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Welcome to the January 2007 issue of the OpenVMS Technical Journal (VTJ). This volume is packed with information for OpenVMS programmers, support specialists, system administrators, and even
hobbyists. Your feedback is essential to the continued growth and development of this technical journal. Please take a moment to contact us; we want to hear what you have to say.
As always, we have a number of excellent articles for you to enjoy. You may not know that the VTJ is a volunteer effort and hence a labor of love not only for the contributors, but also for the
larger community. Many thanks to the entire team for making this possible.
Now for some highlights about the five articles in this issue for your reading pleasure.
Bruce Ellis has written an excellent and detailed article on "OpenVMS Mailboxes: Concepts, Programming, and Troubleshooting." Among other things, this article
describes what mailboxes are and how OpenVMS implements them and describes implementation considerations and common problems.
Ted Saul has written an article "OpenVMS Backup Products: ABS/MDMS and Data Protector Compared." HP offers two backup applications for the OpenVMS operating
system at this time: the Archive Backup System/Media and Device Management Services (ABS/MDMS) application and the Data Protector application. This article will point out the similarities and
differences between the two, in order to help in the selection process between the products.
Once again, Guy Peleg has written an article, this time with the provocative title: "Alignment Faults - What Are they and Why Should I Care?" The article explains
what alignment faults are, describes how alignment faults impact application performance, presents ways to detect alignment faults on a running system, and provides a few ideas on fixing them.
Speaking of alignment faults, one of our engineers from the DECnet team, Ajo Jose Panoor, has written an article on "Methodologies for Fixing Alignment Faults."
This paper describes the methods followed to fix the alignment faults in OpenVMS DECnet Itanium. Because DECnet-Plus is a networking protocol, any performance degradation arising from the protocol
stack has major implications on overall system performance and utilization.
And last, but by no means least, Bruce Claremont has written the article "Simplifying Maintenance with DCL." Expedient problem resolution is an important element of
effective software application maintenance and a crucial component of job retention. Key to resolving a problem is effective identification of its cause. A couple of decades (!) ago Bruce also
developed a standardized wrapper for OpenVMS DCL procedures that proved an effective assistant in locating processing problems.
As always thank you for your continued support and feedback.
Sue Skonetski
VTJ Program Manager
» Would You Like to Submit a Technical Article?
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Article Title: OpenVMS Backup Products: ABS/MDMS and Data Protector
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Article Abstract: Hewlett Packard offers two backup applications for OpenVMS at this time; Archive Backup System (ABS) and Data Protector. Both products have distinct functionalities about
them that may give a customer reason for buying one over the other.
This article will point out the similarities and differences to help in the selection process between the two products.
The Archive Backup System/Media and Device Management Services (ABS/MDMS) has been the go forward application of choice for OpenVMS marketing for a number of years. Development of ABS/MDMS has
included new functionality as well as support for the latest devices and operating system releases. Hewlett Packard has also been developing the Data Protector product for a many years as well.
Formerly known as Omniback, this product is not OpenVMS centric but rather developed for the large enterprise where multiple operating systems are deployed along with a Storage Area Network (SAN),
direct accessible or Network devices.
Author Bio: Ted Saul is an Off-site Software Support Consultant for the Product Competency Center at Hewlett-Packard. He has been supporting the OVMS backup products for the past 15 years.
These products include the native backup utility as well software app lication such as the Storage Library System and Archive Backup System as well as varied cross-platform backup solutions. As a
part of his duties, Ted spends time assisting customers with testing their disaster recovery, recovering from backups and teachin g classes in the application products.
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Article Title: Alignment Faults - What Are they and Why Should I Care?
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Article Abstract: The article will explain what Alignment faults are and why is it so important understanding alignment faults when looking at performance of applications (specifically on
IA64). The article will provide an overview on what alignment faults are, ways to detect alignment faults, guidelines on fixing/avoiding alignment faults. Also the article will provide several
examples written in C demonstrating how to handle alignment faults.
Author Bio: Guy Peleg Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Director of EMEA operations Guy Peleg joined BRUDEN-OSSG September 2006, he is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff and Directorof
EMEA Operations. Prior to joining BRUDEN-OSSG, he was a software engineer at OpenVMS Engineering group working on the various utilities. He was part of the team ported OpenVMS to Integrity Server
Platforms (IPF), he lead the LMF port to IA64, the EDCL project and various virtualization projects on IPF.
Before joining Engineering, Guy provided customer support and consulting with Compaq/DEC in their field offices. He is known worldwide for his commitment to the OpenVMS customer. He has given
numerous technical presentations and has been published in the OpenVMS Systems Technical Journal. His presentations are entertaining and highly informative
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Article Title: Methodologies for Fixing Alignment Faults
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Article Abstract: OpenVMS is one of HP's key Operating System and has been successfully ported to Itanium. As a strategy, one of the foremost initiatives is to provide performance improvement
for the Operating System including other layered components on Itanium. The _alignment faults_ on OpenVMS were expensive and lead to performance degradation, and fixing this became a focus area for
us.
Most of the layered products on OpenVMS were found to have alignment faults which had to be addressed. This paper describes the methods followed to fix the alignment faults in OpenVMS DECnet Itanium.
DECnet/OSI being a networking protocol, any performance degradation arising from the protocol stack has major implications on the overall system performance and utilization. Hence, it was mandatory
to address the alignment faults. These methods can be adopted by any OpenVMS product on I64. This fix can make a significant performance boost not just to the application but for the overall system.
Author Bio: Ajo Jose Panoor is a member of the HP OpenVMS DECnet Engineering team. As a DECnet team member he was involved in fixing the alignment faults in DECnet. Ajo holds
a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.
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Article Title: Simplifying Maintenance with DCL
» HTML,
» PDF
Article Abstract: An important element of effective software application maintenance and a crucial component of job retention is expedient problem resolution. Key to resolving a problem is
effective identification of its cause. A couple of decades (!) ago I developed a standardized wrapper for OpenVMS DCL procedures that proved an effective assistant in locating processing problems. I
have successfully deployed this code at many sites. I offer it here as a means to ease the burden for those of you maintaining batch and interactive DCL processes in production environments.
Author Bio: Bruce Claremont has a degree in Computer Science and is a certifiable VMS bigot, having worked with OpenVMS since 1983. In addition to OpenVMS skills, Bruce understands legacy
programming languages like RPG, COBOL, and DIBOL, and knows how to co de in Macro-32. He also knows a thing or two about software migration. He has worked all sides of the fence, as a customer,
software engineer, system manager, support specialist, and project manager. He founded Migration Specialties International, Inc. in 1992 and, when not dealing with all the distractions that come with
owning a business and being married, continues to deliver OpenVMS and software migration related services. More information about Bruce's business can be found at
http://www.MigrationSpecialties.com
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