Tandemworld Newsletter for June 2009

BrightStrand International Limited - Many Happy Returns!

BrightStrand International is now 10 years old and we would like to take this opportunity of thanking our Customers and Partners for their ongoing business and support.

We look forward to continuing to serve you in the years ahead.

Meet us at HP Technical Forum & Expo 2009 at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas Between June 15-18, 2009. We will have a presence on the Crossroads Stand or Email us for further information

www.brightstrand.com

sales@brightstrand.com

CAIL / HPTF Update

Hello TANDEMWORLD Folks,

Another year is past and HP Technical Forum is just around the corner. CAIL has been busy with business opportunities and we look forward to discussing new possibilities to move your NonStop business forward at HPTF.

As you probably know, CAIL Studio is the ONLY software available that lets you keep your existing Pathway/Scobol “client” software with its existing business logic intact - while providing full web conversion and a non intrusive direction to SOA in your NonStop environment. By keeping your application exactly the same while taking advantage of new web “look and feel”, your development can be focused on new open and web oriented design using industry standard methods like Apache and Java and not on finding and funding “experts” who can pry your business requirements out of Scobol and start a long (and expensive) conversion process.

Also, remember that the CAIL Suite of products provide an integrated and secure environment for the best price/performance in the NonStop world. CAIL has been a Tandem and NonStop partner for over 15 years and you can depend on our products for your mission critical systems.

Please see us at HPTF in the CAIL booth #124 or contact us at info@cail.com for more information. We will look forward to seeing our NonStop friends and business associates if you can make it to Las Vegas for HPTF June 15-18^th.

For a CAIL Overview, go to www.cail.com/adapt

For insights on CAIL Studio for NonStop Web Services, see www.cail.com/wsintro

Regards,

Rick Hunter - 303-517-5727 Cell

New Capability for NonStop To Be Announced at HPTF&E

Launching this summer, MakoLink Integration Suite will make the integration of NonStop Servers with Java applications easy.

Developed by NuWave Technologies, this product will expose NonStop applications as enterprise services, leverage reusable software components, and simplify ESB (enterprise service bus) integration.

Like all of NuWave's offerings, MakoLink will be intuitive and easy to install, standards-based, and come with the high-level support that our customers praise.

This month at HPTF&E NuWave will promote MakoLink and also recruit early adopters for the first launch of the product.

For more information on MakoLink and the Early Adoption Program, go to http://www.nuwave-tech.com/products/makolink.

Gravic, Inc. Awarded New Patent

Gravic, Inc. is pleased to announce the award to Paul J. Holenstein, Gary E. Strickler, Gene P. Jarema, and Dr. Bruce Holenstein on April 21, 2009 of US Patent #7,523,110 entitled “High Availability Designated Winner Data Replication”. This IP is used in the Shadowbase HADW product currently used by our telecommunications clients and their licensees; however, the approach used is applicable to any multi-node active/active system where data collisions are possible.

Abstract: Collisions are resolved in a database replication system. The system includes a plurality of nodes arranged in either a master-slave or network configuration. Each node includes a database, wherein changes made at the databases of each node are replicated to the databases at one or more of the other nodes. When a collision is detected during data replication between multiple nodes, the collision is resolved by a rule that gives precedence to certain nodes over other nodes.

Please visit us at Booth 234 and come hear our talk at HPTF

Come hear the latest updates for Shadowbase data replication, including a discussion on active/active continuous availability architectures for asynchronous and the new (coming) synchronous replication engine technologies. We will also discuss our new Base24 data replication offering. Time: Wednesday, 5-6pm

Please check out these other talks at HPTF

Breakout #3076

Title: How AOL Migrated 40 Sybase Databases to NonStop With No Downtime

Abstract: This session is targeted at anyone interested in migrating databases to the HP NonStop platform. The discussion will cover the processes and products AOL used to migrate 40 active Sybase databases to a single NonStop table hosted on four systems with bi-directional replication between the systems. AOL had no outages for the database consumers during the entire process. The session will highlight how the databases were migrated, what was migrated, and how the project was managed to avoid impact on users.

Speaker: Rob Lesan, Principal DBA, AOL, LLC

Breakout #2561

Title: Eliminating Planned Downtime in Active/Active Networks

Abstract: In today’s 24x7 IT environments, planned downtime can be as costly to a company as unplanned downtime. In the past, planned downtime was needed to migrate to new hardware, new operating system versions, new database management versions, and new application versions, as well as to install new applications. However, gone are the days of a two-hour maintenance window over the weekend. Today, systems must be continuously available. Planned downtime is not possible. Active/active systems comprise multiple processing nodes using replicated database copies to cooperate in a common application. These systems are capable of attaining availabilities in excess of six 9s, or an average downtime of less than 30 seconds per year. Therefore, there is no time available for a system to be taken down for maintenance for any reason whatsoever. However, planned downtime can be eliminated in active/active systems by rolling upgrades through the system node-by-node. Since a node can be removed from service and subsequently reliably restored, this process is completely transparent to the users of the system. The session will describe the procedures for eliminating downtime in active/active systems. Several case studies of systems currently in production will be described.

Learning Objectives: 1. Why an active/active system is so reliable. 2. Why this availability cannot be achieved if there must be planned downtime. 3. How to eliminate planned downtime by rolling upgrades through the nodes. 4. Case studies of production systems which eliminate planned downtime.

Speaker: Bill Highleyman

Breakout #4422

Title: Achieving Century Uptimes with Active/Active Systems

Abstract: This session will describe how active/active systems work and why they work. Their availability will be compared to active/backup configurations and clusters. The session will explain data-replication techniques to keep the distributed database copies that are so important to active/active systems, and it will review currently available replication products. Examples will be given showing how to perform cost/benefit analyses of active/active systems. Finally, active/active concepts will be exemplified by a case study.

In today’s 24x7 environment, the continuity of business functions is paramount. This continuity means IT systems that never fail, even in the presence of disasters that may wipe out a data-processing center. Furthermore, disaster recovery is insufficient—recovering from a data-processing fault can take hours and can cost an enterprise dearly. Disaster tolerance is required. Ideally, users should be unaware that there has been an IT failure; or at least they should not be inconvenienced.

Disaster tolerance is the realm of continuous availability. Continuous availability is being achieved today with active/active systems that have been in production for years without an outage. Though coming out of the HP NonStop world, active/active technology is equally applicable to the broad range of HP systems, including HP-UX and OpenVMS.

Speaker: Bill Highleyman, Managing Editor of Availability Digest

Availability Digest Explores the Fragile Internet

“Our Internet infrastructure…is as fragile as a fine porcelain cup on the roof of a car zipping across a pot-holed goat track.” That intriguing definition comes from well-known technology writer Om Malik. In its most recent issue, the Availability Digest explores the importance of Internet services to companies that demand extreme availability from the Internet’s mesh architecture. How reasonable is that demand in light of numerous problems exposing the Internet’s weaknesses? “The Fragile Internet” reviews real-life outages and the protective measures required to avoid becoming an Internet victim.

Also this month:

· U.S. Bank critiques the implementation process undertaken to acquire active/active technology for its ATM network. The network now operates via a two-node HP Nonstop active/active system running ACI’s Base24.

· Our Product Review focuses on the master/slave configuration using Continuent’s Tungsten open-source asynchronous replication engine.

· “Back Up Is More than Backing Up” examines such concerns as database restore procedures, backup auditing, protection from malfeasance, and the old standby that everyone needs but no one ever wants to do – document, document, document.

Digest Managing Editor Dr. Bill Highleyman will speak at two breakout sessions during the upcoming HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas. “Eliminating Planned Downtime in Active/Active Networks” will take place at 5:00 pm on Tuesday, June 16^th. Don’t miss “Achieving Century Uptimes in Active/Active Systems” on Wednesday, June 17^th, at 2:30 pm. Each session is one hour in length.

The Digest is free online and focuses on continuous processing architectures, with particular attention given to active/active technology. www.availabilitydigest.com

NonStop - A Running Commentary – May, 09

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author
and shouldn’t be viewed as reflecting any views
of his current or past employer

With the ACI Customer Exchange (ACE) about to start in Washington D.C., I can’t help but reflect on the European BASE24 User Group (EBUG) and the impression ACI’s new strategy made on me. After all, it’s not every week you get the opportunity to spend time in a city as beautiful as Prague. And even though I covered much of what transpired in the blog posting of May 12, ’09 “I think the mainframe’s too big!” there was one phrase that stays with me to this day and I’d like to elaborate.

Stopping by any event’s registration desk is never a task that is approached with any degree of enthusiasm – there’s usually a long line of participants ahead of me. But for EBUG I managed to check in at the desk early and picked up the latest program, the faux-leather folder, and the golf shirt. As I opened up the pale blue shirt, the pocket emblem read “EBUG – Transforming for the Future.” At first I thought I had misread it – but it’s correct in suggesting the BASE24 community is facing transformation as it prepares itself for the future.

With an audience heavily favoring the HP NonStop platform, the early presentations provided more material that built on the brief strategy statements ACI and IBM had made in Vienna last year. Before leaving for this year’s event, I had printed several papers from ACI’s web site and the one that I had just finished reading was from November 13^th, ’08 “ACI benefiting from advice-driven model.” It was based on an article in americanbanker.com that had opened with an observation by ACI’s CEO Phil Heasley on how “a growing number of banks are asking for help stitching together transaction systems.”

Reading this, I have to admit, what first came to mind was thousands of patchwork quilts all beautifully hand-finished. Items that would win prizes in any craft show! And the image of bankers feverishly stitching patches over holes that were appearing in their far from prize-winning quilts!

The article went on to explain how “some banks are starting to use a ‘payment hub,’ a single switch that can handle many types of requests before transactions are initiated” again quoting ACI’s Heasley who had earlier suggested that “the result for banks should be better integration of different types of payment-related applications.” Taken at face value, not a bad objective yet still, I was puzzled over a future that would rely on “stitching together transaction systems!”

The early presentations by ACI quickly built on the payment hub and elaborated on their views of its capabilities. Again, it was the same explanation as provided in the americanbanker.com article, where it was suggested that “rather than using one system to handle automated teller machine transactions, another to support purchases at the point of sale and a third for automated clearing house transfers, a hub can evaluate all the payments and determine how to route each one.”

For an application provider to be this enthusiastic over a capability that for many of us looks remarkably like an infrastructure component, it is a rather unexpected transformation. And not all that futuristic! For a company that, only two years ago, completely shut down its infrastructure business unit Insession Technology, to now be suggesting that this will be the centerpiece of ACI’s strategy, doesn’t seem to make much sense!

ACI still retains some pretty capable technicians. I enjoyed a number of conversations with product managers and developers I have known for years, and they are not at all cavalier or easily swayed by popular or fashionable “Gucci Marketing” technology – yet building a transforming business around a hub seems to be harking back to solutions of the past. The one thing a hub does offer, however, is an opportunity to develop intricate slide-ware, and this was provided in abundance.

For as long as I can remember, banks IT topology has been highly centralized. They just love star networks, with big systems at the heart of every banking application. Perhaps the idea of front-ending every major application with a hub simply reinforces a model already familiar to bankers, and perhaps this is what ACI is hoping to exploit. But across today’s technology landscape, this looks a little old-fashioned, and appears to be a gross over-simplification that glosses over the problems at hand – that patchwork quilt of decades-old applications coming apart at the seems.

Besides, whenever I think of hubs I am reminded of the airline industry and how airlines aggressively pursued a hub and spoke topology for years. The only issue for me is that countless number of summer trips have had to be cancelled when these hubs were forced to close as violent storms swept through. Airlines routing flights through just one hub never made a whole lot of sense to me either!

In the blog posting “I think the mainframe’s too big!” I referred to the presentation given by Steve Saltwick of HP BCS Marketing where he said that HP “had enjoyed a ‘100% win rate with competitive tenders coming from the installed base.’” I suggested that after “almost two years into the strategic partnership with IBM …. there had been no movement across the ACI user community from NonStop to IBM mainframe System z solutions.” Yet, evolving what exists today on NonStop to the payment hub of ACI’s future, would be a transformation that every NonStop user could so easily grasp. And yes, this would make sense to me!

In other words, if the payment hub is core to ACI’s strategy as it now appears to be – why all this talk about taking the NonStop out of the picture and reverting to a system rejected by banking CIOs for years? According to the amercianbanker.com article, Tom McCrohan (a stock analyst covering ACI for Janney Montgomery Scott LLC) opined that ACI “probably will not push its U.S. customers to move from HP platforms to IBM anytime soon.” So stitching together transaction systems is going to be left to customers other than in America? Really? Where’s the sense in that?

With so much riding on the platform underpinning the payment hub, “the single switch that can handle many types of request” surely, there would have to be at least two of them and this is where the “devil is in the details” arises. While IBM does have some capabilities to keep data synchronized across different sites, it’s not transaction-oriented. Yes, with recent acquisitions it is trying to patch this hole, but it’s not there yet and faces some major challenges.

This was strongly reinforced in a recent conversation I had with Sami Akbay, GoldenGate’s VP of Product Management and Marketing, who suggested that “whenever you pursue a plan that places all your eggs in one basket or, just as airlines have traditionally done - routing all your planes through one airport - you better have a back-up!” Akbay continued “and the data required at the different locations synchronized in real time! Transaction hubs of any type will only be as good as the transactional data management infrastructure supporting it.” And IBM just doesn’t have that today!

An industry analyst quoted in the americanbanker.com article already referenced, Aaron McPherson of IDC’s Financial Insights Inc, said that bankers are now seeing a steady parade of vendors promoting an enterprise payment vision “but then when you look under the hood at what the product can actually do, there are a lot of pieces missing.” Again, the phrase “stitching together transaction systems” comes to mind, and the worry I have is along similar lines – I have never seen anything that has been stitched provide me with the durability I was looking for.

What is at the heart of the transformation? And what really is the future for BASE24 customers?

As airline companies today review their reliance on hubs and watch more nimble operators making money by avoiding those very same hubs, so too many software vendors base their business on networked services and distributing processing. ACI appears to have its hopes riding on the transformation strategy but at the heart of the solution is something that still looks awfully like a traditional front-end processor. If this is ACI’s strategy, and if NonStop is good enough for American banks, why move to an IBM mainframe?

And the future for BASE24 customers appears to remain one of incremental change, of taking baby steps and adding only the modules a bank really needs – for market or regulatory reasons. As for the ongoing support of NonStop, even ACI cannot ignore the magnitude of the numbers quoted by Saltwick and will remain flexible (and tolerant) for many years to come – an impression I clearly took away with me from Prague.

Staying with NonStop? Particularly now following the arrival, last year, of inexpensive and scalable blades. That makes the most sense of all to me!

Richard Buckle

HP – ITUG:            Board of Directors (2000 – 2006)    Chairman (2004 & 2005)

IBM – SHARE:    Board of Directors (2007 – 2008)

Real Time View blog:           www.itug-connection.blogspot.com

Insider Technologies – A big thank you for joining us at EBUG

Insider Technologies Limited would like to thank everybody who joined us at the recent EMEA BASE24 User Group (EBUG) which took place in Prague, from 5-8 May.

Visitors to our booth were able to see demonstrations of our RTLX Reactor product and for Insider to discuss solutions and alternatives to their existing BASE24 monitoring products. So, once again, a huge thank you to you all for your interest and for taking the time out to visit us.

If you would like further information on RTLX Reactor (Insider’s real-time, transaction / payments monitoring solution for BASE24 and BASE-eps systems), then please visit the following links:

http://www.insidertech.co.uk/Products/RTLXReactor/tabid/89/Default.aspx

http://www.insidertech.co.uk/Solutions/ATMandPOSMonitoring/tabid/145/Default.aspx

Insider Technologies – HP Integrity NonStop Blade Accreditation exercise

Insider Technologies has successfully completed a HP NonStop Blade accreditation test exercise at the HP offices at Wood Street, London. The testing took place between April 21st and 24th 2009.

The ITL product successfully accredited was:

Reflex (Insider’s mainframe class monitoring and management software suite for the HP NonStop environment).

The hp NonStop 'Blade Ready' version of the software is:

Reflex Version 4.7L2 (Now available)

Version of Blade operating system, which Reflex was verified against:

J06.04.02 on an HP Integrity NonStop NB50000C BladeSystem

For further information about the Insider Technologies Blade accreditation program, please contact the Insider Help Desk on +44 (0) 161 876 6606, or via our Contact Page:

http://www.insidertech.co.uk/ContactUs/tabid/169/Default.aspx

Insider Technologies – Company Introduction

If the above topics interest you, then please visit our website for further details, or download our Company Brochure for all you need to know about Insider Technologies Limited.

http://www.insidertech.co.uk/Portals/0/ITL_Company_Information.pdf

Insider Technologies – Newsletter

You can also subscribe to our free newsletter where you will be kept informed of Insider’s latest news. If you wish to subscribe, or or you just wish to view our wide range of our products, then please visit the following link:

http://www.insidertech.co.uk/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Register/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2fdefault.aspx

Insider Technologies Limited

Spinnaker Court, Chandlers Point,

37 Broadway, Salford Quays,

Manchester

M50 2YR

United Kingdom

Tel +44 (0)161 876 6606

Fax +44(0) 161 868 6666

Website: www.insidertech.co.uk

Email: support@insidertech.co.uk

Insider Technologies is Quality Certified to ISO9001:2000 and TickIT.

All Trademarks acknowledged.

TANDsoft Writes About Application Jet Lag

Take a look at the May/June issue of The Connection, the NonStop-specific publication that has so far survived the move from ITUG to Connect.

TANDsoft Product Manager Jack Di Giacomo’s article, “Application Jet Lag – Consolidating Global Data Services,” addresses the challenge that companies face as they attempt to consolidate applications running in different time zones into a single processing environment.

The cross-platform article introduces a brief history of time zones, discusses solution options, presents case studies, and highlights time-simulation products supporting a variety of HP platforms.

For those of you without access to The Connection, Jack’s article can be found at

http://www.tandsoft.com/2009-05 Application Jet Lag - Connection Article.doc.

Jack also will be speaking on Wednesday, June 17^th, at HPTF in Las Vegas. His one-hour breakout session, “Time-Sensitive Applications in Virtualized Environments,” will begin at 10:30 am. The session will focus on how companies who consolidate their IT environments face the dilemma of hosting multiple applications with different date/time requirements on a single system with just one system clock. Jack will discuss the challenges of providing each application with its own virtual clock and calendar for development, testing, production, disaster recovery, and quality assurance activities.

TANDsoft’s HP NonStop solutions include time-zone virtualization, time-sensitive application testing, file synchronization for disaster recovery, and the new Enscribe-2-SQL toolkit. www.tandsoft.com.

Jack Di Giacomo

TANDsoft

Tandem Interception & Availability Solutions

Tel: +1 (514) 695-2234 (GMT -4)

*** New *** Enscribe-2-SQL Toolkit

http://www.tandsoft.com/

jack.digiacomo@tandsoft.com

Quality Systems Associates, Inc. (QSA), Announces OSS & SQL/MX File Support for Q/TOS and TMF gets the Q/Restore treatment

We’re now cataloging OSS and SQL/MX objects.

Open System Services (OSS) has become an increasingly important aspect of HP NonStop user operations. In response to emerging demand for OSS & SQL/MX backup management, and as part of a larger B/R 2 automation effort, QSA has added OSS and SQL/MX object cataloging support to Q/TOS. As an industry standard Media Manager/Catalog, Q/TOS with the addition of OSS and SQL/MX object support marks a substantial improvement in data management and security within the HP NonStop space.

Q/RESTORE restore accelerator drastically reduces restore time.

Boasting reductions in restore times of up to and in excess of 85%, QSA’s Q/RESTORE is the only restore accelerator for physical media available in the HP NonStop marketplace. Q/RESTORE’s patent pending “random tape access” technology allows selected files and/or fileset(s) to be located and restored within a small fraction of the time it would take to complete an un-accelerated restore. In addition to the original Q/RESTORE release designed to run within the Q/Tos environment and as a stand-alone process, Q/RESTORE is now available for use within DSM/TC and the technology has been utilized to create a Q/RESTORE specifically for the TMF environment.

Please direct all inquiries to rmahoney@qsa.com, or call 703-771-9447.

Please visit us at:

HP Technology Forum & Expo 2009/June 15-18/ Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV

BOOTH #121

www.qsa.com

XID Technology Solutions

We appreciate this opportunity to describe XID to Tandem World and its readers. XID is based in the Dallas, TX area and has been providing services supporting the NonStop platform for 20 years. XID is employee owned and operated. We operate as a team, not individual contractors, so we network our experiences among the group. XID was founded and runs today on the core belief if you take care of the customer and your people they will take care of you. Because of our adherence to that philosophy, XID provided 9 years of continuous support services for Hertz Corporation, 11 years for Southwest Airlines and 14 years for A. G. Edwards.

In addition to our Tandem/HP NonStop support, we are one of a select number of companies that provide services on the HP Neoview platform. We also have experience with other platforms such as HP UX, IBM Midrange and Mainframe, and Intel. As such, we are well positioned to provide migration services between platforms. We have also provided performance analysis and remote system management services. We have also provided many services for clients with ACI’s Base24 system.

For more information on how XID can help you, contact Mark White at 817-510-2504 or at mwhite@xid.com. You can also visit us at www.xid.com.

Leverage your technology investments with Nexbridge’s ECLIPSE Product Set

Nexbridge is pleased to announce two suites of tools to help your move to the ECLIPSE workbench:

· The SCM suite (RETool and CETool) allows you to work with PrimeCode and Control directly in ECLIPSE. Your developers can now start to use and manage your software assets in ECLIPSE in minutes. You can even keep your existing development and deployment processes and move to the new ECLIPSE platform.

· The NonStop suite consists of productivity tools for the NonStop.

o EGI is a 4GL tool for building EMS logging code for Native C++ and Java logging as well workstation-based logging.

o PFM is pure Java EMS client that runs on any workstation. It has an event viewer and API for consuming and forwarding EMS events on any platform.

o NskDDL is a DDL compiler that runs entirely on the workstation. It generates TAL, COBOL, C++, and even Java compatible code without the need to ever connect to a NonStop server. NskDDL is idea for your workstation-based development.

Please contact Randall Becker at rsbecker@nexbridge.com for more information

Free PCI DSS compliance papers from XYPRO

Leading HP NonStop security specialist, XYPRO Technology Corporation, has recently updated its PCI DSS Compliance White Paper and Auditor’s Checklist to cover the latest PCI Data Security Standard Version 1.2.
The White Paper shows where PCI DSS is applicable to HP NonStop Server enterprises, discusses the 12 sets of PCI requirements and explains what products can be used to help achieve compliance.
The Auditors Checklist presents a view of various security requirements, such as Access Control, Auditing and Encryption, and references each requirement in a corresponding PCI DSS column.
Both documents are available free of charge.

The PCI White Paper can be found here:
https://www.xypro.com/fileadmin/downloads/misc/White_Paper_-_PCI_Compliance.pdf

And the Auditor’s Check List here:
https://www.xypro.com/fileadmin/downloads/misc/Auditors_checklist.pdf

XYPRO’s latest compliance auditing software, complete with pre-configured PCI rule set, is also available for a free 30 day evaluation. XYGATE Security Compliance Wizard (XSW) allows you to automate the gathering and reporting of security and system configuration information. XSW makes it easy to build policies to monitor your security configuration and track compliance on a single system or an entire network.

If you would like more information or you’d like to arrange a 30 day evaluation of XSW or any of XYPRO’s extensive suite of security, data encryption or audit compliance products, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Email Dan.Lewis@XYPRO.co.uk

Tandemworld within EMEA

Tandemworld specialise in the recruitment of HP NonStop / Tandem specialists.

Currently have a number of Highly skilled NonStop / Tandem professionals seeking new projects and assignments

within the EMEA Region.

Do you have Project Work that you need assistance on? Hardware upgrades to perform?

These professionals are available on a short or long Term Basis (1 Week to 1 year +) at Very Competitive rates.

We can also supply Permanent employees and other technical resources e.g. IBM, Unix, Unisys DEC/VMS etc.

If you have a requirement for Contract or Permanent Resources or require further information please contact us :-

+44 (0) 20 8304 7979

info@tandemworld.net

www.tandemworld.net

Looking for a Solution or an answer to a particular problem ASK Tandemworld. We will contact the vendors for you and find a suitable solution that meets for current and future needs.