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POPSWorth watching ... Well, Jennifer and I decided to watch the last movie as we had the other movies in the series. We went to the 12:01am screening of the movie. For years that had been our treat for our children. This time, we went by ourselves. Though pruned a bit, this movie does a good job of following the book. As I had told others, though the book felt as if it was not enough, adding the visual to the story filled it out admirably. For those of you who are wondering if you should see it, I say this is one movie that we will see again. And one we did not mind spending full price on the tickets. Definitely a good flick for families (of older children, since it is intense). And may the farce be with you ... Oops! Wrong movie. 8^)
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POPSWhy should we vaccinate ?? The infographic, which is available in the attached web page, is an interesting and compelling argument for vaccinations. There has been a resurgence of various childhood diseases because some people either do not think they can afford the cost of the vaccination, or they think (mistakenly) that it might hurt their child. Death due to whooping cough or measles is far worse than the vaccination.
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POPSAbout time to consider Back to School Vaccines ?? Wow! Time flies. As you may know, I tend to periodically post some articles reminding people about how important it is to vaccinate children. It helps protect them and it helps protect others in the community with weakened immune systems. So, here's your friendly reminder ... 8^)
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POPSTheorys usually evolve ... as did Darwin's Theory of Evolution Only rarely do we see theories presented fully fleshed out. Such flashes of genius are rare. Rather, most theories, such as Darwin's Theory of Evolution, develop ... one might say "evolve". Though historians have long known that Darwin struggled with his theory, digitization of his manuscripts now allow others to have some insight into that struggle. It is frankly refreshing to realize that others struggle to understand the data presented to them. And it is heartening to know that we can throw off the blinders of long held theories when that data does not fit those theories. We can, as did Darwin, actively search for understanding.
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POPSSome "Eye Candy" NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter There are several reasons why I love this: First of all, I'm of an age where I still love the space program. Like many others, I am convinced that our willingness to reach into the unknown will be vital for the survival of our race. Second, this is some spectacular photography! Dramatic and it reminds of the the stark environment of the moon. Third, this is the first time I heard that Tycho Crater was probably caused by a part of the asteroid that led to the destruction of the dinosaurs. In addition to living to see the space age unfold, I have seen the gradual adoption of the asteroid impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs. And this is a new twist on that theory that unites the two.
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POPSGoogle spices up Gmail "Look & Feel" for Google+ For those of you, who use Gmail, you will be pleased to know that along with changes that Google is making to allow Google+ to work, they have made some interface changes to Gmail. It's nothing major. But it does make the interface look a little more spartan. I switched to "Preview (Dense)" and enjoy it. It seems that Google is trying to incrementally revamp all their interfaces. The Google+ roll out is not so much a single product as a series of tweaks that integrate together to become a cohesive environment. They might just provide an interesting environment for social communications. Enjoy!
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POPSShadowing is better than ever
One of the key features to OpenVMS is the ability to span from High Availability to Disaster Tolerance all the way to Disaster Recovery with the same operating system with minimal overhead (cost or manpower) to manage the environment. HP's Host Based Volume Shadowing (HBVS) for OpenVMS is a key component to the resiliency within a OpenVMS environment. V8.4 will allow you to extend the capabilities of HBVS to meet new and complex demands that face your environment. For example, with V8.4, you can implement two shadowset members per site in a three site OpenVMS cluster. So, even if you have to drop one member, you will still have a second member that is local. This is incredibly important as more customers implement split-site OpenVMS clusters. But the improvements are not limited to that. You can pause updates on demand. This will allow you, under program control, pause all I/O requests to the shadow set to perform maintenance activities. For example, you could pause all datab
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POPSXFC with #OpenVMS V8.4 can be dynamically tuned Did you know that BACKUP automatically tells OpenVMS to avoid use of the XFC when it requests data? But most other backup applications do not know how to do this. (Hint: It's a modifier to the $QIO call requesting the data. Most third party backup applications do not use it.) If you have a backup application that uses OpenVMS BACKUP (SLS, ABS are two examples), then you are automatically covered. But why would you care? Well, when you have an applications (backup or otherwise) that walks through a volume, unless the application tells OpenVMS to not cache the data, it will end up bumping everything else out of the XFC cache. So, your Customer Service Rep suddenly has to read all the way to the back end of the array to get the data. As a result, such jobs can result in poor system performance when they run. So, a large end of day job that wades through an entire database, a large SQL query job. A backup job that does not tell OpenVMS to avoid XFC cache. All of them can lead to po
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POPSV8.4 Brings New Storage Capabilities With OpenVMS V8.4 you will find new Storage Capabilities. This note will just deal with a couple different issues. First, the volume size limit is increased to 2TB from 1TB. In fact the size is just short of 2TB and 1TB respectively. Here’s some information from Rob Eulenstein: "At the present time (V8.3/V8.3-1H1) the maximum volume size supported by OpenVMS is just under 1 terabyte (TB). The actual number of 512-byte disk blocks is 2,147,475,456 decimal or 7FFFE000 hex. Support for 2 TB volumes is expected in OpenVMS Alpha & Integrity V8.4. In VAX V5.5-2 and earlier versions, the maximum supported volume size was just 16,777,215 blocks decimal or 00FFFFFF hex. That’s only 8 GB. The maximum number of files on an OpenVMS volume is 16,711,679. This value is calculated as follows: 2**24 – 2**16 – 1 and is not expected to change in V8.4." When configuring volume space on a storage array, it is VERY important to note that you are not configuring 1TB or 2TB. It is i
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POPSIt's here! #OpenVMS V8.4 is released today! Read all about the new version of OpenVMS V8.4. It includes some significant improvements in performance and capabilities. It supports 2TB volumes. It improves the performance of the I/O subsystem - AGAIN! It provides another boost for your production environment.
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POPSNeed an intro to RAID? #OpenVMS uses it, but some managers/users need explanation. Here's a teaching video clip. Sometimes I run across a great video clip that helps explain some of the storage terminology. Often as I work with customers and various managers, I find that I need to explain some of the terms. When I encounter a video clip like this, I will share it on FisherFindings. This particular clip is a great video clip. It shows how the RAID technology works, without getting too technical. It's short and concise. Others can approach the material and learn the basic concept. Hopefully you will be able to share it with others so they can gain a better understanding of RAID for storage subsystems.
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POPSDoes your #OpenVMS DR plan look like this one from Dilbert? Remember, fail to plan and plan to fail! All too often we don't assume a disaster will actually occur. Many times, Disaster Recovery plans are only tested on through "walk throughs". One lesson from the bombing of the World Trade Center in the '90s was that companies that failed to have a Disaster Recovery plan in place failed. The statistics were a bit shocking. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 150 businesses out of 350 failed to survive the event! With OpenVMS it is possible to design a High Availability, Disaster Tolerant solution. With other storage tools, you can even readily build a Disaster Recover system, separated by continental distances. Why go to this level of extreme? Because "stuff" happens all the time. You must assume systems and sites will not be accessible. But it is important for the business to continue to have access to the storage and applications. That's why customers remain loyal to OpenVMS, because it works. And it is possible to build an elegant, effective and cost effective solution.
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POPSAny multi-OS backup on #OpenVMS? Compare ABS to Data Protector. PDF of comparison at http://bit.ly/aghFHF Ever wonder if there is a backup package that can backup OpenVMS as well as other operating systems? I am aware of several. EMC's Legato Networker offers one option - See http://bit.ly/altNYR. IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) is another option - See http://bit.ly/cN3Tyl. And HP's Data Protector is a third option. In addition to the information below and the PDF version of the comparison (see http://bit.ly/aghFHF), you can find much more information at http://bit.ly/ayDhkK. One key feature of HP's Data Protector is that it reads from the OpenVMS host and on the same system writes to a tape library. The advantage of this? The backup data does not need to be transported across the network. As a result, HP's Data Protector tends to complete in a much smaller amount of time than EMC's Legato Networker or IBM's TSM products. Hope this information is helpful.
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POPSEvaluating several items in next #OpenVMS environment? Use “Kiviat Graph” to SEE best answer for you! Sometimes when we are asked to compare and contrast various features in proposed hardware configurations, it can be difficult to wade through all the words to understand which set of options provides the best answer. Here an analysis tool known as a “Kiviat Graph” or “Kiviat Chart” (or sometimes a “Kiviat Star”) provides great visual insight into the options before you. The following excerpt from this article highlight how you can use a Kiviat Graph to help sort through the options. I use this all the time as I try to compare and contrast various features of storage. Sometimes by taking the emotion out of the equation and charting the features, you can SEE the result of the proposed option. I offer this simple technique as one method to wade through numerous options and learn to quickly SEE the results of those options on your business and your environment. And my compliments to Craig Borysowich, who created this article. It is well done and a good resource. Shari
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POPSPost a quote from your Kindle to Fbook or Twitter? New update allows you to do that. Cool integration! One of the things that fascinates me is how technology can be integrated to provide something that has more value when put together versus when it is stand alone. GPS was a cool military technology. But it's SO much more useful for all the rest of us as we integrate it into our phones, cars, and daily lives. Now imagine if you are reading a good book and you want to easily share your thoughts about the book. Or perhaps a passage in the book calls out to be shared with your friends. Bingo! Highlight and share! Hang onto your hats. We are only at the starting point of the integration of computers into our lives. We are just starting to see "ubiquitous" computing. The next fifty years should be fascinating!
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POPSFeeling nerdy? Upgraded Wi-Fi Router. Reuse the old as repeater. Get better coverage in out of range spots. Of course, your new router needs to be able to take advantage of this. Most do. But I recently upgraded mine and found that a few do NOT offer the ability to use a remote router as a repeater. And there's also the fact that you WILL get a performance hit. Not just a possibility. It's guaranteed. But if you want better coverage a long way from your primary router, then this offers a better alternative than no coverage. Slow is better than No ! : ) A cool
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POPSSharing Flickr photos with Facebook just got easier. But privacy gets harder. Sigh! No easy choices. Yahoo and Facebook now allow tighter cooperation. This means you can automatically share Flickr photos onto Facebook. But beware! You also must allow other sites see your facebook information. So there is some increased risk involved in this. However, the benefit may well outweigh the risks. You will need to decide if the ease of use is enough to overcome your concern with security. I personally think it will be a good thing. But... you never know.
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POPSImagine a bridge that looks more like twisted bread than a normal road. You've GOT to see this. This is just a plan - not a real bridge. But talk about an interesting design that results from a very real problem. "In Hong Kong, people drive on the left side of the road. In mainland China, they drive on the right side. Here's the solution: A road flipper that physically twists the roads over each other." And someone got very, very creative to swap the traffic flow part way across the bridge. I *love* elegant ideas like this.
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POPSWhat can you do with 100K LEGO Bricks? Robotic Chess! And there's video to prove it! I love what people do. But 30,000 US dollars worth of LEGO bricks? Four people over a year? Talk about spare time and energy! But this is so amazing. Hopefully the video will be posted into this Amplify. You need to see it to believe it. The video shows a "saved" game being replayed. It's really cool stuff. I might not have time to do something like this, but I'm sure glad these folks did have the time and energy. Your move!
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POPSWaste not - Want not! "Get Rich Slowly" shows how, though careful, constant, long term strategies you can attack normal items that drain your funds. Water bottles are a perfect example. They cost more than the fuel you put in your car, and turn into a mountain of waste. "Each day in the US more than 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away. Most end up in landfills or incinerators, and millions litter Americaâs streets, parks and waterways." (See http://bit.ly/9JWaSa).
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POPSHow Google Works (video) I did research on Google (due to BP's manipulation of the search of "oilspill") and found the following a video tutorial.
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POPSLimit I/O Requests to a SAN Storage Controller Sometimes you need to keep OpenVMS hosts from overloading a SAN storage controller fibre channel port. The SANCP utility, new in V8.3, allows you to limit the number of I/O requests "in flight" to that fibre channel port on the SAN storage controller. This is often needed in "Tier 1" storage environments, which share resources across numerous hosts. The SANCP utility allows you to set the WTID cap. That acronymn stands for the World-wide id Thottle I/o Descriptor.
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POPSRMS Tuning Cycle This clip shows a brief overview of the RMS (Record Management System) tuning cycle. This essentially allows the users to gather information as they use the RMS file. Then based on the information gathered from the file, the RMS file user can adjust the tuning of the RMS parameters and generate a more effective RMS file structure.
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POPSRMS Tune Check - Freeware V5.0 The OpenVMS Freeware V5.0 set contains the directory where Hein van den Heuvel placed his RMS_TUNE_CHECK utility. This is a quick pointer to that tool.
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POPST4 & Friends This OpenVMS Technical Journal article by Steve Lieman describes how using T4 & Friends can allow a system manager to better understand the interactions of the various OpenVMS "service centers" over time. This allows better insight into those interactions and better control over the testing of methods to improve performance.
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POPSRMS Collector for T4 & Friends In this OpenVMS Technical Journal article, Gorazd Kikelj discusses how to add an RMS performance statistics collector to the normal T4 & Friends data collection. This has several advantages over other techniques, which will be show in other blog entries.
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POPSRMS Indexed File Performance Issue: Duplicate Key Chains Known as Secondary Index Data Record (SIDR) chains, RMS indexed files can increase system overhead without the developer or system manager being aware of this issue. In this VMS Technical Journal article, Hein van den Heuvel discusses this issue an methods to address the problem.
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POPSOpenVMS DoD Erasure Pattern Perhaps it is your auditing department, or perhaps it is some rule or regulation, but you may face the need to erase - forever - the contents of an OpenVMS volume. The following IT Resource Center OpenVMS forum discussion helps explain some of the complexity of just using INITIALIZE/ERASE.
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