Well, after several moves to new and different servers due to some issues with old interfaces and email problems we are back online finally. And then we found some unwanted code courtesy of "Who Knows" which had to be cleaned up.

Many things have happened over the last few months.

VMS Software, Inc. (VSI) has launched VSI OpenVMS Version 8.4-1H1! This is great news to the VMS Community. Congratulations to Eddie, Clair and the rest of the folks at VSI!

The Connect OpenVMS 2015 Boot Camp has been announced (28-30 September 2015) at the Radisson Nashua, in Nashua, New Hampshire. For those who did not get to a Boot Camp until recently this was the "original" home of the Boot Camp.

There is also a Pre-Conference Seminar on Sunday, 27 September 2015. The title for the Pre-Con is "Security and OpenVMS".

And the Call For Papers is also open - get your slot to present your favorite new work or interesting find to the Community. You also get a discount on the Boot Camp fee!!!

Hope to see you all there!

Best,
Bill.

Dear Oracle Rdb and Oracle Database on OpenVMS Customers,

The North American Oracle Rdb and Oracle Database on OpenVMS Technical Forums are almost here! If you plan to join us either in person or as a remote attendee and you have not yet registered, you can do so now at:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/produ ... index.html]

The dates and locations for the North American Forums are:

October 2-3, 2014

Oracle Network Drive Campus
1 Network Drive
Burlington, MA,
USA

October 6-7, 2014

350 Oracle Pkwy (Oracle Conference Center)
Redwood Shores, CA,
USA

Agenda Now Available Online:

We will be following the same agenda for both the Burlington and Redwood Shores events. To see the full agenda go to:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/datab ... 94563.html

Note that the Burlington Forum will be held the same week as the Connect OpenVMS Bootcamp in Bedford, MA which is a short driving distance to the Oracle Network Drive Campus. The Bootcamp begins on Monday, September 29th and ends on Wednesday, October 1st. The Forum begins on Thursday, October 2nd. We will be presenting an Oracle session at the Bootcamp, however, to get an in-depth understanding of the latest Oracle related developments on OpenVMS we highly recommend that you attend the Forum as well.

Remote Attendance:

Even if you feel it is too late for you to make travel arrangements for Burlington or Redwood Shores, it isn’t too late for you to join us remotely. Remote attendees will be sent information needed to join us in a live online Forum web conference. To receive this information, just send an email to InfoRdb_US@oracle.com after you have registered to tell us that you will be attending remotely. You are then welcome to attend any or all sessions at either event.

Time is Running Out for North American Registration, Act Today! :

These Forums are offered at no charge and present a series of sessions conducted by acknowledged technical specialists from our development staff and the Oracle Rdb and Oracle Database on OpenVMS community at large. They should be considered a requirement for anyone wishing to remain up-to-date with all the latest enhancements and optimizations in either of these two product families.

We are very excited to be bringing the 2014 Technical Forums to you. I hope you will be able to join us.


Best Regards,

Kevin Duffy

Senior Director, Software Development
Oracle Rdb
Oracle Database on OpenVMS

Dear Oracle Rdb Product Family Customers,

I am writing to share several recent news items with you regarding the Oracle Rdb product family.

Support Dates:

I am happy to inform you that we have extended the 7.2 and 7.3 support dates for Oracle Rdb and for Oracle CODASYL DBMS. These new support dates are now published in the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy document for Oracle Technology Products (see
http://www.oracle.com/us/support/librar ... 069183.pdf) The new dates are as follows:

Release     GA Date     Premier     Extended    Sustaining 
                        Support     Support     Support
                        Ends        Ends        Ends

7.2         Jan 2006    Jul 2015    Jul 2017    Indefinite

7.3         Mar 2011    Sep 2018    Sep 2021    Indefinite

Premier Support for 7.2 has been extended by one year. It was previously scheduled to end in July, 2014. Both Premier and Extended 7.3 Support have been extended by 2 ½ years. The previous dates were March, 2016 and March, 2019 respectively.

The reason for the 7.2 extension of Premier Support is to give customers more time to plan and implement their 7.3 upgrades. The reason for the 7.3 extensions is to give customers the standard support periods for the database engines. Oracle Rdb 7.3.1 shipped in September, 2013 (other 7.3 product family components had shipped earlier than that). The new 7.3 dates apply to all product family components and now allow for a full 5 years of Premier Support for the main database engines as well as a full 3 years for Extended Support.

Oracle Rdb and Oracle CODASYL DBMS Latest kits:

We are pleased to announce the release of Oracle Rdb Release 7.2.5.5 (aka V7.2-55). As of June 16th, the kit is available on My Oracle Support as patch set numbers 18951053 (Itanium kit), 18951108 (Alpha Optimized kit) and 18951023 (Non Optimized Alpha kit ). You can view the release notes from the download site to see the details of what changes we have included in this latest version of Oracle Rdb.

The latest 7.3 version of Oracle Rdb 7.3 is 7.3.1.1 which shipped in February of this year. The kit is available on My Oracle Support using patch set numbers 17482084 for the Itanium kit and 17482096 for the Alpha kit. For Oracle CODASYL DBMS the latest 7.3 version is 7.3.1. Use patch set number 17751131 for the OpenVMS Itanium kit and patch set number 17751121 for the Alpha kit.

Note that there is no longer a non optimized 7.3 Alpha kit. For example in 7.2 Alpha we have:

              7.2.5.3.0 (not optimized for EV56 or higher)
              7.2.5.3.1 (optimized for EV56 or higher)

In 7.3 Alpha we only have:

               7.3.1.0.1 (optimized for EV56 or higher)

Oracle Rdb Connectivity Manager (ORCM):

We are very pleased to announce the first production shipment of the Oracle Rdb Connectivity Management tool this June. ORCM is a free and fully supported graphical tool for maintaining your SQL/Services and JDBC for Oracle Rdb servers and services. With this tool, you can inspect the current status of your connectivity servers, dispatchers and services and control the day to day operations of your SQL/Services and JDBC deployments. You can download this new tool from My Oracle Support using patch set numbers: 18848075 (ORCM for Windows), 18848119 (ORCM for MacOS) and 18848135 (ORCM for UNIX system such as Oracle Enterprise Linux).

JDBC for Oracle Rdb:

We have released version 7.3.3 of the JDBC for Oracle Rdb drivers in May of this year. These new drivers can be downloaded from My Oracle Support using the following patch set numbers: 18690506 (Alpha) and 18690514 (Itanium). There are several new features in this kit including:

Oracle Rdb PID now Displayed
Controller Command Show Executors
Extra Timestamp Precision
New Connection String Option NLSLANG
Use Query header as Description

A description of these enhancements and problems fixed can be found in the product Release Notes.

Oracle Rdb Developer Tools for Visual Studio

Oracle Rdb Developer Tools for Visual Studio (ORDT) version 7.3.3 was also made available for download in May. These new drivers can be downloaded from My Oracle Support using the following patch set number 18762066.

New Features include:

Oracle Rdb Developer Tools for Visual Studio:

    - Integration with Visual Studio 2012

Oracle Rdb Data Provider for .NET:

  - THIN Connections using SSL now allowed. 
  - BIG5 string literals now supported in SQL statements
  - Batched Processing now Available for JDBC Connectivity

A full description of these enhancements and problems fixed can be found in the product Release Notes.


Oracle Rdb and Oracle Database on OpenVMS Technical Forums:

The 2014 Forums have been scheduled so save the dates! The dates and Oracle office locations will be:

October 2-3, 2014
Oracle Network Drive Campus
1 Network Drive
Burlington, MA,
USA

October 6-7, 2014
350 Oracle Pkwy (Oracle Conference Center)
Redwood Shores, CA,
USA

November 10-11,
Kronborgsgrand 17
164 46 Kista
Sweden

November 13-14
Oracle Corporation UK Ltd
1 South Place
London
UK

November 17 -18
Hertogswetering 163-167
Utrecht 3543
Netherlands
November 20-21
Portes de la Défense
15, Boulevard Charles de Gaulle
92715 Colombes CEDEX
France

December 10-11
Oracle Corporation Australia Pty. Ltd.
Riverside Corporate Park
4 Julius Avenue
North Ryde NSW 2113
Australia

We are working now to get registration open.

Note that the Burlington Forum follows the Connect OpenVMS Bootcamp being held in Bedford, MA that same week. For more information on the Bootcamp see https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1514829.


Training:

JCC Consulting, Inc. customizes Oracle Rdb training to meet our customers’ needs. The training is delivered in the JCC facilities, at customer sites, and, sometimes, at Rdb Technical Forums.

JCC training is offered by practicing experts who have designed and tuned databases and architectures to meet some of the most demanding criteria on the planet. In addition to a thorough understanding of Rdb and Rdb applications, JCC instructors can answer questions that compare Rdb with Oracle and other database platforms. JCC instructors are also experienced presenters.

Seminars (training) include lab exercises to provide the attendee the chance to explore the material presented while the instructor is present to answer questions.



Contact JCC to indicate your needs: JCC Consulting, Inc.
http://www.jcc.com/
1-740-587-0157

You can find more information at JCC’s web site at www.jcc.com.

Questions?

If you have any product questions, please contact Oracle Rdb Support or send us an email at infordb_us@oracle.com. If you have questions on the JCC training, please send mail to
JCC at training@JCC.com. For more Oracle Rdb Product Family information, you can visit our website at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/datab ... index.html

Best Regards,
Kevin Duffy
Senior Director, Software Development
Oracle Rdb Engineering
Oracle CODASYL DBMS
Oracle Database on OpenVMS

CCSS has recently implemented a call compatible replacement for HP SNA 3270 DSPI which uses TN3270 technology rather than the SNA technology for communication to IBM compatible hosts. This initial implementation is compatible for FIELD mode operation of SNA 3270 DSPI.

We are looking for organizations that would like to beta test this facility. It will operate on either OpenVMS Alpha or OpenVMS IA64 operating systems and only requires TCPIP as the communications protocol.

Interested parties should contact CCSS for more information and to discuss how we might be able to work with you.

864-490-8863
pedersen@ccsscorp.com

How to get access to the HP Support Center - legally!

As you all know Hewlett Packard Services changed the access to patches some time ago. Well, then there was a second change this last October where they broke the patch access for HP AllianceONE Partners. Well, the most recent problem has been fixed by HP Services and AllianceONE but this only helps if you are an AllianceONE Partner.

So, how can you need a licensed operating system (you see OpenVMS, Tru-64 and HP-UX fall into this category). Windows and Linux are handled separately - different patching model. And NonStop is handled differently as well - but I suspect it too is not "free". The pricing model for NonStop is very different than that of the other systems. We will come back to how to get a license - if you do not already have one or need one (more on that later, too).

So once you have the license you then need to have the necessary contracts to be able to use the HP Support Center. And in this case the contracts will give you access to patches AND access to submit software support cases. And the pricing is not too bad at least not on an Alpha DS10L. But I will give you some figures so you can project your potential costs.

So you need a license, who do you call? I would recommend you contact one of your local resellers or refurbished equipment sellers. Two who seem most likely to be able to help are Len Whitwer of Puget Sound Data Systems (len@psds.com) and Dave Turner of Island Computer (dturner@islandco.com).

The following are approximate costs for licenses on "new" systems:

QL-MT1AE-6Y
OVMS/ALPHA 21066AB BASE LIC (DS10/DS10L)
500.00

QL-005AP-6Z
OVMS/MVAX 3110e BASE LIC
1,095.00

BA991AC
OVMS IA64 for SC rx26xx Series Integrity Servers
695.00

So, first row is model number. Second is description. Third is approximate cost of the license. The licenses for Alpha and VAX vary by model number. These are the cheapest licenses for these architectures - notice the VAX license has not decreased in price while the new more powerful system have become available. This is sort of historic - DEC never reduced prices on systems, licenses, and services - just came out with other models or offered discounts when they "wanted/needed" so as to be able to get the business. Compaq and HP have pretty much maintained that approach.

The IA64 license cost goes up by multiples of number of cores.

So now you have your license.

Now, how to get that support contract.

You need to purchase the following to items:

HA108AC Software Support
HA156AC Update Support

As associated with your licensed system. HP will look for proof of purchase of the license to confirm. Now this is important. So if you have a long out of support system they use this to charge the "Return to Support" fee. This fee grows by the number of months you have been out of support... So, if you have been out of support for YEARS, it might (most likely IS) be cheaper to buy a new license for your system.

Total cost for annual support on a DS10L (QL-MT1AE-6Y) is less than $150. I would expect the IA64 annual cost to be on something less than $200 and the VAX annual cost to be less than $300. I do not have exact figures for these last two options as I only needed the Alpha access.

These prices are all United States prices, your mileage will vary... BUT this give the PROCESS anyone can use to get access to PATCHES and SUBMIT a SOFTWARE SUPPORT CASE.

Make sure they ONLY sell you the above contracts. The folks when I started this seemed to think you needed to have the system under hardware support (not my reseller but HP) - that got corrected REAL FAST!