To receive a form that will bring you a free trial subscription to the 3000
News/Wire, send an e-mail request to [log in to unmask]
 
MPE advocates work on multiple queue details
 
OS enhancement could impact 3000 software pricing
 
By Ron Seybold
3000 News/Wire
 
        HP is taking notes from the MPE Special Interest Group that
could give customers more efficient use of HP 3000 resources,
especially for sites that are consolidating several smaller
or older systems into a single unit.
        At Interex '95, SIGMPE worked on a minimum function list
for multiple independent stream queues, a proposal that first
surfaced during the Interex IPROF conference this spring. The
technology would let customers partition and control the
power dedicated to processing jobstreams on their HP 3000s.
        That kind of functionality is available in today's HP 3000
world, but it demands an investment in a third-party
datacenter management tool such as Unison Software's Maestro.
Such tools do far more than the SIGMPE group's minimum
function list, but their cost can be prohibitive to small and
mid-range HP 3000 customers.
        The SIG is proposing that HP include fundamental technology
for stream management in a future MPE/iX release, much as the
vendor is including basic network printing capability in its
5.5 release of MPE/iX.
        By making stream management a universal function of MPE/iX,
the SIG hopes to have an impact on software pricing in years
to come. SIG chairman Tony Furnivall said consolidation in
today's 3000 market is forcing some companies to buy more
licenses than needed during upgrades to larger systems.
        "It's very important when HP comes to look at consolidation
market," Furnival. "When a system that has eight users gets
consolidated onto a system which has 800 users, the third
party vendors say their products could wind up getting run by
800 users. And they charge the customer accordingly."
        The stream management might make it possible for third
parties to limit their software to HP 3000 accounts with
smaller user capacities. That capability could lead software
companies to permit lower-cost licenses on larger systems -
say, a five-user license for a financial ledger on a system
with an unlimited MPE/iX license.
        " If you could have multiple independent job queues, the
same algorithms might be used to limit the number of active
sessions," Furnivall said. "If I can guarantee that
technology is available on every HP 3000, I can make a case
with a third party vendor to control licenses."
        "There's a possibility this can let users get the maximum
benefits of consolidation," he added.
        While the licensing implications show the greatest
potential benefit to users who are consolidating 3000s,
development operations would see a more immediate impact. If
customers use an HP 3000s for development as well as
production tasks, the new queue management could help.
        Developers need their jobs single-threaded, while
maintaining full access to their system for non-development
activity. A system rebuild may  trigger 1,000 single-threaded
compile jobs, because each has heavy interaction with the
system library. With multiple independent stream queues, "I
could make the system available for background jobs or
inquiries at the same time," Furnivall said.
        The stream management request has tangible benefits for the
customers at present and in the future, but its impact on the
MPE/iX software providers might be profound. The primary
issue is the consideration of existing datacenter tool
providers such as Unison, who would compete at some
elementary level with the operating system's new feature.
Furnival said the SIG doesn't want a replacement for such
full-featured third-party software.
        "We're not asking HP to tread on their competitors' shoes,"
he said. "We are looking for something we believe is
fundamental to a good, flexible open opearating system. It
needs to look like it's part of the operating system. It
needs to be provided as part of MPE, not as an add-on."
        HP's Jeff Vance and Pam Bennett of the Commercial Systems
Division lab attended the working SIGMPE meeting, Furnivall
said. His own assessment was that adding multiple independent
stream queue control to MPE/iX was not easy - so only
delivering a minimum function list makes the project possible
for HP to consider.
        "We worked toward the lowest possible set of functions, so
it will be relatively inexpensive to produce," Furnival said.
"This is a high-cost option, a fundamental reworking of some
low-level stuff." As an example, HP would have to integrate
the function with the STREAM, STREAMS and ALLOW commands,
"anything which alters a job," Furnivall said.
        Another bottleneck may be the software providers' reaction
to what they might see as a limitation on their revenue
streams. Software firms which draw the bulk of their sales
from HP 3000 customers may rely on those "8-to-800" upgrade
fees that happen during consolidation.
        Birket Foster, chairman of the Interex software vendors
Special Interest Group, said upgrade fees are vital to some
HP 3000 solution suppliers' business plans. Size of the
vendor has little to do with this vitality. Those upgrade
revenues offset development costs that an MPE/iX vendor must
often recover from a market much smaller than that of PCs or
Unix systems.
        "There are things that need to platform priced," Foster
said, referring to system-wide tools like backup programs
whose support costs go up in a larger enterprise. "Everybody
can probably benefit from [stream management]. But the
unfortunate thing is some vendors need that upgrade revenue,
or they can't play in the HP 3000 space."
        These kinds of licensing capabilities were once set to
become part of MPE/iX in an HP product called License
Manager. HP developed the product for the HP-UX environment,
but Foster said HP stopped the project en route to an MPE/iX
port. "It would have made an easy way to do license
management," he said.
        Furnivall hopes that HP 3000 customers will contact the
division to put in their request for multiple independent
stream queues. He knows that today, making a business case
for HP's benefit is just as important as each customer
identifying how an enhancement helps their company. It's
possible that consolidations may trigger software upgrades
that might short-circuit the hardware upgrade - something
licensing controls like the queue management could avoid.
         "We're asking people to provide HP with the business
proposition for this enhancement," Furnivall said.
 
Ron Seybold
Seybold Media
512-331-0075
[log in to unmask]