Fw: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows

Peter Bateman shediac92@hotmail.com
Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:24:54 -0300


If you are going to Relational
from Image.

You can attach your IMAGE databases to an ALLBASE envirorment
using IMAGE/SQL then QSHOW or SQLGEN can generate CREATE TABLE statements
for you.



>From: "Philip Jackson" <pj@icing-it.co.uk>
>To: <powerh-l@lists.sowder.com>
>Subject: Fw: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows
>Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:32:43 +0100
>
>Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or WindowsI have just 
>finished helping a client move several applications from HP3000/TurboIMAGE 
>to HP-UX & C-ISAM.
>
>We looked at moving to Oracle on HP-UX, but discounted it mainly because 
>the primary application relied heavily on arrays and substructures - things 
>that don't fit easily into a relational system.  If we had been starting a 
>new application then Oracle would probably have been used as the database, 
>but the port was much easier from Image to C-ISAM.  We didn't look at 
>Eloquence as I don't think it was even in beta-test at the time we were 
>looking at options.
>
>The majority of the code moved over smoothly.  Most recompiled without 
>problems, and most PowerHouse code changes were to do with the order 
>records were retrieved.
>
>We did discover that several of our QTPs accidently created duplicate 
>unique keys briefly while updating due to the order of updates - Image 
>doesn't enforce unique keys on detail datasets so it never caused a problem 
>before, whereas C-ISAM does it properly and would crash the QTP.  However 
>it was simple to fix once we figured out what was causing it.
>
>Our biggest changes were, as you would expect, relating to interaction with 
>the OS for things like printing and streaming jobs.  I would recommend that 
>you investigate the running/creating of scripts/jobs on the fly (if you do 
>that) very carefully.
>
>The HP-UX machine runs about twenty (thats 20) times faster! - of course 
>it's a completely different type of machine and more powerful, but the 
>speed increase was almost incidental and impressed even the most demanding 
>users.  In fact sometimes it was difficult to convince the users that the 
>jobs that usually would take, say, 20 minutes to run were completed and 
>printing in under a minute.
>
>If you do anything at all fancy with printing, unix will fight you all the 
>way.  There is no inbuilt way to print a range of pages, or part of a file, 
>or even resuming a jammed printout back a bit without cancelling and 
>resubmitting the print.  While it does nice banner pages and is fine for 
>printouts that, well, just print and don't jam, adding a new printer for 
>example stops and restarts all print jobs currently printing from the 
>beginning (or if you're lucky just stops them).  We tried a couple of 
>third-party spooling products but quite frankly they were relying on a 
>greater depth of knowledge of networks and unix than we had or wanted, and 
>were really aimed at a mixed os printing environment.  A few things were 
>better, but by-in-large I consider printer handling on HP-UX 'incomplete'.
>
>Some of the more advanced users were used to using various line editors to 
>write their own quizes.  There was no way they could have handled vi on 
>HP-UX - even some of the non-unix programmers spent days laughing 
>hysterically over it - so we bought the new Qedit for HP-UX for them.  
>There were other ways we could have done it - perhaps having shares on the 
>unix boxes mapped in Windows so that they could have used Notepad or any 
>other windows editor instead - but it was decided this was a better fit.  
>And it helped some of the programmers too who were already feeling unloved 
>by unix.
>
>The standard users wouldn't have noticed the difference between it running 
>on HP3000 or HP-UX, if it wasn't for the enormous speed increase.  Quick 
>screens handle just about identically, and they even continued using the 
>same terminal emulators.
>
>
>Hope this answers some of your questions, and reassures anyone else looking 
>at doing PowerHouse HP3000 to HP-UX.
>
>Can't advise with porting to PowerHouse on Windows, and as for converting 
>to Cobol / Java, that would be a re-write rather than a 'simple' port and 
>therefore quite a different type of project.  Maybe if you were going to be 
>replacing an old PowerHouse application that no longer suited the business 
>with a brand new better-stronger-faster-differently-featured one and you 
>didn't want to stay with PowerHouse (shame!) then using a completely 
>different language would make sense.  But I can't see that porting between 
>such very different languages would be a good use of your time and effort.
>
>
>Philip.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>   From: Fritsch, Peter-Robert
>   To: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>   Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 10:54 AM
>   Subject: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows
>
>
>
>
>   Hi, what is the best way to port/migrate/run PowerHouse applications 
>(with TurboIMAGE) from a HP 3000 / MPE to UNIX or Windows Servers.
>
>   Are there runtimes for Powerhouse on UNIX or Windows, which can be used 
>for the applications developed for HP3000.
>   Are there porting or migration tools from PowerHouse to COBOL / JAVA.
>
>   What is the best way for the exchange of the environment, whereby the 
>applications should be still working under UNIX or Windows.
>
>   Thanks a lot, regards Peter
>
>
>
>   Ing. Mag. Peter Robert Fritsch
>   Account Manager
>   Geschäftsfeld Informatik
>
>   Tel.:    +43 1 797 50-231
>   Fax:    +43 1 797 50-8008
>   Mobil:  +43 676 765 66 31
>   Email:  peter-robert.fritsch@beko.at
>
>   BEKO Ing. P. Kotauczek GmbH
>   A-1030 Wien
>   Modecenterstraße 22/A1/6
>   www.beko-informatik.com
>
>

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