Deane Bell wrote:

[snip]
>Do you have a 'short-list' of candidates you're considering and willing to share?

At QSS we have never had HP h/w support on servers off warranty. We fired up our first
mpe system (used 925) May'90. That would be over 20 years of non-HP support for the h/w.

Our current h/w support is Ideal and we also have software support through them with Allegro.

I think everyone can see why h/w support is critical.

I find the s/w support critical as well, but not as obvious at first blush.

Even though the o/s is not being changed and we have the latest stuff there are always things
that can happen that are unexpected. Having a brain-trust (Allegro in our case) to help out
is most comforting. Well worth the expense - insurance you are glad you have if and when you ever
have a need for it :-)

Unless you can guarantee that you will never excecute new things and/or not have different data
in the future than what you have today then you have a potential s/w 'issue' just waiting to be
discovered. Also, h/w issues have a way of creating s/w issues and since everyone agrees they
need h/w support for the h/w issues then ... you get the idea (I hope)...

And yes - we have had a need to work with Allegro - always a satisfying experience, even under
the stress of the 'issue' at hand.

BTW, I think you will find the ecosystem of non-hp support companies has more HP/3k/mpe trained
staff than HP. Actually this has been the case for many years, but HP has gotten around it because
of the hp-ux pa-risc systems being the same basic h/w as the hp3k (of course the hp:mpe knowledge
has been woefully inadequate for many years).

And finally, let me leave you and everyone reading this post with his thought:

If you depend on the HP3k now and into the future you need to have a paid h/w and s/w support
relationship with the non-HP HP3k/mpe ecosystem companies. By doing so you are helping preserve those
precious resources for the platform. By not doing so you are contributing to the early demise
of the ecosystem. And those readily available answers on this list will disappear and then where
will you and everyone else be?

duane

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