VMS Software Bootcamp 2024 Agenda

       

      Note for Speakers

      We kindly request that you submit your presentation materials by October 15th. Please email them to info@vmssoftware.com using the subject line: "Bootcamp Presentation Materials - Name & Surname". We accept PDF and PPT formats.

      Day 1 - October 23rd, 2024

      9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

      Salon G: Registrations


      10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

       Salon G: VSI Corporate Directions, Darya Zelenina & Jan Magnusson


      11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

       Salon G: VSI Application Services, Brett Cameron

      VSI Application Services is all about helping OpenVMS users to get the most out of their OpenVMS-based applications, be it porting them to OpenVMS x86-64, integrating them with other systems, replacing no-longer supported technologies, all the way through to taking over application maintenance and support duties. In this session Brett will provide an overview of the Application Services portfolio and will talk about some of the possibilities for modernizing your OpenVMS application environments and how VSI can help.

       Salon I: 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.

       Salon J: VMS Memory Management through the Ages, Drew Mason

       Salon H: Structured DCL Scripting, Lorin Ricker

      An overview of using best-practices Structured Coding in DCL scripts (command files) Drawing on decades of writing and teaching DCL scripting, including as many real-world script examples as we can fit, the focus is on script readability, modularization, code re-use, standards and practical conventions to help you achieve scripting proficiency and efficiency. Covering stanzas, naming things, looping, case/select, decision-branching, gutters, layout and formatting, what to avoid, suggested DCL wish-list (for VMS Engineering), and more. With a bit of history along the way, and there's something for everyone from DCL newbies to veteran DCL coders here. Session will include all session slides and examples in a Gitlab repo for downloading.


      12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. - Lunch Break

      1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

        Salon G: Oracle Rdb Product Family Update, Kevin Duffy

      This talk covers Oracle Rdb product family support dates product strategy release history over the last year the status of the Oracle Rdb product family port to x86 OpenVMS the status of our x86 Beta Kits and information about the Oracle Beta Program Office. Other topics include other current development activities current project priorities product roadmaps and plans for future development over the next 1 to 2 years. The purpose of is to provide the listener with an overview of the plans and direction for Oracle Rdb, Oracle CODASYL DBMS as well as the other components of the Oracle Rdb family of products.

        Salon I: Migrating VSI OpenVMS on Alpha/Integrity to VSI OpenVMS on X86 for System Managers, Dave Sullivan & Kobe Smith

      The session will give you the basics for setting up your hypervisor to be able to load OpenVMS. From there we detail the files needing to be moved to give your new X86 system the same look, feel and login access as your existing cluster members. 

        Salon J: Lessons Learned: Migration to Emulation, an OpenVMS Perspective, Andrea Arthur

       Salon H: Developing a Tool to Provide DCL style Command Input to C Programs Ported from Unix, Tom Wade

      An increasing number of programs are being ported from Unix to OpenVMS. These typically accept short cryptic command line arguments like "foobar -j -h -L=stop flurgl.txt". This presentation describes designing a free general purpose tool to allow developers or porters to easily add DCL-style alternative command syntax to such programs, without requiring any coding expertise, while involving either minimal or no changes to the source code.


      2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

       Salon G: Why OCI for VMS Customers, Mike Terra

       Salon I: OpenVMS X86 Boot Manager & Guest Console, Gary Newsted

      This talk presents the many faces and evolving nature of the OpenVMS Boot Manager. Well before VMS booted on x86 hardware, the Boot Manager provided a tool for engineers to peek under the x86 hood and load test programs.  Eventually, those test programs became SYSBOOT, then in homage to our Galaxy roots, multiple SYSBOOTs.  From USB ports serving up Hummingbird Nectar to Web Server downloads of Memory Disks, we will touch on how the Boot Manager served the early development process and how it still manages to stay one step ahead of the game. We present an inside look at Boot Manager features and how it has evolved into the new Guest Console terminal.

        Salon J: SharkSQL - A New Database for OpenVMS, Kerry Main

      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, Kerry Main, a partner and supporter of the SharkSQL development team, will discuss selected outstanding features of SharkSQL, demonstrate the performance of this new relational database based on benchmark tests as well on a real-world application, and explain the terms and conditions for using SharkSQL.

       Salon H: Introduction to AST Programming, Robert Gezelter

      Asynchronous System Traps (ASTs) are a core concept of OpenVMS. ASTs are available for timers, IO completion, lock management events, and other system services. However, many are not aware of the how to safely use AST-based mechanisms. There are also a surprising number of inaccurate beliefs concerning ASTs. This session will introduce the concepts needed to safely use ASTs in user code. It will discuss how to implement ASTs for timers, IO operations, and other purposes. Familiarity with a standard OpenVMS high-level language will be presumed.


      3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

        Salon G: Taking OpenVMS to the Cloud, Camiel Vanderhoeven

      VSI is working together with Oracle to bring OpenVMS natively to the cloud. In this session we will tell you about our progress in this project.

        Salon I: Getting help from VSI on your Migration, Rafael Martin

        Salon J: Preserving Electronic Evidence on OpenVMS, Robert Gezelter

      Litigation and regulatory matters are a fact of business life, and Electronically Stored Information (ESI), whether electronic messages, system logs, or databases, has become an increasingly important element of many proceedings. Questions concerning authenticity and reliability are often raised long-past actual generation of the information. Proper documentation and preservation require time, but far less time, expense, aggravation, and uncertainty than not having the documentation when it is needed. Discovery contractors are often unfamiliar with OpenVMS. Having reliable, documentable archival information can be the difference between prevailing in a proceeding and expensive settlements and adverse judgements. Attendees will learn the straightforward steps needed to ensure that archival information, including backups, are available and usable when legal process ensues.

       Salon H: Performance and Availability Updates, Keith Parris

      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.

       

      4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

       Salon G: It Shouldn't Happen to a System Manager, Nic Clews

      Just then you thought it was safe to go back into the datacentre, this is an updated version of the talk given back in 2016. It is designed to make people think outside the manuals to things that can affect the availalbility of your servers and service in a light hearted way but with reference to real situations. VMS specifics will be mentioned applicable to all versions. Done in a storytelling format with presentation and additional unexpected events since the initial talk. Even more stuff you cannot make up has happened since the first set of cautionary tales.

       Salon I: OpenVMS - Tips on Bridging the Old with the New, John Spitkovsky

      This presentation is a business-focused session with moderated prompts to allow attendees to share their plans for their OpenVMS environments. Through the power of networking and a close-knit community, the session is intended to extract the collective wisdom of the group and share ideas on how attendees are managing OpenVMS decisions to help their environments thrive now and into the future.

       Salon J: Porting OpenVMS Device Drivers to X86, Dave Fairbanks

      This presentation describes the OpenVMS device driver changes required to port device drivers from Alpha and Itanium to the X86 platform.

      Topics covered include:
          • User buffer mapping
          • Elimination of SVAPTE usage
          • Interrupt modifications

       Salon H: ACMS, Brett Cameron

      ACMS (Application Control and Management System) is a powerful and sophisticated transaction processing monitor software system for OpenVMS that was originally developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1980's and remains popular with many large OpenVMS users to this day, most of whom rely upon it to run their key business-critical applications. Traditional methods of interacting with ACMS-based applications are via green-screen user interfaces (typically TDMS or DECforms), via the ACMS SI API, or using the TPware family of products to facilitate remote access to ACMS applications in a client-server fashion. In this talk Brett will provide a brief overview of ACMS and the work that has been done to successfully port it to OpenVMS x86-64, followed by a demonstration of a simple ACMS application running on OpenVMS x86-64, incorporating a few interesting little features that he thinks you might enjoy.


      7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Dinner & Birds of a Feather Session

       

      Day 2 - October 24th, 2024


      9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

      Salon G: VSI Technical Directions, Camiel Vanderhoeven

       

      10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

       

       Salon G: Connect Modern Frontends seamlessly in real time to OpenVMS RMS, RDB, Oracle and any DBMS via Rest 2.0 API, Jeff Murch

      Our presentation will show how to stay with proven OpenVMS applications and data stores while at the same time providing in demand modern solutions such as real time mobile apps, customer self service portals, BI dashboards and more. We will show how older solutions use inefficient middleware to try to represent RMS data as a relational database. We will show how we use our API natively on Alpha, Itanium and x86 with a very small footprint and minimal system requirements. We will show that our API doesn’t dilute the speed and efficiency of RMS by trying to present results as relational views and how it is much faster and more efficient to return the data to the consumer as a JSON object or array using industry-standard REST protocol. We will show that solutions that try to use a native web server on OpenVMS can be inefficient and create a huge and un-needed load on the system that in turn requires bigger and more expensive hardware and license upgrades. We will have a few introductory power point slides, a live demo showing exactly how the information is extracted from RMS using OpenVMS system calls and returned to the consumer as normal Rest 2.0 JSON arrays. We will cover the advantages of staying with proven fast and efficient OpenVMS apps and data stores rather than trying to migrate to another system. The live demo will show how to configure the API to use current RMS indexing with single, compound and mixed data type keys, file and row locks and data type mapping. We will show search via keys, compound keys, wildcard keys and well as the same for add, update and delete rows.

        Salon I: Automating User Creation, Aubrey Howe

      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.

        Salon J: 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


        Salon H: Mimer SQL database on OpenVMS X86, Bengt Gunne

      This presentation introduces the relational database Mimer SQL. This is the first database ported to the OpenVMS X86 platform. Experiences from the port process will be shared as well as information about the integration with OpenVMS.

       

      11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

       Salon G: The Long Road of Porting VMS, Clair Grant

      This is not meant to be a highly technical presentation, but rather a quick look back at the ports to Alpha, Itanium, and x86 - what stands out about each, good and bad. What was easy, what was hard, what was unexpected? What factors lead to critical decisions? This should be an interactive discussion so come with your own questions and observations and add to the conversation.


        Salon I: Rules based System Monitoring with iAM:Servers (previously RoboMON) on VSI VMS releases, Laurence Fossey

      iAM:Servers (RoboMon) is a rules based monitoring products that allows x86_64, IA64 & Alpha VMS systems to be monitor and for the generation of event & alerts when particular conditions are met such as Processes Missing, Jobs not on Queues, Disk Space running out etc The session will go through the features of iAM:Servers and it's sister product RoboEDA & iAM:Consoles from Itheon Ltd and discuss why it should be 100% rule compatible with RoboMON from Heroix Corporation (and possibly EQ as well).

       Salon J: Quest For Application Performance, Norman Lastovica

      "It's Slow!" - Now What? 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.

       Salon H: Database Security Features, Bengt Gunne

      The presentation is an in-depth presentation of security features in the Mimer SQL database. It covers several aspects of security, such as encryption of communication and data at rest. Also discussed is the security with regards to access privileges and how it can be possible to interact with a trusted execution environment through the database system. The information pertains to both the Mimer SQL Product on Itanium and X86.

       


      12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. - Lunch Break

       

      1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

       Salon G: 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.

       Salon I: Managing Disaster Tolerant OpenVMS Clusters with DTCS, Laurence Fossey

      The Disaster Tolerant Cluster Service (DTCS) was for many years the Digital, Compaq & HP go-to-market method for supporting OpenVMS Disaster Tolerant Clusters. The DTCS service remains supported by team members who have delivered this service and actively support OpenVMS Disaster Tolerant cluster used by clients today. This session will discuss things that you need to be aware of when building such clusters and how DTCS is designed to overcome some of those issues.
      This session will also look at some of the Tooling DTCS uses to support such environments.


       Salon J: Emulation, a Stepping Stone from Alpha to X86, Dan Fleury

      With limited layered products currently available, emulation provides a stepping stone to full use of the X86 platform.

       Salon H: Migrating OpenVMS Storage Environments without Interruption or Disruption, Robert Gezetler

      HP OpenVMS is a 24x7x365 operating system with 99.9999% availability, leading to an incredibly low total cost of ownership (TCO). Its clustering, considered the gold standard by major research firms, allows managers to add or remove processors from the cluster virtually at will, producing cluster uptimes that are often measured in years, not days. The dynamics of adding and removing processors from a cluster is well understood. The ability to rearrange storage components without interrupting a production system is often far less familiar.
      This session will examine how the facilities in HP OpenVMS, including online device configuration, dissimilar device shadowing, and other features, can be used to achieve seamless operation.

       

      2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

       Salon G: How to get the Best Support from VMS, Debbee West

       Salon I: LD: Logical Disks - VMS's Hidden Treasure, Lorin Ricker

      Logical Disks (LD, also known as "virtual disks") are one of VMS's best-kept secrets, certainly a hidden gem with multiple creative uses, even as it's very likely installed on your later-version system as part of the distro-kit. This session focuses on what a Logical Disk actually is how to determine if the LDA0: driver exists on your VMS system or cluster (and how to obtain and install it if it's not) how to create, mount and use one or more LDs on your system, even as a volume shadow set (!) device management, including size expansion and numerous examples of creative uses of these special disks. Session will include all session slides and examples in a Gitlab repo for downloading.


       Salon J: Optimizing Performance with Caches and Buffers, Keith Parris

      OpenVMS systems use caches and buffers of various types at various levels to improve performance. We describe the different types of caches and buffers available on OpenVMS, and ways in which experience has taught us how best to use them.

        Salon H: TCP/IP Network Futures, Michael Zaharee

       
      3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

       Salon G: Compiler Update, John Reagan

       Salon I: OpenVMS for the Next Generation, Zoltan Arpadffy

      The younger generation is not familiar with the VMS technology and environment. VMS is not considered by most architects as a fundamental element on the infrastructure. I have seen during 20+ years while running an open access system, that this was the biggest obstacle for the users coming from other operating systems - that VMS is so very different.
      They do not know how to perform basic operations, like changing a directory or editing a file - as VMS is very different from everything else that is out there. Our Mac, Windows, Linux operating systems prompt, shell share common commands: like "cd" for changing the directory - while VMS uses a radically different command, that is not familiar for most of the users that first time touch the VMS operating system.
      What can we do about it? I would suggest:
          • propagate open access systems like polarhome.com, eisner and others
          • ship GNV with the basic install kit (with optional install)
          • encourage open source product porting
          • make VMS as compatible as possible
          • try to propagate VMS in hybrid - multi OS ecosystems
          • raise awareness of VMS capabilities
          • lock the younger generation with the beauty of the VMS

       Salon J: OpenVMS Shareable Libraries: An Implementor's Guide, Robert Gezelter

      OpenVMS Shareable Libraries: An Implementor's Guide. This session reviews the issues involved in defining and implementing OpenVMS shareable libraries. We discuss interfaces, coding, run-time issues resource consumptions, and debugging. We also discuss how shareable libraries simplify software development efforts. This session also introduces several case studies from the speaker's consulting practice where shareable libraries were used to advantage in developing and implementing applications. None of the techniques discussed in this session require the use of ANY OpenVMS privileges.


       Salon H: 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.

       

      4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

      Salon G: VSI Panel


      7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - VMS Birthday Dinner & Story Contest

      Day 3 - October 25th, 2024

       
      9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

       Salon G: x86 Installing and Configuring ESXi for a VMS Virtual Machine, Robert Brooks

      VMS on X86_64 runs on various hypervisors. This presentation will describe the process of installing and configuring ESXi. VMS-specific virtual machine special attributes that should be used when a VMS virtual machine is created will be discussed as well. If time allows, there will be a brief discussion of fibre channel passthrough.

        Salon I: OpenVMS Backup to Windows, Andrea Arthur

      OpenVMS backup and recovery options using Windows for VAX, ALPHA, and Integrity. How to participate in your enterprise network backup infrastructure via Windows.f

         Salon J: Migrating from HP SSH to VSI OpenSSH, Debbee West

         Salon H: VMS 8.4-2L2 (Alpha) - Optimized, Al Meier

       

      10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
       

        Salon G: Fibre Channel and Virtual Machines, Paul Jacobi

      The presentation covers two different ways to use Fibre Channel on Virtual Machines. Each use case is fully defined along with the advantages and disadvantages.

       Salon I: Thirty-Plus Things not to do on OpenVMS, Marc McGregor

      Everyone occasionally makes a mistake on their operating system. In this presentation we'll explore thirty-plus things that PARSEC has observed system managers doing that can have dramatic effects on the environment being run appropriately. We'll discuss things that are obvious to everyone, like writing over a disk and destroying its contents, as well as lessor known concerns that even an experienced OpenVMS system manager may not be aware can be a problem in the environment.

       Salon J: VMSSPI - Installation, Tips and Tricks, John Seder

      VMSSPI is a robust system monitoring and event notification product.This presentation will consist of an installation walkthrough, as well as exploring configuration customizations and options.

       Salon H: Transforming Legacy CODASYL Databases for Modern Reporting Needs, Bryan Holland

      Imagine your application relies on a CODASYL database from the 1960s, but your development team is fluent only in SQL, Java, ADO.NET, and ORM. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Critical OpenVMS applications like WorkStream™ and MANMAN™ still use Oracle CODASYL DBMS for data storage. While CODASYL DBMS excels in high-performance OLTP tasks, it falls short in meeting today’s dynamic reporting demands. Join us in this session to explore a proven methodology for converting any DBMS database into a relational database and maintaining a “mirror” copy for reporting purposes. By leveraging a relational database mirror, you can harness the full power of modern relational database features: add indexes to support new reporting needs, implement triggers to enhance data integrity and integration, and utilize contemporary development tools and expertise for advanced reporting.

       

      11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

       Salon G: VMS IDE, Darya Zelenina
       Salon I:In a Virtual World, Performance is Always Physical, Robert Gezelter

      Systems have become increasingly virtual. Storage is no exception. Virtualization resolves some issues, but creates new issues. Those acclimated to local hard drives and or early generations of enterprise storage arrays often encounter these differences as unexpected performance anomalies. Present generation mass storage systems now provide multiple tiers: Caches, Solid State Drives, High-performance Hard Drives and Bulk (Archival) Hard Drives, all of which are not visible to the OpenVMS instance. This virtualization is transparent to the OpenVMS systems manager, until it isn't. Attendees will be introduced to the different layers and hazards together with some approaches on addressing the challenges.


       Salon J:  Enterprise storage updates for VMS administrators, Greg Guthman

      Join Greg Guthman of Software Concepts International for a walk through what the past years have given us as it relates to of recent updates for enterprise storage options for in the VSI VMS ecosphere. This session will cover:
          • The Support and optimizations for the more modern host-based adapters of the IA64 I4/I6 servers including the EFI toolset included by VSI
          • The larger menu of VSI VMS supported arrays including the new HPE Alletra and PURE arrays
          • An overview of the large number of storage options available to the virtualized X86 and emulated AXP hosts
          • Business continuity choices and optimizations via multi-site storage and replication
          • File sharing services for VSI VMS via the built in tools of NFS and the current SAMBA offering ported by VSI


       Salon H: Application performance - a Look Under the Hood using Alpha as an Example, Dan Fleury

      Knowing how a language statement is implemented can provide a window into better performance of an application.

      Legend: 

         Business

         System Management

         Programming

      See you there!