Final Bootcamp Agenda, Malmö 2025

9:00 - 9:40

Registrations

09:50 - 10:00

Room 1: Camiel's Welcome

10:00 - 10:50

Room 1: VSI Corporate Directions, Darya Zelenina & Johan Gedda

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

Room 1: My System Manager Retired - Now What?, Brad McCusker

Your OpenVMS System Manager has retired and you can’t find a replacement. Now what? As the person now responsible for your OpenVMS systems, do you have Peace of Mind that you can reliable maintain and restore services for your users? In a complex environment, there are literally 1000’s of things that can go wrong, often the result of neglect, mismanagement or operational errors. While not all are likely to crash the computer or cluster, many of these problems can cause unplanned outages for portions of your application – or worse. Are you confident your systems won’t fall victim to one of these possible problems? This session discusses proven methodologies and best practice for VMS system management you need to make sure are implemented to insure your systems operate as expected.

Room 2: Node Stretched Cluster In Oracle Cloud, VSI Professional Services Team

Room 3: Event-Driven Architecture and Why You Need It, Brett Cameron

An event-driven architecture (EDA) is a software design pattern where systems react to events, which represent changes in state, by publishing and consuming messages that trigger actions in other parts of the system, allowing for loosely coupled, asynchronous communication between different services or applications, essentially enabling them to respond to events in real-time as they occur. This means a system can react to changes without needing to constantly poll for updates or wait for periodic (batch) processes to run, making it highly scalable and flexible. EDA can be integrated with legacy systems by allowing the older applications to publish events, which can then be consumed by newer, more flexible systems, effectively acting as a bridge between the old and new application environments while maintaining loose coupling and enabling asynchronous communication between them. In this talk, Brett will discuss how EDA can be applied to legacy OpenVMS application environments to potentially enhance business agility and facilitate highly scalable, flexible, and performant integration with other systems. Some of the challenges associated with implementing an EDA that encompasses legacy systems will be discussed, and possible solutions to some of these problems will be considered.

Room 4: Install OpenVMS on VMware Workstation Pro 17 - Hints and Tips, Michael Ovesen

There are multiple ways to run OpenVMS on different hypervisors. This session cover hint and tips how to Install OpenVMS on VMware Workstation Pro 17 on a Microsoft Windows 11 workstation. This presentation is based on OpenVMS Community Package released January 2025.

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

Room 1: VSI OpenVMS on Alpha and Integrity, Camiel Vanderhoeven

While many OpenVMS Alpha and Integrity users have moved to VSI versions of OpenVMS, many others have not. talking to these users, we find that they are unaware of the benefits to be gained from upgrading, or are held back by fear of breaking their environment. If you are an end user, this session may convince you to upgrade. If you are a reseller, ISV, ambassador, or partner, this session aims to provide you with the tools to have an accurate dialog with end users about the prospect of upgrading to a VSI version.

Room 2: RMS - The Accidental Indexed File Owner, Hein Van Den Heuvel

All too often (newly assigned) system managers become responsible for critical RMS Indexed files and their performance whilst having minimal, or no, explanation or training on those files.
This session will provide an introduction to RMS indexed file workings, and highlights the file tuning and maintenance options. We will discuss some common problem areas for indexed files such as: index depth
duplicate key chains bucket size and buffer choices.
The session will review the OpenVMS provided tools such as ANALYZE/RMS, EDIT/FDL , CONVERT and some freeware tools such as "Tune_check" and "RMS_stats"

Room 3: SharkSQL – Multi-platform Database based on OpenVMS, Wolfgang Burger

In 2019, the startup company WDB Tech was founded in Vienna, Austria, with the goal of developing SharkSQL, a brand new relational database that will be available on all VSI OpenVMS platforms and on Windows (Linux support is planned for the future). SharkSQL is an SQL standard compliant RDBMS and it is characterized by ease of administration, outstanding performance that has been proven to outperform most DBMS on the market for a variety of use cases, security features that go far beyond the SQL standard and the majority of available DBMS, all the features one would expect from an enterprise-level database and is 100% cluster-aware under OpenVMS. SharkSQL pursues novel data access concepts that enable transparent access to globally distributed databases without management or configuration intervention and implicitly guarantee cross-database and cross-server data integrity.

In this session, Wolfgang Burger, Managing Director of WDB Tech, will give an overview of the current development of SharkSQL, discuss selected outstanding features of SharkSQL and its performance, and explain the terms of use of SharkSQL.

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

Room 1: SCI on OpenVMS x86 : Our Story, Norman Lastovica

As the first external site to run OpenVMS on x86, SCI has been there since day zero. Since then, we have progressed through multiple field test updates of the operating system, layered products, tools, and compilers in close cooperation with VSI OpenVMS engineering. With this valuable experience, SCI has successfully ported a number of applications to OpenVMS on x86.
This session chronicles SCI’s journeys with OpenVMS on x86. We will share insights, background, and some behind the scenes stories. If you have or intend to be migrating to OpenVMS on x86, this session will be one to attend

Room 2: VMS Booting from Disk to Running System, Drew Mason

What does VMS look like on disk before the system boots, and what does it look like on disk and memory when the system is up and running? This talk will cover the steps involved, touching on UEFI, the boot manager, the memory disk, SYSBOOT, SYSINIT, and the startup process. This will be of interest to anyone wanting more information about VMS internals.

Room 3: Managed Services and You - VSI's Managed Service Offering, Debbee West

Room 4: Mimer SQL on OpenVMS, Bengt Gunne

Mimer SQL is the only database system in production on OpenVMS X86. In this talk we hear about the latest updates to the released version. This is followed by highlights of new features that will be released in the next major release and a peek at the roadmap.

14:50 - 15:30 - Break

15:30 - 16:20

Room 1: Migration from Oracle Rdb to Mimer SQL, Karl-König Königsson

Learn how to migrate from Oracle Rdb to Mimer SQL with minimal effort. Discover Mimer’s automated translator tool for schema, SQL dumps, and Embedded SQL in C, COBOL and FORTRAN, as well as Module SQL. This enables seamless application migration with little to no manual intervention as our tooling helps you through all the steps involved in migrating your database schema, data and application code.

Room 2: Cluster on Cluster, David Brinnen

15:30 - 15:50

Room 3: Using VSI$SUPPORT tool for system management and problem reporting, Homi Faris

VSI$SUPPORT is a tool that gathers system and software configuration in HTML or text reports.
Regularly generating reports can greatly facilitate troubleshooting issues following configuration changes. Reports are also required to open cases with VSI support.

Room 4: Benefits of Using Git on the OpenVMS, Syuzanna Gevorgyan

This session focuses on innovations in theory and practice related to OpenVMS performance and availability that have emerged since the last Boot Camp in 2017.

15:50 - 16:00 - Break

16:00 - 16:20

Room 3: RMS Indexed file tuning - where to start?, Hein van Den Heuvel

This session presents my thoughts on managing RMS application performance from a holistic, system wide, perspective. Why should one be interested? Where does one even start looking? Which files to attack? We will notably discuss $ SHOW MEMORY/CACHE/TOPQIO as a method to find HOT files and RMS STATISTICS to get an insight into LOCKING overhead. Script templates and tools will be made available to help automate RMS tuning review.

This session expects a minimal understanding of RMS indexed files. Having attended the 'Accidental RMS Indexed file Owner session is highly recommended but not critical.

Room 4: OpenVMS in the Open Source Landscape, Zoltan Arpadffy

OpenVMS has long been celebrated for its rock-solid reliability and unparalleled uptime in mission-critical environments. In today’s fast-evolving world, where open source innovation drives rapid development and flexibility, many ask: what role does OpenVMS have in an ecosystem dominated by open source paradigms? This presentation will explore that very question by examining how the heritage of OpenVMS can be aligned with, and even enhanced by, open source technologies.

16:20 - 19:00 - Break

19:00 - VMS Dinner

9:00 - 9:10

Room 1: Camiel's Welcome

9:10 - 9:50

Room 1: VSI Technical Directions, Camiel Vanderhoeven

9:50 - 10:00 - Break

10:00 - 10:50

Room 1: How Manufacturing Applications are Deployed & Running on OpenVMS, Toine Dirven

How are OpenVMS applications running in the car assembly & component plants to support the production, quality and logistic processes.

Room 2: AInterfacing Modern Web Services Using the New C++ Clang Compiler, Alex Cornford

Creating a user takes several minutes to confirm they don't exist first, then getting their UIC, etc can be challenging. I wrote a "simple" DCL procedure that saves time and keystrokes.

Room 3: Top 5 TCPIP problems, Debbee West

Room 4: CockpitMgr for OpenVMS, Johan Michiels (110 minutes session)

Discover Cutting-Edge System Management: CockpitMgr for OpenVMS

Are you an OpenVMS System Manager looking for comprehensive, user-friendly tools to enhance your daily operations? Look no further!

For over 30 years, EuroVMS has been at the forefront of developing "CockpitMgr for OpenVMS", a powerful suite of tools designed exclusively for OpenVMS System Managers.

Why deploy CockpitMgr?

• A Comprehensive Toolkit: including a Console Manager, a System Monitor, and a Storage and Network Monitor. CockpitMgr covers all aspects of your OpenVMS production environment.

• Versatile Solutions: Includes a Job Scheduler, a Backup utility integrating with your enterprise solution, Configuration & Change management capabilities and many more.

• No Extra Deployments: Enjoy seamless operations without the need to deploy Linux or Windows open-source solutions.

• Expertise & Innovation: Developed and continuously updated by OpenVMS experts to keep pace with the latest IT advancements.

• Global Reach: Trusted by major OpenVMS customers around the world.

Join our bootcamp session and experience an in-depth product overview and see how CockpitMgr can revolutionize your system management. Created by OpenVMS System Managers for OpenVMS System Managers. And the best part? It runs 100% on OpenVMS.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to elevate your OpenVMS management mission!

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

Room 1: Compiler Update, John Reagan

This talk will give a status up of all the OpenVMS compilers, their current versions, future plans, and tips and hints.

Room 2: Re-Introducing VSI Digital Test Manager for OpenVMS Testing, Olena Malishenko

Join me for a practical re-introduction to VSI Digital Test Manager (DTM) — a robust test automation tool designed specifically for OpenVMS environments. Although DTM has been part of the OpenVMS ecosystem for nearly 30 years, many specialists are still unfamiliar with its capabilities. This session will provide an overview of the tool, its features, and how it can support efficient and reliable testing on OpenVMS.

Room 4: CockpitMgr for OpenVMS, Johan Michiels (110 minutes session)

Discover Cutting-Edge System Management: CockpitMgr for OpenVMS

Are you an OpenVMS System Manager looking for comprehensive, user-friendly tools to enhance your daily operations? Look no further!

For over 30 years, EuroVMS has been at the forefront of developing "CockpitMgr for OpenVMS", a powerful suite of tools designed exclusively for OpenVMS System Managers.

Why deploy CockpitMgr?

• A Comprehensive Toolkit: including a Console Manager, a System Monitor, and a Storage and Network Monitor. CockpitMgr covers all aspects of your OpenVMS production environment.

• Versatile Solutions: Includes a Job Scheduler, a Backup utility integrating with your enterprise solution, Configuration & Change management capabilities and many more.

• No Extra Deployments: Enjoy seamless operations without the need to deploy Linux or Windows open-source solutions.

• Expertise & Innovation: Developed and continuously updated by OpenVMS experts to keep pace with the latest IT advancements.

• Global Reach: Trusted by major OpenVMS customers around the world.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to elevate your OpenVMS management mission!

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

Room 1: x86 Platform Choices, Camiel Vanderhoeven

With OpenVMS on x86, there are various platform choices to be made: x86 hardware, storage, and hypervisor to name a few. In this session we will present these choices and help you reach decisions.

Room 2: Customer-Facing Tools: How VMS Enhances Engagement and Efficiency, TBD

This presentation will explore the various customer-facing tools offered by VMS that enhance Support interactions and customer engagement. Highlighting key platforms like the newly introduced Bubbl interface, we will demonstrate how these tools bridge the gap between Support and customers, creating smoother communication and improved service. Additionally, we’ll cover other important Support tools, including the Service Portal, Forum, and Konverso, and discuss how each contributes to a more connected and seamless customer experience. This session is designed to introduce these tools to customers and help them navigate any upcoming changes with ease or challenges they may face.

Room 3: Using RMS/RDB data real time for modern applications., Jeff Murch

How to use your RMS/RDB data to create modern applications such as web portals and mobile apps. Presentation will include a live demo and Q&A.

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

Room 1: Alternative Solution Ideas, Brett Cameron

Moving from VAX and Alpha to Integrity and now onto x86-64, there has over time been an incremental decline in the number of ISV solutions available for OpenVMS. For example, in recent years Qlik have dropped support on OpenVMS for what used to be the Attunity suite of products, Oracle have discontinued support for the Oracle RDBMS on OpenVMS (including the Oracle client), and in all probability Oracle MessageQ (formerly DEC and BEA MessageQ) will not be ported to VSI OpenVMS x86-64. The initial reaction to these sorts of announcements is understandably one of concern, however with a little ingenuity and imagination it is generally possible to devise excellent alternative solutions leveraging open-source products and open standards that are not only more cost-effective than their proprietary solution counterparts but also provide users with new opportunities to enhance their OpenVMS application environments to take advantage of modern non-proprietary protocols, simplifying integration with external systems, and providing the potential to leverage those legacy applications that have served the business so well for many years in new and exciting ways. In this talk, Brett will discuss a number of these alternative solutions and how they might be applied.

Room 2: Migrating from Itanium to x86 for System Managers Part II, Kobe Smith & Dave Sullivan

An updated (or upgraded) presentation to accompany last year's talk. This time around, we'll provide guidance on mixed clustering, utilizing the latest features of x86, and making sure your devices are compatible.

Room 3: Understanding DECnet, Norman Lastovica

A brief overview and review of DECnet for users, system managers, programmers. Provides an understanding for the history of DECnet, phases of DECnet, on PDP11 through x86. Covers some common problems and tuning suggestions.

Room 4: Modernizing Legacy CODASYL Databases with Log Mining: A Practical Approach, Bryan Holland

This presentation addresses the challenges of accessing critical business data stored in legacy CODASYL database management systems (DBMS) on OpenVMS.

The presentation will detail how log mining can be used to replicate data from a CODASYL DBMS into a relational database, such as Oracle or SQL Server. This process involves an initial load of the target relational database from a backup, followed by ongoing replication of changes extracted from the database's journal files. The log mining approach has zero or minimal impact on production databases since no changes to existing applications are required. The data is replicated with minimal lag time, and only committed transactions are extracted in their commit sequence. SCI TranSSend, a tool that utilizes this log mining approach, can create an exact replica of the CODASYL database, including hidden columns and set pointers, or an enhanced version, which can remap fields, exclude columns, and propagate primary keys. The target relational database can be further enhanced with indexes, views, and triggers.

This presentation will also showcase the performance of this approach with real-world examples where databases with millions of rows were created in minutes, and an hour of CODASYL transactions was committed to a target database in seconds. The audience will learn how log mining can provide access to live data from legacy CODASYL databases, reduce production loads, and empower business users with modern tools and SQL access. Specific customer examples will highlight how this log mining approach enables organizations to reduce complexity, centralize business logic, and gain access to real time data from legacy systems. The presentation will also briefly describe the background of CODASYL and its common applications in industries like semiconductor manufacturing, medical devices and aerospace.

14:50 - 15:30 - Break

15:30 - 16:20

Room 1: Hybrid On-Prem & Oracle Cloud Cluster, Martin Schneider & Johathan Bergdahl

Room 4: Generate Call Graphs From Legacy Code, Jon Power

Generate caller/callee graphics from legacy code modules: OpenVMS: COBOL, FORTRAN, C, C++, PASCAL and BASIC. For COBOL also scan Rdb tables and provide HTML links for which modules UPDATE/INSERT/DELETE/SELECT data from tables. All the documentation is in HTML form with clickable links to and from each source module and cross references. Essential for legacy maintenance and documentation. Specially tailored for VMS language extensions.

15:30 - 15:50

Room 2: RMS Change Data Capture. Why? How? When?, Hein Van Den Heuvel

VMS Software is investing in an alternative to Attunity Connect Change Data Capture (CDC) available for Alpha, Itanium and X86. Main objective is to be able to keep an external (SQLserver) database in sync with OpenVMS RMS production data. Other usages can be a) to keep RMS (indexed) files on a remote backup server up to date. 2) to provide comprehensive auditing for any and all changes made to RMS files. 3) to re-sync a freshly converted file with changes made during the convert.

Room 3: Dclsh: Steps Towards a New VMS Shell, Jiří Kašpar

The presentation introduces a university project for a new shell combining features of DCL and bash with a rich set of data types and built-in functions. We will discuss analysis, lessons learned from the prototype, current status, and implementation steps.

15:50 - 16:00 - Break

16:00 - 16:20

Room 2: VMS Navigator, David Marcsa

A double-pane file manager for the OpenVMS operating system.

16:20 - 17:00 - Break

17:00 - 19:00 - Partner Roundhouse

9:00 - 9:10

Room 1: Camiel's Welcome

9:10 - 9:50

Room 1: Cloud Offering with x86, Adam Hoff-Nielsen & Rafael Martins

9:50 - 10:00 - Break

10:00 - 10:50

Room 1: How to Setup and Run OpenVMS x86 on Proxmox KVM, Christian Moser

The presentation will demonstrate how to configure and setup a Proxmox environment. Best practices and hints provide a good starting point on how to configure OpenVMS x86 on this KVM hypervisor.

Room 2: Intro to Crash Damp Analysis, Robert Brooks

This presentation will discuss the steps needed to analyze a system crash dump. This session will focus on the use of compiler listings and linker maps to find what caused the crash.

Room 3: Moving from Rdb to Oracle or PostgreSQL on OpenVMS, Denys Beauchemin

This presentation explains how to move the storage for your existing OpenVMS application from legacy Rdb to Oracle or PostgreSQL while the application remains on OPenVMS.

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

Room 1: The OpenVMS Calling Standard and Callable Interfaces, John Reagan

This presentation will discuss the OpenVMS Calling Standard (with an emphasis on x86) and how to use the callable interfaces for stack walking and callable tracebacks.

Room 2: LANCP, Debbee West

Room 3: x86 Platform Choices, Camiel Vanderhoeven (REPEAT)

With OpenVMS on x86, there are various platform choices to be made: x86 hardware, storage, and hypervisor to name a few. In this session we will present these choices and help you reach decisions.

Room 4: Disk and File Utilities (DFU), Brad McCusker

Disk and File Utilities (DFU) is a high-performance utility for performing routine maintenance and special purpose operations on OpenVMS disk volumes, files, and directories. Functionality and performance offered by DFU is not, or only partly, available through traditional DCL commands or OpenVMS utilities.

DFU is freeware originally developed in-house for internal use at Digital Equipment and for many years maintained as time permitted by former DEC engineers. Recently, SCI has taken over the maintenance, enhancements, and free distribution of this powerful tool.

This session covers how to make best use of a number of DFU functions including recent enhancements. Operations including very fast searches for files, file reversioning, defragmentation, directory compression, volume analysis, and recovering deleted files are covered.

Any system manager will appreciate this session for ease of maintenance and increased system performance.

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

Room 1: VMS cloud, Terraform, and the 256* node cluster”, Liam Bainsfair

A live demonstration of how to use Infrastructure as Code on how to build a VMS node in a cloud environment, with a story on how I built a 256* node cluster.

Room 2: A Quest for Application Performance, Norman Lastovica

Quite often the problem statement originates as “It is slow”. And just as often, there is a lot more to the story. This session covers the identification and analysis steps used to pinpoint application and system performance “hot spots” frequently contributing to “slow”. Topic areas include CPU bound, IO bound and contention bound environments including RMS files, alignment faults, code compilation options, caches, buffering, etc. No application developer or system manager should miss this session.

Room 3: Porting Privileged Code Applications and Device Drivers to x86, Camiel Vanderhoeven

Almost all user application code should just "compile, link and run" when migrating from OpenVMS on Alpha or Integrity to OpenVMS on x86. However, if you're porting a program that uses privileged code or a device driver, there is a good chance that you will have to make some changes to your code. This session will explore what to look out for in your code, and how to adapt your code to run on x86.

Room 4: Layered Products on x86 — Challenges, Needs, and Insights, Nikita Grigorev

This presentation will feature an overview of VSI Layered Products on x86, then we’ll open the floor to talk about third-party offerings you use or need, and your migration experiences. This session aims to gather insights from participants — what challenges have you faced, what solutions are you lacking, and what tools are essential for your x86 journey? But of course, no pressure if you just want to listen!

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

Room 2: How to Have a Successful Disaster, Nic Clews

While VMS is highly resilient, rehearsing or testing your recovery plan is essential to make sure, if it ever happens, it runs smoothly, and staff know their roles. Your first job is to have a plan and decide what should be in it. Testing the plan can be daunting

to deliberately compromise your production systems, yet it is the only way to prove your plan is effective and all aspects have been considered. This session runs through considerations for planning and unexpected issues encountered during real testing and how it was mitigated, how to measure success and reviewing the recovery plan. Also covered is the controlled restoration of production service following a test or actual service affecting problem. Functions of DTCS will also be explored (this is not a sales talk), having useful backups, plus how some modern features of VMS can enhance resiliency. The methodology can be applied to clustered and stand-alone systems. It is platform agnostic and is relevant to any version of VMS and probably other operating systems that provide an important or critical service. The techniques talked about may also be useful for upgrade and migration planning.

2025 OpenVMS Malmö Bootcamp Agenda

Note for Speakers

Day 1 - May 13th, 2025

9:00 - 9:40

09:50 - 10:00

10:00 - 10:50

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

14:50 - 15:30 - Break

15:30 - 16:20

15:30 - 15:50

15:50 - 16:00 - Break

16:00 - 16:20

16:20 - 19:00 - Break

19:00 - VMS Dinner

Day 2 - May 14th, 2025

9:00 - 9:10

9:10 - 9:50

9:50 - 10:00 - Break

10:00 - 10:50

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

14:50 - 15:30 - Break

15:30 - 16:20

15:30 - 15:50

15:50 - 16:00 - Break

16:00 - 16:20

16:20 - 17:00 - Break

17:00 - 19:00 - Partner Roundhouse

Day 3 - May 15th, 2025

9:00 - 9:10

9:10 - 9:50

9:50 - 10:00 - Break

10:00 - 10:50

10:50 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 11:50

11:50 - 13:00 - Lunch Break

13:00 - 13:50

13:50 - 14:00 - Break

14:00 - 14:50

14:50 - 15:30 - Break

15:30 - 16:20

16:20 - 17:30 - Break

17:30 - 19:00 - Birds of a Feather Session

See you there!