Fw: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows
Joe Boyle
joeboyle_adt@hotmail.com
Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:25:45 +0100
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<P>and to all those that were irritated by the 2 Giga byte file size limit for C-isam - I'm almost certain that with the new PH versions, the file size is now limited to 2-Gig records of whatever byte size.<BR></P></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>From: "Philip Jackson" <pj@icing-it.co.uk>
<DIV></DIV>>To: <powerh-l@lists.sowder.com>
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: Fw: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 14:32:43 +0100
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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'.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>Hope this answers some of your questions, and reassures anyone else looking at doing PowerHouse HP3000 to HP-UX.
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<DIV></DIV>>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.
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<DIV></DIV>>Philip.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>----- Original Message -----
<DIV></DIV>> From: Fritsch, Peter-Robert
<DIV></DIV>> To: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
<DIV></DIV>> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 10:54 AM
<DIV></DIV>> Subject: Powerhouse - migrate/port from HP3000 MPE to UNIX or Windows
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
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<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> Hi, what is the best way to port/migrate/run PowerHouse applications (with TurboIMAGE) from a HP 3000 / MPE to UNIX or Windows Servers.
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<DIV></DIV>> Are there runtimes for Powerhouse on UNIX or Windows, which can be used for the applications developed for HP3000.
<DIV></DIV>> Are there porting or migration tools from PowerHouse to COBOL / JAVA.
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<DIV></DIV>> What is the best way for the exchange of the environment, whereby the applications should be still working under UNIX or Windows.
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<DIV></DIV>> Thanks a lot, regards Peter
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<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> Ing. Mag. Peter Robert Fritsch
<DIV></DIV>> Account Manager
<DIV></DIV>> Geschäftsfeld Informatik
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