Today I received the most recent copy of Connect Worldwide's "The Connection Magazine". I was very pleased reading the interesting stories about modernization of applications while keeping stable core systems in place. In these cases they were NonStop systems but they could and should also be OpenVMS systems.

We need more use of publications such as this and other trade publications to spread the word not only to our own user community but also to those in management and the computing industry who are not familiar with OpenVMS. Marketing is a matter of communications to current customers as well as potential customers.

It was also especially heartening to hear from Winston Prather on the recent success the HP NonStop Enterprise Division has had with recruiting new partners. Winston is the Vice President and General Manager of this Division at HP.

Among the recent new partners discussed by Mr. Prather are Opus, a payment software vendor, which has moved from Linux and Tuxedo to NonStop and Pathway. Lusis, an EFT vendor, has moved from Solaris and Linux to NonStop. AJB Software, an integrated payment solutions vendors, has moved their .NET C# applications to NonStop. All of these and more show the increase of vendors recognizing the value in strong, stable, secure environments.

OpenVMS has had recent successes as well but they need to be publicized. OpenVMS needs to expand its communications. Partnering with Connect Worldwide would assist the Office of OpenVMS Programs in spreading the word of their successes and future plans.

OpenVMS is the richest and most stable software development environment that exists. We should encourage the publication of information about new partners as well as success stories about modernization or new application implementations.

Talk about your successes. Spread the news!

Thanks,

Bill.

The Connect OpenVMS SIG is hosting two webinars on Tuesday, 6 April 2010 at 10:00 GMT and 16:00 GMT. The webinars are being presented by Colin Butcher, Founder, XDelta Limited.

April is "Virtualisation Month" at Connect Worldwide and is sponsoring various events and on-line seminars. The OpenVMS SIG is happy to help with this month's events with these sessions.

GoToWebinar information is listed at the end of this message for each session.

See you there!

========================
"Virtualisation in theory and practice."

This session will provide an overview of virtualisation and the underlying principles that apply when designing and implementing virtualised systems and infrastructures. There are a wide range of issues to be considered. The context within which your business operates will help to determine to what extent and in which areas virtualisation may be applicable. Virtualisation techniques can in many cases provide a useful solution to a wide range of problems, especially when combined with blade server technology.

Topics to be covered include:

    Virtualisation in practice: 
               Processing 
               Data networking 
               Storage subsystems
    Performance and scalability 
    Availability and manageability 
    Data centre infrastructure and consolidation

Presented by Colin Butcher, Founder, XDelta Limited.

Colin has an engineering background which, combined with a wide range of interests, provides him with the ability to empathise with clients and discuss projects in their own terms. He has considerable experience with mission-critical and safety-critical environments, providing authoritative technical guidance and project leadership based on a sound understanding of the issues involved.

He has been responsible for the architectural design, implementation and trouble-shooting of several major systems, including satellite control, air traffic monitoring, manufacturing, retail and healthcare infrastructures.

Colin was a finalist in both the 2008 and 2003 BCS IT Professional Awards for "IT Consultant of the Year" for his work on two major projects (healthcare and aerospace).

His professional qualifications include Fellow of the British Computer Society, Chartered IT Professional and Chartered Engineer.

==============================================

10:00 GMT:

1. Click here to start or join the Webinar: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/239426729

2. You will be connected to audio using your computer's microphone and speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. Or you may select Use Telephone after joining the Webinar.

Dial: 213-286-1201
Access code: 646-298-196
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Webinar ID: 239-426-729

System Requirements:
Windows(R) Vista, XP Pro, XP Home, 2003 Server, 2000, 2000 Server Mac OS(R) X 10.4 (Tiger(R)) or newer

=================

16:00 GMT:

1. Click here to start or join the Webinar: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/446097992

2. You will be connected to audio using your computer's microphone and speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. Or you may select Use Telephone after joining the Webinar.

Dial: 773-945-1010
Access code: 312-276-747
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Webinar ID: 446-097-992

System Requirements:
Windows(R) Vista, XP Pro, XP Home, 2003 Server, 2000, 2000 Server Mac OS(R) X 10.4 (Tiger(R)) or newer

====================

An earlier version of this posting had incorrect links. Our apologies.

On Wednesday, 17 March 2010, the Hewlett-Packard Office of OpenVMS Programs will host a pair of technical webinars.

Ian Archibald, EMEA Pre-sales Director, Attunity will present a technical discussion focusing on how Attunity’s AIS solution provides connectivity and integration from the Integrity platform hosting mission-critical applications and data to Unix/Linux, Windows and legacy platforms such as IBM Mainframe.

A product demonstration will explain how this capability:

1. Reduces IT costs with server/platform consolidation on Integrity


2. Enables wrap & reuse vs. rip and replace


3. Provides interconnectivity between 64-bit applications and 32-bit applications across virtual machines


4. Uses virtual data federation to create a unified interface across partitions, applications and data types

The webinar will conclude with a Q&A session.

The HP Office of OpenVMS Programs is conducting these webinars in two time zones to cover all of you across the globe. The procedures are the basically same for connecting to either webinar but the links go to different "events" so pick the time you want to attend and follow the link of your choice.

The first webinar is at 08:30 UTC/04:30 EDT.

The two step procedure to join the webinar is:-

1. You join the virtual classroom by going to this web page.

2. The telephone bridge line details are available here and you can dial the line that is relevant to your country and join in the audio. The conference code is 3467391155

The second webinar is at 15:30 UTC/11:30 EST.

The two step procedure to join the webinar is:-

1. You join the virtual classroom by going to this web page.

2. The telephone bridge line details are available here and you can dial the line that is relevant to your country and join in the audio. The conference code is 3467391155

To test your setup ahead of your event, please use the following link: https://www.rooms.hp.com/testsetup

The HP OpenVMS Programs Office looks forward to seeing you in the HP Virtual Classroom on the 17th of March. If you have any queries, please write to OpenVMS.programs@hp.com

=====================================

We are very happy to see this regularly scheduled webinar continuing.

Keep spreading the word! Support and use OpenVMS!

Thanks,

Bill.

Ever wanted to know more about HP Availability Manager?

On 24 February you will get the chance. Barry Kierstein will present "Overview of Availability Manager Functionality, Installation and Configuration" at 08:00 EST (13:00 GMT). YES, we know this is early but it is a presentation for a worldwide audience. And if it is too early or too late then you can always view the recorded version at the VMS SIG home page on Connect Worldwide.

For those who do not know him, Barry was the project leader of the Availability Manager product at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, where he worked for almost 14 years, and has extensive knowledge of its use and function. Previous to his tenure at Hewlett-Packard in the OpenVMS Engineering group, he was an OpenVMS system manager for the academic computer cluster at a large university for twelve years.

Barry is currently on contract with two companies - Migration Specialties and eCube Systems, working on products for OpenVMS and Alpha systems.

The abstract of the webinar is:

Ever wish you could see the health of all your OpenVMS systems in one window? You can with the Availability Manager, a product developed by OpenVMS engineering. This product presents the performance health of any number of OpenVMS systems, and also analyzes each for any resource contention problems, and also fixes various problems to allow OpenVMS systems to continue functioning.

This webinar will present an overview of the Availability Manager functionality, installation and configuration. Time will be available for questions and answers.


You can get the registration information and update your calendar by visiting the Connect Worldwide web page for this event.

Ever since we were informed of the planned OpenVMS Month by Connect Worldwide in LATE January 2010 we have been scrambling to pull together events, webinars and webcasts which we thought might be of interest to you, the OpenVMS Community. This effort has been driven by a handful of people from the User Community and the Vendor Community to date. As we move forward we are looking to include more vendors and more end users in the process. The central team that has been coordinating this effort has been Michelle Popejoy, Connect OpenVMS SIG; John Apps, HP OpenVMS Ambassador; and myself.

So far this month we have seen the introduction of the Itanium Tukwila or Itanium 9300, depending on your preference. We have had the HP OpenVMS Technology Webinar on GNV and the announcement of OpenVMS Open Source development systems from the HP Office of OpenVMS Programs. Keith Parris and Colin Butcher have presented webinars on clustering and networking respectively. Also, eCube Systems presented a webinar on application modernization utilizing their NXTware Eclipse based development environment. All this and we are just half way through the month. And, yes, some of these presentations we have had not a single thing to with but they have fit our schedule for OpenVMS Month nicely - Thank You, Hewlett-Packard!.

Well to be honest we are not even half way through, as we decided to stretch the OpenVMS Month into March. We had to do this to fit in some very special webinars and events that as of yet we can not announce centering on OpenVMS Version 8.4. Keep watching this space for more information about those sessions.

In the mean time let us tell you about the other events coming in the weeks and months to come. Yes, months as well! Besides all this we are working on developing a regularly scheduled webinar series specifically targeted at the OpenVMS Community.

Between now and the end of February we have as many as TEN webinar sessions available which should be of interest to you in the OpenVMS Community. Most of these events are listed on the Connect Worldwide calendar. These include:

17 February 08:30 GMT and 15:30 GMT, two webinar sessions HP OpenVMS Technology Webinar #5. Presented by HP Office of OpenVMS Programs in conjunction with ISV CipherSoft, Inc. This webinar will concentrate on the modernization of older Oracle Forms oriented applications on VMS to newer implementations utilizing Oracle, Java and other technologies on OpenVMS. This then allows for utilization of currently supported products and migration to newer, more powerful processors and systems.

18 February 15:00 GMT, Attunity will present "Change Data Capture - Reducing ETL Load Times" Allan Mitchell and Ian Archibald will discuss Oracle-CDC for SSIS.

18 February 17:00 GMT, Connect Worldwide presents the webinar "Low Latency, High Throughput, Durable, RESTful, Open, Standards, ...: What is Messaging, where does it Fit, What does it Today?" Pieter Hintjens & Martin Sustrik from iMatix and Brett Cameron from Hewlett-Packard discuss ZeroMQ (0MQ), AMQP (OpenAMQ) and RestMS.

19 February 15:00 GMT and 22:00 GMT, two webinar sessions presented by Connect Worldwide. Rob Eulenstein of the HP Customer Support Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado will present "Introduction to Crash Dump Analysis for OpenVMS Alpha"

22 February 18:00 GMT, Connect Worldwide presents "OpenVMS Integrity Migrations - Real World Experiences" with Brad McCusker of Software Concepts International, LLC.

23 February 17:00 GMT, Attunity will present "OpenVMS – Keep it. Modernize it. Integrate it." with the assistance of John Apps, HP OpenVMS Ambassador. John and Attunity's Richard Thomas will share their experiences with real examples and case studies covering web and legacy application integration, data integration and operational reporting and BI.

23 February 17:00 GMT, HP Technology Services is offering "Blade Basics Fundamentals Overview" This 1-hour webinar is designed with new C7000 blade system administrators in mind. We will address hardware basics and review the Firmware Matrix. A free one hour on-line seminar. (note - this webinar will also be on 26 April 2010) More information at: http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/us/en/energy-efficient/seminars-short-take.html

24 February - we are hoping for a webinar on HP Availability Manager - more as soon as we have it.

26 February - we are hoping for a webinar on "Extreme Encryption" - more as soon as we have it.


So now we have made it through February, as you can see we have lot of things happening in the next two weeks.

In March we have even more:

2 March 04:00 GMT, HP Virtual Conference - Cloud: Practical Advice for Taking the Next Steps (APJ Event). This free, one-day virtual conference explores the cloud and how you can take advantage of cloud services and technologies. To register: http://vts.inxpo.com/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI:4;F:APIUTILS!51004&PageID=C930A24D-31F2-4F80-B8B4-A297BC54488B&TrackingCode=FBNB

3 March - we anticipate the HP Office of OpenVMS Programs will host their OpenVMS Technology Webinar #6. We have no details here yet but will announce them when they become available.

3 March 13:00 GMT, HP Virtual Conference - Cloud: Practical Advice for Taking the Next Steps (EMEA Event). This free, one-day virtual conference explores the cloud and how you can take advantage of cloud services and technologies. To register: https://vts.inxpo.com/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI:4;F:APIUTILS!51004&PageID=CA15EE06-823B-49F0-BF50-C46AF5F35022&TrackingCode=FBNB

3 March 17:00 GMT, HP Technology Services offers a Technical On-Line Seminar on "OpenVMS File System Performance and Dynamic Volume Expansion". You have to have a HP Proactive Software Support Contract to attend this one! (note - this event also repeated on 14 April 2010) More details at: http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/us/en/energy-efficient/seminars-openvms-performance-volume-expansion.html

4 March 15:00 GMT, HP Virtual Conference - Cloud: Practical Advice for Taking the Next Steps (Americas Event). This free, one-day virtual conference explores the cloud and how you can take advantage of cloud services and technologies. To register: http://vts.inxpo.com/Server.nxp?LASCmd=AI:4;F:APIUTILS!51004&PageID=0218E76F-A598-4C67-84AA-964769EB7F51&TrackingCode=FBNB

17 March - we anticipate the HP Office of OpenVMS Programs will host their OpenVMS Technology Webinar #7. We have no details here yet but will announce them when they become available.

24 March 15:00 GMT and 22:00 GMT, two webinar sessions presented by Connect Worldwide. Rob Eulenstein of the HP Customer Support Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado will present "Introduction to Crash Dump Analysis for OpenVMS I64"

24 March 17:00 GMT, HP Technology Services is offering "HP Energy Efficiency Analysis (EEA)" The identification, analysis and optimization of data center power use is required when attempting to implement energy conservation measures. A free one hour on-line seminar. More information at: http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/us/en/energy-efficient/seminars-short-take.htm

And there is even more in APRIL! The OpenVMS "traveling roadshow" aka OpenVMS Technical Update Days are coming in April to Chicago (5/6 April), Dallas (8/9 April), New York (15/16 April) and Washington, DC (12/13 April). Registration is not yet available but our understanding is it will be by the end of February. More on these items and more events for March and April as soon as we have information on them - including a special OVMS 8.4 event.

Mark your calendars! Attend a webinar, or three!

As we move forward if there are topics you want to talk about or a topic you want to learn about or a topic you think would be of interest to others in the OpenVMS Community please contact us at participate@viavms.com so we can work on arranging this for you.

Keep spreading the word - USE and SELL OpenVMS Solutions!

Until later...


Thanks,

Michelle, John and Bill.