In article <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
(David Groves) wrote:
>
> By all means, please post your article on Jumbos
 
Here it is, a part of the new 3000 News/Wire service. Get a free trial
subscription to the 3000 News/Wire by e-mailing your request to
[log in to unmask], or calling 512-331-0480.
 
New IMAGE/SQL datasets tackle largest databases
 
Enhancement extends HP3000 reach to high-growth
applications
 
   CUPERTINO, Calif. - HP3000 customers have been working to
deploy very large databases (VLDBs) with IMAGE/SQL this
summer, now that HP is shipping an upgrade that enables
Jumbo datasets in the award-winning database.
   VLDBs stand at the heart of an important growth
segment for the HP3000, mail-order catalog management.
Customer databases in excess of 30 million names are
common for companies such as Time-Warner Cable,
Hammacher-Schlemmer and other companies which have
recently installed the HP3000. Such databases carry more
than 20Gb of data, the commonly accepted starting point
for a VLDB.
   But until this year, IMAGE/SQL and its predecessors
had a limit that restrained the practical size of HP3000
databases. No dataset could exceed 4Gb in an IMAGE/SQL,
TurboIMAGE or IMAGE database. Applications which called
for larger datasets couldn't be easily managed on
HP3000s.
   The dataset barrier stood as a roadblock to HP's march
to make the HP3000 a mainframe alternative. The
limitation was a function of the MPE/iX operating
system, a bottleneck that's been removed with the latest
release.
   By using the 5.0 Push release of MPE/iX, the HP3000
sews up to 10 chunks of 4-Gb datasets together, pushing
the dataset limit to 40Gb. HP employed its new POSIX
hierarchical file system naming feature in MPE/iX to
extend the limit.
   While HP admits that only 10 percent of its HP3000
customer base is pushing the old dataset limits, the new
jumbo datasets have an impact on every site. HP's
IMAGE/SQL lab manager Jim Sartain said that expanding
IMAGE/SQL into VLDB territory gives the database new
growth opportunities in markets such as health care and
mail order operations.
   "There are some very successful software vendors that
have been selling into major new HP3000 installations,"
Sartain said. "They're going after the top companies in
respective industries, and those companies would have
encountered the old dataset limits."
 
Testing tools
   Jumbo dataset tests have been underway for several
months at some of the largest HP3000 installations in
the world. At Current, Inc., a $300 million card and
wrapping paper supplier and a division of check and form
publisher Deluxe, a 60-Gb production database is planned
for deployment later this year. HP system specialist
Dave Jennings said his four-processor Series 995 system
will support more than 900 online users. He's preparing
for the busiest period of Current's sales year, the
months which precede the year-end holidays, by testing
jumbo datasets this spring.
   Jennings reported that only a handful of tools have
been revised to work with the datasets that are key to
HP's growth for the 3000. Current is using Suprtool from
Robelle Consulting, and it was also deploying a version
of Adager that handles jumbo datasets.
   "If I didn't have these programs, I'd be handcuffed,"
Jennings said. "A few of our datasets are now 12
gigabytes. I couldn't finish my job because one of my
datasets filled up, and I didn't have any tools to
expand it. Adager is the only supplier [of an expansion
tool] who'd commit to support jumbo datasets in a
reasonable time frame."
   The short list of tools tested to work with the
datasets is a result of the extensive changes in HP's
design. HP's Sartain said the expansion of the datasets
"is a major change to the [file system] structure, so
it's a major amount of work [for tools vendors]. And
it's a major amount of work with no obvious with no
short-term financial benefit to them."
   While some HP3000 customers are buying database tools
regardless of whether it supports the jumbo enhancement,
Jennings said it wasn't an optional feature for his
operation at Current. HP didn't hesitate to add the
feature, either, according to Sartain.
   "It really wasn't an option, because we didn't want to
forego these big deals," he said. "People who have been
using it are very happy."
 
Jumbo datasets, not prices
   Neither of the HP3000 tool suppliers who support jumbo
datasets today are charging extra for the feature, even
though potential customers have budgets much larger than
most HP3000 sites. Jennings said he's procured about
$500,000 of software for the two Series 995s and Series
937 HP systems since he arrived at Current. But the size
of the prospective jumbo dataset user hasn't triggered
higher prices for tools yet.
   "We don't charge extra for the kind of native-mode
RISC support Adager does, like dynamic detail dataset
expansion and jumbo datasets," said Adager's Alfredo
Rego. "We're here to help our customers travel the
Infobahn, not run them over."
   Other suppliers are working toward supporting the
datasets. Omnidex, from Dynamic Information Systems
Corp., is being tested both at Current and at Pilgrim
Health Care, a health maintenance organization
headquartered in Norwell, Mass. HP3000 director Jim
Harding said he's looking over a long list of programs
essential to his 6-way Series 995 system.
   "I'm still not overly confident that all of the third
party products will work
together with files larger than the 4-gigabyte limit,"
Harding said. In addition to Adager, Suprtool and
Omnidex, Pilgrim Health Care is using Vesoft's MPEX,
Quest's Netbase, Cognos' Quiz and Quick, Lund's
performance products, and Unison's DCM Pak. Pilgrim is
also using the Third Party Indexing (TPI) features for
IMAGE/SQL from HP.
   " My greatest concern is with searching through
datasets larger than 4 gigabytes with the indexed
products," Harding said. "Keeping databases shadowed
with Netbase and indexed involving TPI has been
difficult enough within the 4-gigabyte limit."
   The work at Pilgrim and Current involves some of the
largest datasets in the HP3000 world. Harding said his
medical claims and services application, AMISYS from
Advanta, has one dataset with more than 20 million
records, and another of more than 9 million records.
 
IMAGE/SQL and expansion plans
   Customers using AMISYS and the MAC mail order software
from Smith Gardner Associates are among the first to
need jumbo datasets, but Sartain said HP plans to be
releasing the enhancement to the full customer base this
month. Sartain said no serious critical problems were
reported across 30 beta sites testing the software this
spring.
   HP will make the enhancement available as part of its
patch system, bypassing the delay of waiting for another
full release of MPE/iX. But there are already
discussions from the HP3000 community that a more
thorough change will be needed before long - because
40-gigabyte datasets someday might not be large enough,
either.
   Wirt Atmar, reporting to the SIGIMAGE membership from
this year's Interex IPROF conference, said the jumbo
datasets "are much more of a fix than a solution.
   "If the pressure exists to maintain datasets that
exceed 4 gigabytes, this 10-times extension will soon
become unacceptable, too," Atmar stated. "The relatively
'small' dataset size limit of 40 Gb is going to become a
severe problem in the near-term future  -  simply
because of the changing nature of what people are going
to consider appropriate material to be stored in
databases."
   As HP customers continue to fill IMAGE/SQL databases
with business-critical data, Atmar and others say the
best solution involves calls for reworking the MPE/iX
file system.  Atmar noted that MPE/iX still has room to
grow, provided HP continues to be willing to invest in
the work needed.
   "Because the problem lies in the file system itself
and not in IMAGE," Atmar reported, "Craig Fairchild, the
MPE file system architect, was asked during the [IPROF]
conference, 'Is it possible for the file system to be
fixed?' Craig said, 'Anything's possible.' And that,
too, was precisely the right answer."
 
--
Ron Seybold
The 3000 News/Wire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
[log in to unmask] 512-331-0075