Hello to the HP e3000 Community. This is George Stachnik from HP - and I'm happy to be able to announce a schedule for a series of six webcasts about making the transition from the HP e3000 to other HP platforms. The first webcast in this series took place in January of 2002, and is currently available for streaming on the web. To view, Click here.
The following schedule contains the dates, topics and abstracts for the remaining five webcasts in the series, which I will be hosting throughout 2002.
These webcasts are for HP e3000 customers - and all of them are available for no charge. They may also be of interest to HP channel partners and HP sales/support personnel. To participate, please register at http://webcenter.hp.com/cgi/desktv/csy/2418/index.pl. If you've registered for a previous HP e3000 webcast event, just enter your email address and password, and check the box labeled "register for hp e3000 Customer Webcast, Tue Apr 23 08:30:00 2002". If you haven't registered for one of our earlier webcasts, click the link labeled "Register for e3000 membership" and fill out the form. The following schedule explains what will be covered in each of these webcasts, (including the one we already did last January.)
Transition Considerations: First Steps
Date: 1/23/2002
Topic: Transition Considerations: First Steps
Note: this webcast has already been delivered.
This series of six webcasts is intended to enable HP e3000 customers to address the strategic and technical issues that are involved in making the transition from the HP e3000 to other platforms. In this program, we identified the five options that exist for making the transition from the HP e3000 to other HP platforms:
- Some applications can be "retired" if they are no longer needed after 2006.
- Some applications can be left on MPE/iX after 2006 if they are not critical to the organization, and can be used without HP support.
- Some applications can be replaced using "shrink wrapped" software solutions available for the target platform.
- Some applications can be migrated to other platforms.
- Some applications can be rewritten in order to run on other platforms.
During this webcast, we interviewed Maya Milster, a consultant who has migrated HP e3000 applications to other platforms for HP. Maya identified some of the leading tactical pitfalls that have caused HP e3000 transition projects to suffer unnecessary delays or to fail all together, and identified ways that customers can avoid these pitfalls.
To view this first webcast, Click here.
Planning the Project
Date: 4/23
Topic: Planning the Project
In any HP e3000 transition project, strategic and platform decisions must be primarily driven by business issues. However, technical issues relating to the languages, user interfaces and databases must be taken into account if the strategic direction is to be workable. In this program, we'll begin by identifying the business issues that surround MPE/iX migrations. We'll identify new programs and incentives that HP is providing to make it easier and more cost effective for HP e3000 customers to move to other HP platforms.
Next we'll begin begin to explore the technical issues in detail. We'll explore the tactical issues that drive the three key decisions that lie at the foundation of any hp e3000 transition project:
- How do I decide if it makes more sense to Replace my applications, Migrate them or Rewrite them?
- What is HP going to do to help me identify candidates for the "replace it" strategy?
- Now that HP has announced that it will discontinue MPE/iX, how do I know they won't do the same thing to HP-UX? Once I've decided on a strategic direction, how do I choose the best destination platform?
Having identified the major strategic issues, we'll identify the key technical and tactical issues that will have a bearing on your strategic decisions: Language issues, User Interface issues, Database issues. In the upcoming webcasts, these technical issues will be explored in detail.
To view this 4/23 webcast, Click here.
Language Issues
Date 5/21
Topic Language Issues
Most HP e3000 software was written in COBOL. However, many HP e3000 applications were written in other languages. FORTRAN, C, Pascal, SPL, RPG and a variety of 4GLs have all been used at one time or another. For customers who are faced with the task of moving software from MPE/iX to other operating environments, one of the first technical issues that must be explored is the availability of compatible compilers on your destination platform of choice. The availability of compatible compilers may be a determining factor in your decision to replace, migrate or rewrite.
In this webcast, we'll examine language options on HP-UX, Linux and Windows, and see what compatibility issues exist among them. We'll answer questions such as, "When does it make more sense to port software to another platform, (keeping the code that you have)? When does it make more sense to rewrite software into another language (using your current code as a guideline, and rewriting the application in a different language)? When does it make more sense to walk away from your current application and replace it with "off-the-shelf" software?"
Assuming that a choice is made to migrate an application, we'll look at the issues involved in doing that. Beginning with this program, we'll use short, sample COBOL applications that run under MPE/iX as an example. Source code for these programs will be available for download immediately after each webcast, so that HP e3000 programmers may use them to do hands-on labs.
To view this 5/21 webcast, Click here.
User Interface Issues
Date: 6/25
Topic: User Interface Issues
Many HP e3000 applications rely on a user interface based on MPE/iX's VPLUS subsystem. These HP e3000 applications were originally designed to work with HP block mode terminals. Using 3rd party software, these apps can be enhanced on the HP e3000 to utilize a web-browser or other client-server interface. Many of these third party solutions are portable to other platforms beside the HP e3000, meaning they can be key components of a HP e3000 transition strategy. In this webcast, we'll take a close look at the 3rd parties that provide VPLUS solutions on HP-UX, Linux and Windows. We'll migrate short VPLUS sample applications to various target platforms and identify issues and answers along the way.
To view this 6/25 webcast, Click here.
Database Issues
Date: 7/23
Topic: Database Issues
HP's TurboIMAGE DBMS is perhaps the most widely used MPE/iX subsystem. Virtually every HP e3000 application uses TurboIMAGE to some extent. In this webcast, we'll examine the alternative ways that TurboIMAGE data can be ported to other platforms. We'll also determine the best way to port applications that contain reference to proprietary TurboIMAGE intrinsics to other platforms. We'll examine the pro's and con's of using a TurboIMAGE-like DBMS (such as HP/Eloquence), as opposed to using a TurboIMAGE-wrapper to access data in a mainstream RDBMS such as Oracle. We'll migrate short TurboIMAGE sample programs to various target platforms and identify issues and answers along the way.
To view this 7/23 webcast, Click here.
Putting it All Together
Date: 8/27
Topic: Putting it All Together
In this webcast, we'll complete our examination of porting hp e3000 applications to other platforms by examining the specific alternatives that are available to HP e3000 customers. Now that all of the key tactical issues have been identified and laid to rest, we'll return to the strategic questions that were raised in the first and second webcasts in this series, and see how the tactical issues ultimately determine the best strategic direction to take. We'll talk to customers who have already made the decisions we've discussed, and identify some of the pitfalls and roadblocks that they've encountered - and see how they were able to solve the problems and move on.
