[comp.os.vms] DECUS Spring 1988 Report

linscomb@EMX.UTEXAS.EDU (Thomas J. Linscomb) (07/23/88)

To:       Dr.  C.H.Warlick, W.C.Bard, W.Hays, G.Terrell,
          J.E.Sanders, R.Baker, P.Watson, R.Watson, M.Knox,
          L.Ives, W.Anderson, J.Taylor, S.Vance, S.Kneuper, John
          St.  Georges, J.Lund, J.Coupal

From:     Thomas Linscomb

Subject:  Spring DECUS U.S.  Symposium
          Cincinnati, Ohio, May 15 - 20, 1988

Sessions Attended


DE005 - Security Considerations in Computing Keynote/Panel
LS008 - Large Disk Farm Management on VAX/VMS
N104  - Cryptographic Security for Ethernet
S006  - Time Management for the Data Processing Professional
S060  - Hints and Kinks in Managing a Mixed Mode VAXcluster
U042  - The Ultrix to VMS Bridge - An Implementation
          Discussion
U050  - Using RSM to Manage Ultrix-32 Workstation from a VAX
          Server Running VMS
V017  - HSC Software v3.7
V032  - Single Processor VAX System Performance for Your
          Boss
V035  - VAX System SIG Business Meeting
V042  - VAX System SIG Advanced Software Q & A
V044  - VAX System SIG Software Improvement Requests
V045  - VAX Systems SIG Working Group Chairman's Meeting
V047  - VAX System SIG VAXcluster Working Group Meeting
V065  - VMS version 5.0 Field Test Panel
V093  - Introduction to VAX Assembly Language Programming
V114  - Front-end Processing in Real-time VAX Systems
V135  - When to Tune Your VAX
V153  - A Facility for Queuing Tape Load Requests in a
          VAXcluster
V186  - VMS Update
V187  - Technology Impact on Software Licensing and the Need
          for New Solutions
V188  - Software Business Technologies
V190  - Local Area VAXcluster Performance and Tuning
V191  - VMS Performance Update
V192  - AUTOGEN Feedback
V196  - Digital's New software Business Practices
V209  - How to Use Captive accounts to Let Unprivileged
          Users do Privileged Things
V250  - VAX/VMS System Management Q & A
V901  - Using VMS v5.0 VAXcluster Features
        Board of Directors/Management Council Open Meeting
        Informal Get Together by VMS v5.0 Field Test Sites 
        Anaheim Planning Meeting
------------------------------------------------------------

Synopsis:
     The big announcements for the Cincinnati DECUS Symposium
were the new VAX 6200 processors, VMS version 5 and Digital's new
Software Business Practices.  In addition to these announcements,
as usual, there were a number of technical sessions covering use
of networks, system management and getting the most out of almost
all of the Digital products.
     A number of the sessions focused on the new functionality
and impact of VMS version 5.  Since the Advanced Graphics Lab was
a field test site for this software most of the information was
not new.  However, it was still good to talk to the software
developers and iron out kinks and questions that I had developed
during the field test.  There were two meetings specifically for
the field test sites.  One was a public presentation by the sites
of our reaction to the new software.  The other was a private
meeting with the software developers to get individual feedback
on the software.  The Advanced Graphics Lab has the field test
documentation for VMS v5 for any UT Computation Center person who
has a further interest.  This is not the complete new
documentation set that will ship with v5 but contains most of the
changed information.
     There is one interesting note on the release of VMS version
5.  Although the software was released to the distribution
center, I suspect that it will still have a long lead time until
it is publicly available.  One problem is the sheer mass of new
documentation that has to be produced and the other is that the
product was announced long before all the minor problems were
fixed.  My guess as to when it will arrive from the distribution
center is about August.  I also suspect that it will come with a
mandatory update and a maintenance release (v5.1?).
     A special "Keynote Security Panel" spoke on the the industry
need to focus on computer security and the speaker's individual
perspectives.  The participants included Jim Burrows, Director of
the Institue of Computer Science and Technology, National Bureau
of Standards; Harvey Weiss, VP, Goverment Systems Group, Digital;
Pat Gallagher, Director, National Computer Security Center,
National Security Agency; and Randalph Sanovic, Computer
Security, Mobil.  Far and away the most interesting remark was
the admonition by Mr Weiss of Digital of the goverments selection
of ATT System V compliance as a purchasing standard.  It appears
that Digital (and probably Mr Weiss in particular) is still
incensed over having to withdraw Digital's bid for one of the
largest computer contacts in history.
     Attached are some of the notes that I took during the
sessions at DECUS.  Computation Center staff can contact me for
further details.

------------------------------------------------------------

V186  - VMS Update

Mixed Interconnect Cluster - Phase II
  42 nodes total, up to 16 CI nodes, up to 26 NI nodes
  reducted transition times

Support mount verification of tapes

VAXcluster licensing -
  grandfathered CI licensing
  licenses will be included in new System Building Blocks

Dump file enhancements (DUMPSTYLE)

Increased Working Set limit  (100000 limit in SPD, no VMS limit)

Modular Executive

System Management
  License Managment Facility (LMF)
  SYSMAN

Paper Keys
  DECnet, Shadowing, RMS, Journaling, VAXcluster

No more MicroVMS
  there will still be user licensing
  RX33 distributions
  RX50 is still available (but not in H-kit orders)

Rolling upgrade

RECALL/ERASE

Printer queues
  Stock type jobs grouped

DECnet VAX
  multiple proxies
  cost splitting of paths
  command recall in NCP
  DEQNA - this hardware is to be phased out (1+ years)
    driver will ship as unsupported
    DELQA is replacement

------------------------------------------------------------
V114  - Front-end Processing in Real-time VAX Systems

VAX Front end processing
  KA800 - front end processor
  VRTA$ - VMS call to communicate with VAX ELN
    (also DCL commands (REALTIME ...))

Set physicalpages to less than real number of pages, can then map
  extra pages

------------------------------------------------------------
U050  - Using RSM to Manage Ultrix-32 Workstation from a VAX Server
          Running VMS

Remote System Management and Ultrix-32 Workstations
  VMS versions 4.4 - 4.7

RSM - available for Ultrix 2.2 (client only)
  Installation of operationg system and applications
  Ultrix backups

Trial installation (using VMSINSTAL or setld)
  only Local Area Network
  for VAXstations and MicroVAXs

Management, BACKUP, Operating System Server

RSM went to the Software Distribution System on April 7

Note:  Jan Thompson says that version 2.2 is due here real soon now.  We
  have just gotten the binary licenses signed.  These are something we
  never got before for this specific product and was why we didn't get
  RSM when it was released.

------------------------------------------------------------
V192 - AUTOGEN Feedback

Feedback replaces using OLDSITE%.DAT

Designed to increase paramaters quickly and to decrease them
slowly.

provides adjustment to approximately 16 system paramaters including
  MAXPROCESSCNT, GBLPAGES, GBLSECTSIONS, NPAGEDYN, PAGEDYN,
  IRPs, SRPs, (does not include LRPs), ACP{DIR, DINDX, HDR, MRP}_CACHE,
  MSCP_BUFFER, LOCKIDTBL, pagefile size, swapfile size,

"Current" values are when snapshot is taken.  This should be when the
  system is under load

Digital suggests using two passes-
     @autogen savparams testfiles feedback
     @autogen genparams reboot feedback

------------------------------------------------------------
V017  - HSC Software v3.7

Provides an HSC performance improvement of up to 64%
                  HSC50  HSC70 
     Version 3.50  375    700 
     Version 3.70  550   1150 I/O requests per second

Provides faster disk drive failover
  by reducing the time required from 48 seconds to 4 seconds
  This reduces total time from 63 to 18 seconds

Adds support for VAXsimPLUS
  By using VAXsimPLUS and VMS Shadowing it is necessary to have only a
  single replacement disk available to replace any failing disk.

Corrects several known problems
  Including correction of the "GCS (Get command Status) problem"

An interesting note-
  The lowest requestor number (K.sdi) has higher priority for
  simultanous I/Os

------------------------------------------------------------
V190  - Local Area VAXcluster Performance and Tuning

Performance is limited by throughput of disk(s), disk controller,
     CPU and Ethernet adapter


Disk      IOs / second  (using 4 block transfers)
RA70/82    30
RA81      25
RD53/54/RA60 20

Controllers
UDA-50, KDA-50, KDB-50  These will never be a limitation
RQDX3      45

Ethernet Adapters
DEUNA      45
DELUA      100
DEBNA      115  (under VMS v4.6)
DEQNA/DELQA 120

For the following configurations the limiting resource in the
configuration is shown as the first item on the line-

MicroVAX-II / RAxx
RQDX3 / MVII
ST506 disk controler / MV2000
2 * RA70 / 3500
NI / 4 * RAxx / 360x

The effect of the boot node on the satellites performance is low
until the load on the boot node is high.

To improve performance -
  Move files off the system disk:
     SYSUAF, JBCSYSQUEUE, VMSMAIL, RIGHTSLIST, NETUAF, NETNODE_REMOTE

  Install files /OPEN/HEADER

  Use SHOW DEVICE/SERV/ALL to adjust the SYSGEN paramater MSCP_BUFFER
    (This paramater is one of the parameters adjusted in VMS v5 when
    using AUTOGEN FEEDBACK.)

------------------------------------------------------------
V901 - Using VMS v5.0 VAXcluster Features

This was actually a meeting with the VMS VAXcluster developers to
allow feedback to them.  There were a number of ideas developed,
one of which was that there needs to be a method to determine the
amount of Ethernet bandwidth utilization by a VAXcluster on an
Ethernet.

Again there was a call for an automatic method to load balance disks
that are connected to HSC disk servers.

------------------------------------------------------------
V188  - Software Business Technologies

This session primarily covered the CDROM, the license Mananagement
Facility (LMF) and its component parts.

Some interesting notes on CDROMs -
  It cost about $3000 to master a CDROM.  This cost should come down
    to $1500 and the disk will be available in one week
  The current Digital CDROM holds 600 Megabytes
  The seek time on the disk is between 1 and 3 seconds. Throughput is
    about 150 KB/s.
  The CDROM players can only be connected the MicroVAX q-busses, but
  can be mounted clusterwide like most other disk drives.  (The CDROM
  player can also be configured into other non-VAX hardware.)

------------------------------------------------------------
S006 - Time Management for the Data Processing Professional

Track information and commitments

Magazines - must schedule time to read

The benefit of planning is not the plan, its the planning.

Meetings - What, when (start and STOP!), and should respect time

Activity list/sheets -
  when:, amount of time:, priority: A or B
  if items continue to slip then dump
  only handle an item once

Keep a record of each contact  - This will refresh your memory before each
  new meeting

------------------------------------------------------------
V065 - VMS version 5.0 Field Test Panel

I sat on this panel since I headed up the field test of VMS version 5 at
the AGL.

The participants were asked to name the best feature and worst problem
of the new release of VMS.  The best new feature was the mixed interconnect
cluster functionality.  The worst problem that UT Austin experienced was
the ACCOUNTING utility ignoring the /TYPE qualifier and not processing
local USER records for three months.  Also named as a problem were getting
layered products, both from third parties and Digital that worked under
the new operating system.  This is partially due strictly to being a 
field test site, but is none the less something other sites should consider
when thinking about field testing software.

Over all this session was pretty glowing, with very few negative comments
about the V5 release.

------------------------------------------------------------
V209  - How to Use Captive accounts to Let Unprivileged Users do Privileged
          Things

Make the version number on the LOGIN.COM file 32767.  This will not allow
  a higher version of the file to be created.

In the Authorization file, set the process limit to one (/PRCLM=1).

Use READ/TIME_OUT=255 to insure the captive procedures are not left
  logged in.

------------------------------------------------------------
U042  - The Ultrix to VMS Bridge - An Implementation Discussion

Network File Server (NFS) software for VMS

provides Arpa/Internet end node implementation on ethernet

Currently (May 1988) in field test.

IN: IP ICMP ARP UDP TCP FTP
OUT: RJP EGP SMTP TELNET

Uses QIO interface, VAXC to provide socket interface
The entire software is implemented as a driver and ACP

The project goals -
  data sharing between NFS and VMS
  provide NFS clients with same file serving as any Unixed based server

The following were not goals -
  NFS client support for VAX/VMS
  support for data conversion for non-stream files
  no yellow pages (YP)
  no lock manager (LM)
  no status manager (SM)

The system supports two different file system models, the VMS file system
or a Unix file system.

VMS file system -
  Provide NFS client with access to RMS Stream LF (VMS) files
    - file subject to VAX/VMS file system rules
    - client limited by NFS proto. file system model

Unix file system -
  100 % compatable with Unix file system
  built using container file system  (Bridge File System - BFS)
  cluster wide failover provides static load balancing
  NFS user is mapped to VMS username/account implementing protection
  everything (!) is asynchronous - there are wait, process, cache queues
  does not use RMS and is seperately tunable with its own caches
  the Bridge File System is not described to users

i-node == VMS file id == VMS file name
  An import/export tool is used to move file in and out of the containers

Slower throughput in containers
  name translation and duplicate caches (to RMS)

There is a analysis program to clean up containers.  This is necessary
if files have been changed, restored from BACKUP or been manually moved.