit is in the
USA. Forgot his name.

[Richard Maher]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the write-up.

In addition to what I said in my reply to Camiel, let me once again
congratulate the Tandem NonStop guys/gals on their success in raising the
profile of NSK to such a level at the HPTF, and for shedding the legacy tag
and leaving it exclusively for OpenVMS.

Just goes to show what can be achieved when you got people doing what they
get paid for rather than wallowing in self-pity!

Still not much succour there for those of us "still using VMS" :-(

Regards Richard Maher

PS. The only thing getting me through today is the belief that NSK is the
only other OS on the planet not to support IPsec.

Post by Keith Parris

Post by Richard Maher
So what happened at the HPTF?

The state of the economy certainly had an effect. There were a little
less than 4,000 attendees this year. Last year we had something between
6,000 and 7,000. The VMS sessions had perhaps 2/3 the attendance we
might have seen last year, with between 30 and 40 in the largest
sessions that I attended. My two talks had about 16 to 18 people. The
organizers did a good job of scheduling, I thought, and there was a VMS
topic available during most of the time slots during the entire
conference. One time slot where there wasn't a VMS session I went to a
Linux Virtualization session, and it had about 18 people, so I didn't
feel so bad.
I was pleased to be able to meet and talk with those on the OpenVMS
team, including Shobha Benakatti, who is replacing Ann McQuaid, and
Sujatha Ramani, who is replacing Sue Skonetski, Prashanth K.E., expert
on Blades, Nilakantan Mahadevan, who wrote Clusters over IP, and Shyam
Gopalakrishnan, expert on OpenVMS within HP Virtual Machine (HPVM).
I was very impressed with the level of energy and enthusiasm of all the
members of the OpenVMS team.
I got a call from Prashanth K.E. last week. He was calling each of the
OpenVMS Ambassadors to find out who their customers were, what issues
they were facing, and what roadblocks they faced in selling OpenVMS. He
is one of the team of four (two high technical people and two high
The OpenVMS team met and talked with a large number of customers during
the week.
The impression given in some discussions here that VMS folks in India
are neophytes is wrong. I taught a class on clusters and disaster
tolerance to a group about 2.5 years ago as they were preparing to take
over maintenance of major kernel pieces, including clusters and I/O, and
these are sharp and experienced folks. These are people who, in an
environment where people are rarely in a job longer than 18 months, have
chosen (undoubtedly at personal sacrifice) to stay with HP and OpenVMS,
as many as 14 years for some, 10 or 11 years for others. They are
working with OpenVMS out of love, not for money.
And I'm told that the OpenVMS Team plans to continue the Bootcamp. The
details have not been worked out yet.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Richard Maher
PS. The only thing getting me through today is the belief that NSK is the
only other OS on the planet not to support IPsec.

Many moons ago, Tandem bought Atalla. Atalla made encryption boxes that
were heavily used by banks between their data centre and ATM machines as
well as POS terminals (verifying your PIN number type of stuff).

Not sure how much IP is in use on Tandem machines these days. Back then,
it was a lot of SNA stuff to talk to ATM machines and talk to other
banks, and VISA/MASTERCARD.

[Richard Maher]

Hi JF,

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Richard Maher
PS. The only thing getting me through today is the belief that NSK is the
only other OS on the planet not to support IPsec.

Many moons ago, Tandem bought Atalla. Atalla made encryption boxes that
were heavily used by banks between their data centre and ATM machines as
well as POS terminals (verifying your PIN number type of stuff).
Not sure how much IP is in use on Tandem machines these days. Back then,
it was a lot of SNA stuff to talk to ATM machines and talk to other
banks, and VISA/MASTERCARD.

It's worse than that, he lives Jim :-(

Here are some links that you might find interesting (or ignore like everyone
else)

This one contains (old) VMS as well as NSK details: -
http://h10026.www1.hp.com/netipv6/Ipv6_files/HP_IPv6_May_2007.pdf

Search this one for IPsec: -
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:nz2BaGfj9DUJ:docs-pro.houston.hp.com/en/529874-005/529874-005.pdf+nonstop+j-series+tandem+ipsec&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

And one more: -
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:v8e8HejyLpMJ:h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA2-0022ENW.pdf+nonstop+ipsec&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

Here's a recent article about NonStop targetting the Telcos. (Remember when
VMS used to do that?)
http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/44708-hp-targets-telcos-with-hp-integrity-nonstop-cg.htm

Yep looks like those NonStop J-series Blade Servers are really gaining
traction.

Now I've got no idea what a Cluster I/O Module (CLIM) does on NonStop and
why it's needed for IPsec, but it looks like VMS is now officially the only
OS on the planet not to support IPsec :-(

Wake-up, the Tandem/NSK guys are cutting your lunch! NonStop had
centre-stage at the HPTF and (in HP management minds) is positioned to fill
any DT requirement their customers may have, and all the stinking ignorant
pigs here have to say is "It might be a bit snug, but it's hardly a coffin?
Anyway nail the lid on and leave us in peace." :-(

Regards Richard Maher

PS. Once again well done to the NonStop people and the best come-back since
Lazarus!

[JF Mezei]

Post by Richard Maher
Wake-up, the Tandem/NSK guys are cutting your lunch! NonStop had
centre-stage at the HPTF and (in HP management minds) is positioned to fill
any DT requirement their customers may have,

Yes, and ?

Livermore explicitely set the tone for its enterprise OS. HP-UX and NSK
are solid. HP only cares to support those still on VMS.

In financial terms, this means that HP feels that VMS has reached a
point where an acceleration of migration from VMS is desirable.

With uncertainty of Sun until Oracle takes it over and reshapes it, HP
has an opportunity to increase the percentage of VMS customers who
decide to stay with HP when they leave VMS.


Mr Maher,

There is no point in continuing your tirades. We can make passing
comments on what HP *could* have done with VMS, just like we do with
Alpha from time to time.

But the fate of VMS has just been signed, sealed and delivered to
paliative care in India where they will take care of VMS during its last
couple of years of support.

The move to India, by itself, only signaled diminished development. But
Livrmore's speech made it quite clear that HP doesn't intend to continue
to develop VMS.

[Keith Parris]

Post by Richard Maher
So what happened at the HPTF?

VMS got a positive mention by Ann Livermore in her keynote speech. And
she gets extra points from me for saying VMS instead of OpenVMS.

Following is an excerpt from the keynote speech with the VMS quote in
context. You can also watch the video recording yourself if you wish.

11:51 into the video at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1663937

[Slide says: The Big Trends: Data Center Transformation, Information
Explosion, Everything as a Service]

What I'd like to do now is take each one of these and talk about them
just a little bit more, and explain to you -- share with you -- what
we're doing at HP to help address these things.

First of all: Datacenter Transformation.

The current state of most datacenters are that they are old, and they're
inflexible. If you look, by 2015, another problem is that the workforce
who today understands the technology, is going to shrink by 45% -- just
knowledge about what most current datacenters have -- the expertise
around it, is declining. Very serious issue: that by 2011, the
prediction is that power failures are going to happen in 90% of all the
datacenters that aren't transformed, and those power failures are going
to cause serious outages.

Already, space is a big issue; energy is a big issue, and everything
we've done in HP around our computing business, our storage, our
servers, our networking, our services, our software, has been focused
around positioning HP to be THE company who's best positioned to help
you transform your datacenter -- both manage better what you currently
have, and then have a path to help you migrate to something that's a
whole lot better: a 24x7, lights-out, fully-automated datacenter.

Let's start with the servers and storage.

Certainly, our products are designed to be virtual. But at the same
time, we know that for most of you, you're going to have a combination
of both physical and virtual servers and infrastructure in your
datacenter environment. So we've made our software tools and our
software focus be able to manage both the virtual as well as the
physical environments. And the same thing with our servers, with our
storage products: designed for virtual, but also recognizing the
combination of things you currently have in your environment.

Our leadership position in Blades and in x86 are unquestioned. We ship a
server every 11 seconds. There's nobody else on the planet who has more
or better servers than HP -- we'll stand them up against any road test
you want to do, any competition that you want to do. And we're going to
commit to continue to invest, from an R&D perspective, so you can always
count on the fact that our products are going to be the leading ones.

We're very serious and committed about our HP-UX business, our Integrity
servers, our NonStop servers. Some of you are still using our VMS
servers, and we're serious about the support we provide around those
products for you. So, serious leadership in that space.

The same thing with our storage products. We continue to invest in, and
make stronger and stronger, our storage products.

Our new LeftHand offering is one of the best products you can have in
terms of simplifying the whole SAN process. And then, finally, our
mid-range arrays with the EVA, and our high-end, with the XP -- we're
very serious about our entire storage portfolio. You're going to see us
invest more and more in it.

And you're going to see a time where the servers, the storage, and the
networking intertwine into a computing fabric. Now, some other companies
in the tech industry are talking a lot about this, but we're the only
one who actually has all the products, has all the components. When you
look at networking, you look at storage, you look at servers, you look
at the management software to be able to take care of and manage that
whole fabric, that whole computing fabric.

So you can count on HP being the company who doesn't just paint a
picture of a dream, but actually has things that make it real for you today.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Keith Parris
VMS got a positive mention by Ann Livermore in her keynote speech.

If she really said "for those of you *still* on VMS", then I don't call
that a positive mention. It is a mention all right, but more akin to
what Palmer would say with his affinity program.

Post by Keith Parris
We're very serious and committed about our HP-UX business, our Integrity
servers, our NonStop servers. Some of you are still using our VMS
servers, and we're serious about the support we provide around those
products for you. So, serious leadership in that space.

This is just about as bad as Palmer inviting people to migrate from VMS
to Windows. I can't understand why people can't see the blatant "get off
VMS" message in there.

There are serious and committed about HP-UX, Integrity and NSK. No
mention of VMS in that sentence. Then, they go about those who are STILL
on VMS, telling then that they are serious about providing support. They
aren't committed, they are just serious.

If HP's commitment to VMS was real, it would have been lumped in with
the "commitment" sentence along with HP-UX and NSK.

Consider that HP claims it is committed to Integrity when we all know
this chip has limited lifetime ahead of it. If HP can't say it is
committed to VMS, then its lifetime is going to be shorter than that of
IA64.

[JF Mezei]

Post by Keith Parris
We're very serious and committed about our HP-UX business, our Integrity
servers, our NonStop servers. Some of you are still using our VMS
servers, and we're serious about the support we provide around those
products for you. So, serious leadership in that space.

One more thing. Considering the news of the move to India, cancellation
of Bootcamp etc, it is quite significant that Livermore did NOT tell
people that HP was committed to continue developping VMS. They are only
serious about support.

If there ever was a time for someone like Livermore or Hurd to
publically reassure VMS customers that HP's commitment to continue to
develop VMS was rock solid, it was now. When you fire the old team and
get a new one from a country where you normal send products to be
retired, there is a lot of uncertainty. HP really needed to reaffirm its
commitment to continue to develop VMS. It didn't.

Worse, HP blatantly specified it was serious about *supporting* VMS.

These were very carefully chosen words and I suspect that HP may be
nearer to retiring VMS than we expect if legal dept would force
Livermore to restrict VMS to support in her speeches and not include any
"commitment" in that sentence.

Since January, I don't think any real HP exec has made any commitment to
continue to develop VMS. Sujatha may have been well meaning when did did
state that they will continue to develop VMS, but she is not high enough
within HP (neither was Sue or Ann McQuaid) to be able to make commitments.

Livermore, in that sentence, pretty much confirmed that VMS development
was coming to an end soon.

[Neil Rieck]

Post by JF Mezei

Post by Keith Parris
We're very serious and committed about our HP-UX business, our Integrity
servers, our NonStop servers. Some of you are still using our VMS
servers, and we're serious about the support we provide around those
products for you. So, serious leadership in that space.

One more thing. Considering the news of the move to India, cancellation
of Bootcamp etc, it is quite significant that Livermore did NOT tell
people that HP was committed to continue developping VMS. They are only
serious about support.
If there ever was a time for someone like Livermore or Hurd to
publically reassure VMS customers that HP's commitment to continue to
develop VMS was rock solid, it was now. When you fire the old team and
get a new one from a country where you normal send products to be
retired, there is a lot of uncertainty. HP really needed to reaffirm its
commitment to continue to develop VMS. It didn't.
Worse, HP blatantly specified it was serious about *supporting* VMS.
These were very carefully chosen words and I suspect that HP may be
nearer to retiring VMS than we expect if legal dept would force
Livermore to restrict VMS to support in her speeches and not include any
"commitment" in that sentence.
Since January, I don't think any real HP exec has made any commitment to
continue to develop VMS. Sujatha may have been well meaning when did did
state that they will continue to develop VMS, but she is not high enough
within HP (neither was Sue or Ann McQuaid) to be able to make commitments.
Livermore, in that sentence, pretty much confirmed that VMS development
was coming to an end soon.

Like others have posted before me, I have no bias against the folks in
India who just received this huge windfall from HP. That said, please
tell me this: has support for HP-UX been sent to India? HP-UX is,
after all, just another flavor of UNIX so this would have been easier
to do.

Given that support for HP-UX has not been moved to India, and given
that OpenVMS is one of the products acquired by HP, then OpenVMS is
being treated like the proverbial red-headed step-child.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/OpenVMS.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/openvms_demos.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/openvms_resources.html

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

...That said, please
tell me this: has support for HP-UX been sent to India? HP-UX is,
after all, just another flavor of UNIX so this would have been easier
to do.

At the presentation in Stockholm a few weeks ago, one of the
points was that *now* (after the move of VMS eng/sup to Bangalore)
the eng/sup groups for VMS, HP-UX, NSK and Storage are all together
in the same building (in Bangalore, I guessed).

[Michael Kraemer]

Post by JF Mezei
This is just about as bad as Palmer inviting people to migrate from VMS
to Windows. I can't understand why people can't see the blatant "get off
VMS" message in there.

Perhaps because people here have quietly implemented
Palmer's "Affinity" anyway.

Post by JF Mezei
There are serious and committed about HP-UX, Integrity and NSK. No
mention of VMS in that sentence. Then, they go about those who are STILL
on VMS, telling then that they are serious about providing support. They
aren't committed, they are just serious.

Maybe this should mean
that they are seriously concerned about people still on VMS
and not yet moved to HP-UX.