linscomb@EMX.UTEXAS.EDU (Thomas J. Linscomb) (07/16/88)
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.