CHAPTER VAX PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Editor's Workfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-3 INPUT/OUTPUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAX-4 Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products . . . . VAX-24 Tape Management System Needs . . . . . . . . . VAX-28 VAX System SIG Committee List . . . . . . . . VAX-46 Forms at the End INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form . . . . . . . . . VAX-50 System Improvement Request Submission Form . . VAX-52 Non-DEC VMS Product Registration Form . . . . VAX-54 VAX Tape Drive Questionaire . . . . . . . . . VAX-56 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 General material for publication in the Pageswapper should be sent (US mail only -- no "express" services please) to: Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 USA Preference is given to material submitted as machine-readable text (best is Runoff source). Line length should not exceed 64 characters and the number of text lines per page should not exceed 48 (these limits are particularly important for sample commands, etc. where simple text justification will not produce a meaningful result). Please do not submit program source, as that is better distributed on the VAX SIG tape. Please do not submit "slides" from DECUS Symposia presentations (or other meetings) as they are generally a very incomplete treatment for those readers of the Pageswapper who are not so fortunate as to be able to travel to Symposia. Please DO write articles based on such slides to get the content across to a wider audience than is able to attend. For information about on-line submission to the Pageswapper dial: (617) 262-6830 (in the United States) using a 1200 baud modem and log in with the username PAGESWAPPER. Change of address, reports of non-receipt, and other circulation correspondence should be sent to: DECUS U.S. Chapter Attention: Publications Department 249 Northboro Road (BPO2) Marlborough, MA 01752 USA Only if discrepancies of the mailing system are reported can they be analyzed and corrected. VAX-2 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Editor's Workfile Editor's Workfile by Larry Kilgallen, Pageswapper Editor Software Facility Registration - is certainly a idea whose time has come. Apparently the reception from the user community has been underwhelming, perhaps because the "Developer's Guide to VMSINSTAL" is somewhat hard to come by (I have had one on order for several months). So this month you will find a description in the Pageswapper and the relevant form at the back of the combined newsletters to apply for registration. At any rate, the SQM people at DEC have been really helpful in setting up registrations, and the consistancy across software from various sources, DEC, 3rd parties and even DECUS tapes should be of great assistance. If you haven't considered what a lack of coordination could do, check out Notes 532.* in the Input/Output section this month. Perhaps the most appealing thing about this registration program is that it is entirely divorced from marketing. The goal is a technical one, letting software from various sources co-exist under VMS without conflict. The solution is straightforward, and DEC's SQM group had the good sense not to take on more than they could handle. I asked about some other items (beyond those covered by the article and signup form in this issue) and the response was that since various technical problems prevented effective action on those items, they were not attempting to include those items in the process. Most important, I think, is they were not waiting until every last nit was ironed out before moving forward in the areas where coordination COULD be accomplished. Speaking of not waiting for total solutions - Dave Schmidt has done an admirable job of cataloging a number of tape library issues for all of us. While I would like to see DEC (or others) offer general solutions in this area, I think the most important thing is to provide the VMS hooks in tape handling (including backup) to allow sites to implement their own in the meantime. Even if one wants to spend a lot of money implementing site-specific software to implement a labeled tape shop, it can't be done properly today without modifying VMS!!! VAX-3 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT INPUT/OUTPUT A SIG Information Interchange A form for INPUT/OUTPUT submissions is available at the back of the issue. For information about on-line submission to the Pageswapper dial: (617) 262-6830 (in the United States) using a 1200 baud modem and log in with the username PAGESWAPPER. ================================================================ Note 331.1 Listing of n Largest Files on a Files-11 Device 1 of "Jamie Hanrahan" 9 lines 8-SEP-1986 12:47 -< Use DIRECTORY and SORT >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Why not do a DIRECTORY/NOHEAD/NOTRAIL/SIZE into a disk file, then SORT the resulting file into descending order using the columns where the file size appears as your key field, then print the first 'n' records of the sorted file? A special-purpose program is unlikely to be significantly faster than the directory utility. Besides, you've ALREADY GOT the directory utility. Use what you have! The only likely glitch is that DIRECTORY may emit two lines per file if the file names are long; this could be cleaned up with a VAX-4 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT filter program before you sort. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 331.2 Listing of n Largest Files on a Files-11 Device 2 of "Bruce Bowler" 3 lines 8-SEP-1986 14:06 -< SIG tape, V4.x DIR >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I seem to recall a program on a SIG tape not to long ago called bigfiles (or something similar). It worked well. Also in 4.x you can tell DIR to select based on file size, see DCL manual for syntax. Bruce Bowler General Electric 1 River Road Bldg 2 Room 609 Schenectady, NY 12345 ================================================================ Note 331.3 Listing of n Largest Files on a Files-11 Device 3 of "James B. Fischer" 5 lines 24-SEP-1986 08:49 -< HELP with DIR output >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sorting the DIRECTORY output is the way to go. To avoid the possible multiple line output from DIRECTORY (for file names that are long) use the /WIDTH=FILENAME:number to specify larger fields for files. (i.e. type $ HELP DIRECTORY /WIDTH for more ...) James B. Fischer MIVAXLUG Chair EDS / Plant Support P.O. Box 7019 Troy, Michigan 48007-7019 (313) 524-8887 VAX-5 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 387.1 Disk Usage by Directory Tree 1 of 1 "Jamie Hanrahan" 5 lines 8-SEP-1986 13:02 -< not elegant, but it works >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I did this with a command procedure. It uses f$search to find the name of each .DIR file in [000000], then plugs this name into DIR [name'...]/SIZE/GRAND_TOTAL. Hokey, but fast enough for our purposes, even on a full RA81. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 477.2 Using incoming modems as outgoing modems 2 of 3 "Offline Submission" 13 lines 9-SEP-1986 23:45 -< Another Incoming/Outgoing Modem Security Hazard >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- The DZ11 terminal driver, also used for Emulex DH/DM emulators, does not insist upon seeing DCD and DSR before transmitting. It reacts only to CHANGES in DCD, i.e., if DCD goes from ON to OFF, it will hang up the phone. Michael Laboley VAX Systems Manager General Research Corporation 5383 Hollister Avenue Santa Barbara 93111 Telephone (805) 964-7724 x271 September 2, 1986 VAX-6 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 477.3 Using incoming modems as outgoing modems 3 of 3 "Offline Submission" 54 lines 23-SEP-1986 10:29 -< Incoming/Outgoing Modems >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- To review the problem described in I/O 477.1, a port used for an incoming modem must be defined as /MODEM. This causes VMS to stop the active process when it detects the drop in CD/DSR when the line is disconnected. If the drop in CD/DSR was not detected, the next user dialing into the same line would get into the previous user's active process. However, VMS insists on seeing CD/DSR before it will send any output to the modem. Therefore, because CD/DSR is usually not raised until a call has been connected, you cannot send a dialing string to an autodial modem unless you set CD/DSR high on the modem. But, since VMS will no longer see CD/DSR drop, this defeats the ability of VMS to detect a line disconnect. Although our modems are connected to a data switch (so they can be shared), the way it handles the CD/DSR control signals is similar. We solved the problem by purchasing modems with the capability to drop CD/DSR/CTS for only a few seconds when the line disconnects. After trial testing various 2400 bps modems, we decided to purchase Microcom AX2400C modems because of the options for handling CD/DTR/CTS, error correction, data compression, speed conversion, and the fact that all of the native mode commands were supported in the Hayes-type AT command set. However, there is one catch: once the Microcom modems see someone dial out at 1200 bps, they assume there is a terminal connected at 1200 bps and anyone dialing in gets a 1200 bps connection instead of a 2400 bps one, even after a software reset. You must either dial out at 2400 bps or higher or press the reset button on the back of the modem before incoming calls will get connected at 2400 bps again. We solved this by switching requests for dialing out at 1200 bps to Hayes 1200 bps modems. With the data switch, this can be done automatically. With VMS, you should set the port speed to 2400 bps with "SET TERM /PERM /SPEED=2400 /NOAUTOBAUD". VAX-7 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT When users access the modem with "SET HOST /DTE termid", VMS will convert the speed to 2400 bps. On incoming calls, the modem can convert a 1200 bps call to the 2400 bps needed for the port. Robert G. Simpson Dravo Corporation, 300-12 One Oliver Plaza, 16th floor Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Telephone: (412) 566-5325 September 16, 1986 ================================================================ Note 483.1 Dialing out on the VAX using a DF112 Modem 1 of 1 "James R. Ostrosky" 9 lines 20-SEP-1986 12:34 -< DF112 DIAL OUT >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Are you using a DMF-32? A note in the release notes for V4.4 indicates that the response from the DF112 modem is ignored by the DMF-32 until it sees carrier detect. Workaround was to ignore response from modem and poll (using IO$SENSEMODE!IO$M_RD_MODEM) for CD. I wrote autodialer in Fortran-77 using this with great success. James R. Ostrosky 3910 OLD WM PENN HWY PITTSBURGH, PA 15235 ================================================================ Note 485.1 Executing a CLI command from within a program 1 of 1 "Jamie Hanrahan" 11 lines 8-SEP-1986 13:36 -< not that easy >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- The problem is that the ^C - DCL command - CONTINUE sequence only works if the DCL command does not invoke an image. If you invoke an image after typing ^C, your previous image will be run down, and CONTINUE won't work. VAX-8 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT The system service SYS$SETDDIR (system services book p. 446.3 lets you change the default directory string of your process. To change the default device, just redefine the logical name SYS$DISK. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 501.2 RK05 driver neede for VAX750 (VMS V4.3) 2 of 2 "Offline Submission" 12 lines 23-SEP-1986 10:30 -< RK05 Device Driver >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I am running VMS V4.2 on a VAX 11/750 with dual RK05s. I have a driver, formatter, and some diagnostic tools. Michael N. Levine Naval Weapons Center Code 3514 China Lake, CA 93555 Telephone: (609) 939-2465 September 15, 1986 ================================================================ Note 502.2 SET HOST/DTE on RACAL/VADIC 3451-PA 2 of 2 "RICHARD WISEMAN" 13 lines 5-SEP-1986 17:02 -< AUTODIAL PROG FOR RACAL/VADIC 3451 >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I have modified the program vaxdial the is supplied on the decus tapes. to work with a racal/vidic 3451 autodial. it has been working with vms 4.0 thru 4.4 . if you need a copy please call. RICHARD WISEMAN STORAGE TECHNOLOGY CORP 2270 SOUTH 88TH STREET MAIL STOP G4 LOUISVILLE C0 80233-0001 VAX-9 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 503.1 File Transfer to IBM 1 of 1 "RICHARD WISEMAN" 12 lines 5-SEP-1986 17:23 -< VAX TO IBM FILE TRANSFER >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- HAVE YOU LOOKED AT DEC'S 2780/3780 PROTOCOL EMULATOR... IT WILL TRANSFER FILES TO AND FROM IBM MAINFRAMES USING THE BISYNC PROTOCOL.. WE CURRENTLY ARE USING IT WITH GOOD SUCESS. RICHARD WISEMAN STORAGE TECHNOLOGY CORP 2270 SOUTH 88TH STREET MAIL STOP G4 LOUISVILLE C0 80233-0001 ================================================================ Note 506.2 Printer on DMF Printer Port 2 of 2 "Offline Submission" 44 lines 9-SEP-1986 23:50 -< DMF-32 Line Printer Port >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I have successfully built my own cables and have attached Dataproducts printers to the line printer ports. The problem is that the cable diagram in the DMF Manual is wrong. Use the following diagram and everything will work. Try to stay within a 50 foot limit. Printer end DMF-32 end Description 19 26 Data 1 3 30 Ret 20 20 Data 2 4 34 Ret 1 22 Data 1 2 28 Ret 41 1 Data 4 40 33 Ret 34 24 Data 5 18 35 Ret 43 23 Data 6 42 34 Ret 36 5 Data 7 35 30 Ret 30 6 Data 8 VAX-10 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT 14 28 Ret 38 8 Strobe 37 35 Ret 46 14 Conn Vfy L 45 32 Ret 21 12 On Line High 5 32 Ret 23 18 Demand 7 33 Ret 26 17 DAVFU 10 31 Ret Shell Shell ground Bill Swisher Clermont College 725 College Drive Batavia, OH 45103 Telephone: 513-732-2990 September 4, 1986 ================================================================ Note 525.0 DHV Problems 2 replies "James Littlefield" 6 lines 29-AUG-1986 14:50 ---------------------------------------------------------------- I have been having trouble getting a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 to answer correctly when attached to a DHV on a MicroVAX. It works fine on a 750 attached to a DMF port, but answers and immediately hangs up on the MicroVAX. Both ports are configured the same. The interesting thing is that it WILL work if I set the port for SECURE_SERVER. All this is happening under VMS V4.3. James Littlefield 170 Aquidneck Ave Middletown, RI 02840 (401) 849-8440 VAX-11 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 525.1 DHV Problems 1 of 2 "Larry Kilgallen" 12 lines 30-AUG-1986 08:17 -< I have a site where Hayes works fine on DHV >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I will try to remember to transfer a listing of the terminal settings from that machine to here. This site, in fact, prefers the Hayes to a Vadic because it works BETTER for incoming. One question would be which ports of the DMF on the 750 work. Ports 0 and 1 are more like the DHV ports in that they offer modem control. If it is ports 2 - 7 on which it works but not 0 and 1, making it work on 0 and 1 (and the DHV) would require a change in your cable connections. Larry Kilgallen Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 ================================================================ Note 525.2 DHV Problems 2 of 2 "James Littlefield" 2 lines 16-SEP-1986 11:37 -< DHV response >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- No, I was using it on Ports 0 and 1. It's really strange that it only answers with SECURE_SERVER turned on. James Littlefield 170 Aquidneck Ave Middletown, RI 02840 (401) 849-8440 VAX-12 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 526.0 "Learn Mode" for ALL-IN-1 V2.x UDPs No replies "Alan D. Hull - Digital Equipment" 82 lines 1-SEP-1986 10:09 ---------------------------------------------------------------- -< Code for Learn Mode UDP >- **************************************************************** Here's a learn mode for UDP's that I hacked out at the A1 prog class last December. Extract form DEFAULT from MEMRES into a copy called MYDEFAULT in your USER flb. Add the following two key definitions to the named data for MYDEFAULT: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ;;.GOLD !;; oa$tra_set input, log\DISPLAY Beginning to log all keystrokes... ;;.GOLD @;; oa$tra_set off, log\display Logging of keystrokes has stopped...\force \FORM UDPENT\IFEXIT\DISPLAY Creating new UDP . . .\FORCE \GET #UDPFILE="[.UDP]" $CURUDP ".UDP"\RENAME "A1TRACE.LOG" #UDPFILE \script clean_udp\EDIT #UDPFILE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here's the clean_udp.scp - all it does is go back into the captured keystrokes file and strip off the bottom line, which is always the GOLD @ used to turn off the learn mode. !*************************************************************** ! clean_udp.scp ! written by Alan D. Hull 12-6-85 .IF OA$DEFAULT_EDITOR EQS 'EDT' THEN .GOTO edt_style .IF OA$DEFAULT_EDITOR:3 EQS 'WPS' THEN .GOTO WPS_STYLE .GOTO BAD_EDITOR ..label WPS_STYLE {GOLD B} {GOLD DEL} {GOLD F} .goto common_exit VAX-13 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ..label EDT_STYLE {GOLD B} {UP} {PF4} {GOLD F} .goto common_exit ..label BAD_EDITOR .function Display Unknown editor type. Edit UDP & remove last line manually.\force ..label common_exit .EXIT !*************************************************************** Remember to do a - ---------------------------------------------------------------- We have used the DEC supplied xadriver for the microvax with a drv11-wa revision c etch e level board and it has worked successfully. I wasn't sure if this was the same level board that you were referring to. It is not officially supported by the DEC driver, and I've already talked to some VMS people about that. We are doing both io reads and writes, but maybe not exactly what you're doing. If you want to talk about it some more, you can give me a call. WENDY KOENIG 80 Blanchard St. Burlington, Mass 01803 VAX-15 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 528.0 How does NODRIVER Flow Control 1 reply "Jack Patteeuw" 16 lines 9-SEP-1986 07:58 ---------------------------------------------------------------- I am attempting to use Dynamic Asynchronous DECNET across a SYTEK broadband Local Area Network. The SYTEK modem have exactly the same electrical interface as a Bell 212 (standard RS-232C; DSR-DTR, RTS-CTS, DCD and RI) and operator in full-duplex mode. The only unusal thing about the modems is that they want to do "Flow Control". They have a choice between hardware (RTS-CTS) and software (any two characters, usually ^Q and ^S). This works quite well with TTDRIVER. All DEC Asnyc Muxes (DZ11, DHU11, etc) require some kind of flow control (that's what the terminal attribute TTSYNC and HOSTSYNC mean) and use the ASCII XON/XOFF (^Q/^S). The question is, "How does NODRIVER (the driver for async DECNET) do Flow Control ?" Jack Patteeuw Ford Motor Co. Electrical and Electronics Division 31630 Wyoming Livonia, MI 48150 313-323-8643 ================================================================ Note 528.1 How does NODRIVER Flow Control 1 of 1 "Jamie Hanrahan" 36 lines 9-SEP-1986 12:37 -< Use RTS/CTS >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- You can't use XON/XOFF because those characters might well appear in a DDCMP packet as data or as part of the packet header. For this reason, the terminal drivers treat the XON and XOFF characters (and every other character, except at the very beginning of DDCMP packets) as ordinary data. VAX-16 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT RTS/CTS should work, though. Tell NCP that your async dynamic DDCMP lines are to run in half-duplex mode (SET LINE TX-c-u DUPLEX HALF). If I'm not mistaken, this will cause NODRIVER to raise the RTS line whenever it wants to transmit, and wait for the CTS line to go 'true' before proceeding to transmit. If this is what your modems use RTS and CTS for, you're in! (BTW... it's not the terminal muxes that require flow control. Flow control is made necessary by the uncoordinated nature of serial communications, whether sync or async. In the typical DEC interactive terminal environment, the problem is that you can't guarantee that the host has a 'read' pending when you start typing; so the host is programmed to send an 'xoff' when its typeahead buffer gets too full. In DDCMP, on the other hand, each end is just expected to always have a read pending (into an internal system buffer), whether anyone in the machine really wants the data yet or not. If the internal system buffers are overrun, the excess incoming packets are just dropped on the floor and NAKd, and the sender resends them until they get through. It sounds ugly, but it avoids all of the "reserved characters" that pervade the terminal environment. The RTS/CTS flow control is necessary on half-duplex links, not because the receiving system isn't reading all the time (though it might not be), but because (in effect) the modem at the sender's end isn't reading all the time. So the sender raises request-to-send and waits for the modem to raise clear-to-send before sending. I know your Sytek LAN isn't half-duplex, but it sounds as if it looks sufficiently like a half-duplex modem to be used in this way. Good luck.... Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 VAX-17 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 529.0 WPS+ Printer tables 2 replies "Jack Patteeuw" 2 lines 9-SEP-1986 08:47 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Now that ALLIN1 V2.1 is out, has anybody figured out printer table s for HP LaserJet's ? How about XEROX 2700's ? Jack Patteeuw Ford Motor Co. Electrical and Electronics Division 31630 Wyoming Livonia, MI 48150 313-323-8643 ================================================================ Note 529.1 WPS+ Printer tables 1 of 2 "Bob Hassinger" 17 lines 9-SEP-1986 09:09 -< Other printers, input request for OA SIG >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Also how about things like the Qume. We have a Diablo D80IF and need a printer table for it to use with WPS-PLUS. The book for it does not realy say but I have the impression it looks like a more or less industry standard - a "630". How about the Apple Laserwritter? I am working with the OA SIG to try to get information like this into their Newsletter, onto Symposium tapes and into the DECUS Program Library so if you have any information in this area please let me know. Bob Hassinger Liberty Mutual Research Center 71 Frankland Road Hopkinton, MA 01748 617-435-9061 VAX-18 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 530.0 Remote Print Symbiont wanted 2 replies "Jamie Hanrahan" 9 lines 12-SEP-1986 13:49 ---------------------------------------------------------------- In the NOTES discussions that were reprinted from the Spring DECUS symposium there was some discussion of the right way to implement remote printing over DECnet. A few people were mentioned who had implemented a user-modified print symbiont that connected to a queue on another DECnet node; the software was in the public domain but names and addresses were not given. I was looking at doing something like this (in my copious free time) until I saw these notes. Can anyone provide pointers to the people involved? Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 530.1 Remote Print Symbiont wanted 1 of 2 "Jack Patteeuw" 18 lines 18-SEP-1986 08:40 -< DEC Remote Print Symbiont >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEC now supports some kind of print symbiont/queing mechanism for printing on remote printer. I can say this because of a new product they just introduced. The PrintServer 40 (LNV11 I think) is a medium speed (40 pages/min.) laser graphics (uses Adobe's Postscript page formatting language) printer that sit on the Ethernet. Therfore it looks like any other node to all the rest of the network. Each VAX which wishes to queue print requests to the PrintServer must run PrintServer "Client" software which handles requests for the "remote device". The "Client" software license is packaged with the hardware and includes "rights-to- copy". Now if we all in DECUS could pressure DEC into making this remote print symbiont standard to VMS ... VAX-19 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT P.S. If your sales rep doesn't know anything about the PrintServer 40 (do they ever know anything ...) tell him to read his "Sales Update"/Vol. 18 No.5 pages 1-10. Jack Patteeuw Ford Motor Co. Electrical and Electronics Division 31630 Wyoming Livonia, MI 48150 313-323-8643 ================================================================ Note 530.2 Remote Print Symbiont wanted 2 of 2 "Jamie Hanrahan" 3 lines 18-SEP-1986 12:25 -< that's interesting, but... >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- That really doesn't solve my problem. It sounds to me as if this will only work on this funny device, not on an ordinary printer on an ordinary VAX. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 531.0 DMV11 on uVAX install help? 1 reply "Bernard Klatt" 22 lines 15-SEP-1986 18:19 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Has anyone successfully installed a DMV11 (DDCMP sync line interface) on a MicroVAX II and has it working with DECnet? The DMV11-M is a M8053 and uses the CK-DMV11-AB for RS-232 interface. I'm trying to install a 4800 baud point-to-point link between the MicroVAX and a PDP 11/44 using a DUP11. After running NETCONFIG.COM it shows up as device XDA0: online. NCP shows line DMP-0 state is ON, shows circuit DMP-0 state ON - starting. EIA break-out box shows no activty, modem control lines look OK. The $SHO ERR command shows that there are errors associated with XDA0: but no error messages are displayed and there are no errors logged in ERRLOG.SYS. Running the stand-alone 'field service' functional test and performance exerciser diagnostic with the H3254/H3255 test connectors VAX-20 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT installed shows DMV11A - Error Number 1502 .. Incorrect inital modem status. Would any of the E101 switch settings affect this? The info on page 3-17 of the MicroVAX Tech Manual doesn't really specify what the switch settings SHOULD be. The DMV11 User's Guide only discusses installation on a PDP11, no mention of installing it on a MicroVAX. Bernard Klatt Microtronix 1556 Halford Ave #184 Santa Clara ca 95051 408 991-5149 ================================================================ Note 531.1 DMV11 on uVAX install help? 1 of 1 "Jamie Hanrahan" 18 lines 16-SEP-1986 17:17 -< Check switches on dist. panel >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- We have used a DMV11 successfully in point-to-point mode on a uV2, both under DECnet and with direct $QIO access to DDCMP. A phone conversation with Mr. Klatt revealed that he did not have a copy of the DEC manual describing the new RS232 distribution panel being shipped with DMV11s, and that some of the switches on his panel were set wrong. This is not his fault, as DEC does not to my knowledge supply the correct information with the DMV! In particular, Table 2-8 in each of the following manuals is NOT applicable: EK-DMV11-UG-001, DMV11 Sync Ctlr User's Guide (1981) EK-DMVQM-UG-001, QMA DMV11 Sync Ctlr User's Guide (1984) EK-DMVQM-UG-001, QMA DMV11 Sync Ctlr Tech Manual (1984) The right place to look is in Volume 2 of the "Communications Options Minireference Manual" (EK-CMIV2-RM-002), page DMV11-24. It indicates that S1, S2, S3, S5, S6, S9, S15, S16, and S20 should be off and all others on for normal operation. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 VAX-21 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT ================================================================ Note 532.0 Warning - BSO/DECnet problem 2 replies "Dave Close" 10 lines 19-SEP-1986 12:49 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Software vendor Boston Systems Office supplies us with cross-assemblers for several microprocessors which run on the VAX. Their latest update specifies that, after installation of the new versions, two system logical names should be defined in the SYSTARTUP file. One of these names is "RT". Defining this name prevents REMACP from starting and instead results in a system crash, fatal bugcheck, code NOTIRPAQB. The problem may be easily reproduced by defining RT, then running @STARTNET. The work-around, of course, is not to define the logical name RT. Dave Close Anadex/Printronix 1080 Avenida Acaso Camarillo, CA 93010 805/987-9660 ================================================================ Note 532.1 Warning - BSO/DECnet problem 1 of 2 "Jamie Hanrahan" 18 lines 19-SEP-1986 17:27 -< have you tried... >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- What happens if you define the name RT *after* the STARTNET procedure completes? This might really screw up incoming remote terminal connections. Or it might not. If defining the name later doesn't help, maybe it would be sufficient to define it in the LOGIN.COMs of those users who will be using the package. The LOGIN.COM could look at the translation of the SYS$COMMAND logical name and, if it contained the string "RT", could refuse to define the RT logical. Finally, please send the cretins who wrote the package a sternly worded letter. *ALL* non-DEC defined logical names should be of the form facility_name; the imbedded underscore will ensure no collisions with DEC-defined logicals. VAX-22 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT Grr. VMS supplies perfectly good mechanisms for keeping user-defined stuff out of the way of DEC-defined stuff. There's just no excuse for this sort of thing. Jamie Hanrahan Simpact Associates c/o PO Box 261687 San Diego, CA 92126 619-565-1865 ================================================================ Note 532.2 Warning - BSO/DECnet problem 2 of 2 "Larry Kilgallen" 17 lines 20-SEP-1986 00:14 -< Unfortunately there are many sloppy vendors >- ---------------------------------------------------------------- This sort of lazy attitude about fitting into the VMS environment is unfortunately all too common. Software AG has managed to hit the jackpot by telling users to set up a queue name with a dollar sign in it (reserved to DEC) which actually conflicted with a queue name set up for a DEC layered product. Access Technology recently sent out a new release of their spreadsheet with a long list of logical names containing dollar signs which had NOT been there in previous successful releases. My own reading of the situation is that the vendors most likely to make such mistakes are those who sell "portable" software for a variety of machines, and how well it fits the VMS environment is just a small concern (if at all) of one person in their organization. Larry Kilgallen Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 * * VAX-23 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products DIGITAL VMS Product Registrar SQM/System Quality Group The VAX/VMS Registrar service has been put in place beginning with VMS V4.4 to enhance the level of confidence in the uniqueness of software products residing on one system. As documented in the "Developer's Guide to VMSINSTAL" this service is being provided to prevent conflicts with customer developed application and existing VMS products. Digital will attempt to insure that your registration data will remain unique on the VMS Operating system, however due to possible noncompliance with the registration service, we cannot guarantee that your data will be unique. The purpose of registering a product is to prevent conflicts with other software products and allow all VAX/VMS software products and customer developed applications to co-exist in the same environment. Many registration items MUST be unique for each individual product. For example, facility numbers used with the message utility, and logical name prefixes all must be unique. Other registration items promote good coding practices and standards as well as help to identify components of a particular product. To register your product, simply fill out the form at the back of this issue and send it to the address provided. If the Registrar has any questions or concerns, or you have chosen an item which is already registered to another product, you will be contacted by the Registrar. When your product information has been registered, you will receive a confirmation notice. The confirmation notice will list the items registered for your product. If any of the information is incorrect, please notify the Registrar as soon as possible. If you have any questions at all about the registration process, or need assistance, you MAY contact the Registrar at the address provided. Definition of Registration Items VAX-24 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products A. Facility Name A Facility Name is an alphanumeric string containing from 3-27 characters. This string is used as a prefix to uniquely identify your product and its components. All Customer software should use their facility name followed by an underscore (_) to identify the software as Customer supplied. The following is a list of items which should use the facility name as a prefix. You may find additional uses for your facility name. Please indicate if a VMS error message status code number is to be assigned. These are used to signal errors with the VMS Message Utility. See the VMS Utilities volume and the VAX/VMS Message Utility Reference manual for more information. Global Symbols - Global symbols should be named in the format: facilityname_symboldescription. Entry Points - Entry points should be named in the format: facilityname_procedurename. Rights Database Identifiers - If you are using identifiers entered into the Rights Database they should be named in the format, facilityname_rightsidentifier. Data Structure Definitions - Data structure definitions should be named in the following format, facilityname_string, i.e. DSC_KCLASSS, DSC_KDTYPET. File Names - File names should be created using the facility name as a prefix to the file specification. It is recommended that an underscore (_) follow the facility name prefix, for example, ADA_STAT.EXE. B. Logical Names Prefix(es) The logical name prefix(es) that will be used must be registered. This should be the same as the product's facility but may differ. The format that should be used is, facilityname_string, for example, CDD_DICTIONARY. Please note that it is very important to use this naming convention when assigning logical names to permanent mailboxes. C. System-wide process names VAX-25 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products A system resident process is one that is always in the system. It will usually be in hibernation or in a wait state. For system resident processes in a layered product, unique registered names are required to ensure that another digital product does not run a process with the same name as yours. The system-wide process name should be prefixed by the facility name. D. System-wide mailbox names Permanent mailboxes are those mailboxes which are entered into LNM_PERMANENTMAILBOX which is usually set to LNM_SYSTEM (the system logical name table). Other processes can then access the mailbox simply by knowing its name and using the $ASSIGN directive to assign their channel to it. If a process was to perform a create mailbox ($CREMBX) directive, using a name it thought was unique but already existed, it would get a channel to the existing mailbox and no error indication. This could obviously cause some serious problems if a user thought he was talking to his mailbox, and was really sending messages to another product's mailboxes. VAX-26 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Registration for Non-DEC VMS Products E. Shareable images If your product ships a Shareable image, you should register the image name with the Registrar. You should use your facility name as a prefix when naming the image. F. Contact name The name of one person who will be the Registration Contact for this product. This will be the person whom the VMS Product Registrar will contact for any additional information. Registration items are assigned on a first come, first serve basis. You must select a new item if someone else is currently using the one that you wanted. The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital Equipment Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. VAX-27 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs Tape Management System Needs By Dave Schmidt Management Science Associates 5100 Centre Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa. 15232 (412) 683-9533 Draft White Paper submitted to: The VAX SIG Commercial Working Group September 9, 1986 Background and philosophical overview: The following topical points are in no particular order of priority or preference. I feel that all of the following points need to be considered in evaluating any tape management system software that Management Science Associates would consider. MSA has a library of 38,000+ tapes with the number of tape mounts approaching 1000 a day. MSA's use of magnetic tape is to cost effectively store and archive large amounts of sequentially accessed data. MSA processes much of its market research data on tape as well as having a need to effectively back up 22 Gigabytes of disk storage from a cluster of 4 11/780's and 1 8650 and 4 stand alone Micro VAX II's. An additional tape processing load is imposed by the high volume of printing spooled to tape for printing on our Xerox 9700 printer, 1.4 to 1.7 million pages a month. Our tape farm consists of 10 IBM plug compatible 125 ips start/stop 1600/6250 bpi mainframe class tape transports, two Systems Industry 125 ips start/stop 800/1600/6250 bpi mini class tape transports and one CDC 92185 1600/6250 streamer for Micro Vax II backup processing. The IBM class drives are tri ported to the 8650 and two of the 780's, the SI drives are switch selectable between the remaining two 780's and the CDC drive is switch selectable between three of the Micro Vax II's. The VAX-28 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs fourth MV II must use a TK50 drive for backup and printing but that is a problem of a different tape. Though obvious I feel that it should be stated that any site considering a tape management system should have full time operators and a full time tape manager. One view that I personally have is that the management issue to address is not explicitly a tape or disk management problem. The problem that I feel needs to be addressed is one of data management, independent of device residency. Consequently I have tended to include some issues that historically have been associated with disk backup. The areas of concern over tape mounting procedures addressed in the other part of the draft white papers will not be discussed here. Additionally I am not considering any motivational issues over use or justifying a tape management system or enforcing its procedures once in use. These issues will vary widely from shop to shop and will sometimes be based on economic motivation and sometimes on political motivation. If DEC considers a tape management system as a product then it will be appropriate discuss these issues in terms of cost/benefit and marketability. DEFINITIONS Enumerated issues relating to tape and tape usage management: 1. Data sets. Users will access a data set that is either a disk file or a tape volume set. The tape management system will access disk files in a sequential fashion when migrating disk data sets to tape and back. Normally a data set on tape has a one for one correspondence with a tape volume set. The exception to this is a tape containment volume set which contains more than one data set. These data sets are logically and physically independent of each other. VAX-29 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs 2. Volume sets. A volume set consists of one or more tape reels and normally contains one data set. The tape management system must track and identify all component reels of a volume set for any of the supported labeling conventions. It is acceptable to require consistent labeling conventions for all reels in a volume set and all volume sets in a tape shadow set. The tape management system must allow a logical one for one replacement of a physical reel in a volume set by one or two physical reels when that reel needs replacement due to damage or deterioration. 3. Tape volume shadow sets. A facility to allow one or more copies of critical volume sets needs to exist. This facility should follow the disk shadow set structure fairly closely but be adjusted for tape reels of differing lengths. A tape volume shadow set may have more than two component volume sets comprising the set. One volume set would be considered the master volume set and the remaining volume sets would be alternate volume sets. 4. Containment volume set. This is a volume set consisting of one or more reels of tape containing multiple independent data sets. The tape management system must track all data sets independently from tracking tape reels in a containment volume set. Except for building a containment volume set by appending data sets to the end, users have only read access to the data sets within a containment volume set. The tape management system has responsibility for managing containment volume set compression. GENERAL 5. Labeling conventions. All major tape labeling conventions and variants including DEC, IBM, ANSI, unlabeled (with and without a tape mark at BOT) must be supported. VAX-30 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs 6. Retention cycle. Some form of retention cycle support is necessary to avoid data sets sitting in the tape management system forever. However the removal of expired data sets must not occur until a positive acknowledgment is received from the owner or authorized user. This is necessary due to personnel changes over time on a project or changing requirements on the length of time it is necessary to hold data. Consequently a newly assigned user manager may be unaware of file expirations set by a prior user manager. 7. Location tracking. Some very large sites may have multiple tape storage rooms. It is necessary to know what storage room the volume set is stored in as well as what the cost parameters are. Some storage may be an offsite fail safe site with longer time lags (possibly days!) to obtain the tape and incur financial charges in order to retrieve. 8. Import/Export controls. Record keeping of tapes and volume sets that are no longer on site is needed. Some items that need to be recorded are: A. Shipment authorized by. B. Sent to. C. Expected to be returned by. D. Volume set or tape reel identification. E. Who to notify on the tape reel failing to return. Some sites (ours included) need to deal with tapes that are exogenous to whatever system we are using and preserve the original creators identification of the tape. This requires that a tape management system function perfectly with only a visual identification entry or an alias entry that points to a visual tape identification. VAX-31 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs An additional requirement is some form of inventory and tracking of tapes in one or more transitory tape areas. A particular problem with exogenous tapes is recording shipping and return information for follow up tracking months or years after the event. An additional problem with exogenous tapes arises over drive alignment problems and readability which also needs to be tracked. 9. Indexing. This is one of the more complex needs to describe since it is largely affected by the individual users modes of operation and accountability. Global indexing must be provided for the tape manager. Group and individual indexing must be provided for the user(s). Some items that need to be tracked: A. Tape reels in use by reel and size in feet or meters. B. Volume sets in use and component reels. C. Starting data block number for each tape reel in a multi reel volume set. D. Data set in use and volume set components or containment set. E. Expired data sets pending disposition. F. Expired data sets resolved by tape manager action and disposition. G. Data set location on disk or in fast, slow or offsite tape archival. H. Which data sets in a compressed containment volume set have expired and can be removed during the next compression cycle for the volume set. 10. Automation. Allow hooks so that the tape management software can be used to manage some form of automated tape storage retrieval system. This should include Volume set retrieval, mounting and verification. VAX-32 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs 11. Additional general comments. A. Allow for multiple simultaneous tape managers accessing the tape management system database. B. Allow for multiple user access and searches of the tape management system database. C. Allow some number of user definable fields to be added to the database information kept by the tape management system and filled in by either exits to user provided code or system services. D. Allow for batch reporting and offline reference lists of tapes and data sets. E. DO NOT assume that the visual id will be the same as the tape label or that the visual id is one of the several numbers on the tape. F. DO NOT require that a tape go through a long manual entry process to be used. It must be possible to mount and use a tape that is totally outside of the tape manager. Assume an operator intelligent enough to put the appropriate tape reel on a specified drive when directed! BUT LOG this event with appropriate notation. G. DO NOT require that a labeled tape volume identification be its tape management reel number! Tape labels are defined by the users, tape reel ids normally come from the librarian system. Tapes must be mountable by either criteria. ACCOUNTING 12. Accounting hooks. In order to support user billing and charge back many hooks to identify events need to be provided. For openers consider: VAX-33 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs A. Initial mount count. B. Retrieval from onsite storage cost. C. Retrieval from offsite archive cost. D. Continuation reel mount cost differing from initial mount cost. E. Storage costs for the volume set per reel per time period. F. Transaction costs for reading and writing a data block to tape. G. Vary the above by shift of the day, day of the week, week of month and month of the fiscal or calendar year. H. Vary the above on a user by user basis! I. Budget limit monitoring. J. Dismount or end of job logging to the users log file of errors and transaction counts as well as generating accounting entries. This must be kept disaggregate by either data set or device. SCHEDULING 13. Job scheduling. Must be a three stage process! The current que structure is inadequate for tape management operations. Stage one is a set up stage where the jobs sit in an organizational que that allows the operators to: A. Retrieve and identify all input volume sets. VAX-34 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs B. Validate and allocate all reels of tape to make up the output volume sets. C. Allocate all scratch tapes needed as temporary work volume sets. D. Perform any ancillary support tasks like cleaning tapes, repairing or replacing tapes and verifying visual identifications of required tapes. E. Verify authorization to access or write the involved volume sets. Once the set up stage is complete the job is released by the operator to the execute scheduler as stage two. (Note jobs that require no operator set up automatically release to the execute scheduler.) The stage two scheduler needs to consider the following: A. Number of tape transports and type required to initiate the job. (This is the maximum number needed at any point in the job stream.) B. Execution time estimate. C. Memory requirements. D. Disk space requirements by device to execute. E. Recording of stage one events in the user log file. F. Recording of conflicts that cause the job to stall such as required drive in use, required volume set or reel of volume set in use, or required cpu to run on not available in the user log file. G. Recording oops events in the user log file such as operator shut down of required queues, devices, device conflicts or any other unusual event that affects the job status, such as instituting a failing tape reel recovery. VAX-35 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs H. Date and time dependencies for execution. I. Operator holds placed on the job. All holds and releases placed on the job by either the scheduling system or the operator need to be recorded in the log file. J. User defined completion dependencies. Support must be provided for the user to assign job identifiers for scheduling control to batch jobs and list multiple completion dependencies that release the job when any one of the dependencies is satisfied. For example release after jobs BUILDZ and CLEANZ end normally or after FORCETWO ends. The scope of job identifier checking will also need to be extended to other members of the group. Users must be able to add user defined completion dependencies at any time after submission of the job. Stage three processing is a job rundown and break down of mounted tape volume sets. During this phase log files are routed and printed (including copies to multiple users) and generation of instructions on where to return the tapes to for the operators and clerks. Additionally the tape management system would update the usage log for the tape volume sets used and schedule any cleaning or duplication of critical volume sets based on tape wear. Any tapes that are to be returned to an exogenous temporary storage location would be identified and instructions generated to accomplish this. RELIABILITY/INTEGRITY 14. Cleaning cycle. Tape needs to be exercised and cleaned when stored for long periods of time. When one is required to keep data for years it is imperative that a cleaning and read validation program be kept up. The following are minimal requirements: VAX-36 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs A. Generation of a cyclic cleaning list. B. Status of cleaning, I.E. when done and by whom. C. Read validation pass list. (Read validation pass is optional) D. Status of validation, I.E. when done and by whom. E. Recording in the archival database. F. Positive control, I.E. requires a person to sign off rather than assuming it will be done. G. Tape reel failure recovery. Provide some criteria to indicate that the data on a particular tape reel is becoming unsafe and should be recovered as well as recovery procedures. This is not simply a global setting but must be tailorable by individual users and data sets. This mechanism will need to be automatically initiated by the appropriate file system when enough disk or tape reel errors have been detected. The recovery procedure should be able to replace a bad tape reel in a volume set or create an entirely new replacement volume set as determined by the user. The recovery procedure will also need to update the definition of a tape shadow set if the volume set being regenerated is a member of a tape shadow set. 15. Failure tracking. This is a major reliability item that must provide information concerning volume set or device failures (including soft parity errors) to: A. The submittor. B. The appropriate operator. C. The tape manager. D. The appropriate operations and user supervisors. VAX-37 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs E. The maintenance support group (including NON DEC field service organizations). F. The user end of run log file summary. G. Failing tape reels or devices that require failing volume recovery to be initiated for the volume set or tape reel. 16. Event Logging. All significant events in the tape management system MUST be logged to the affected user, operator, supervisors and tape manager. Some events to log are: A. Initial reel of a volume set mount. B. Continuation reel of a volume set mount. C. Significant parity errors. D. Leaving a known bad block on a reel in a volume set that has XOR block recovery processing enabled. E. Billable transactions such as Read QIO's and Write QIO's. F. Switching to an alternate member volume set of a shadow set including why and at what point in the original volume set. The event logs need to contain a date/time stamp, error count for the drive and tape reel, tape reel identification, the volume status, the data block number the error occurred in for the reel relative to both the beginning of the data set and the tape reel, the operator identification (name or unique number) and operator response. 17. OOPS recovery. Some events are relatively catastrophic and need some form of specific recovery and intervention by the user, operator or tape manager. These events include at least the following: VAX-38 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs A. A tape reel allocated to more than one volume set. (not to be confused with a tape reel in a containment volume set that contains several data sets) B. A volume set or tape reel that was improperly mounted and verified by the operator and destroyed by improperly being written on. C. A tape reel that was eaten or damaged by the drive. D. A tape reel or volume set lost in transit. E. A catastrophic read failure on a non shadowed volume set. Possibly on the second failure after a reposition restart with the tape reel on a different tape transport. 18. Data integrity issues. In addition to the normal treatment of bad tape reels etc. Support should be provided for redundant storage of critical data in one or more TAPE VOLUME SHADOW SETS as well as allowing user specification of XOR recovery block generation into each volume set. (XOR generation is not to be limited to volume sets that are members of a shadow set) The shadow set members would be linked to the master volume set and inherit any modifications to expiration criteria when created. The shadow sets would have independent management of expiration criteria after creation. The concept of tape shadow set would work in much the same fashion as a disk shadow set but would not require a one for one correspondence for each reel. All volume sets that comprise a tape shadow set should be required to have the same physical blocking and XOR block structure. On fail over to the use of an alternate member of the shadow set the fail over would be complete at the failing block. The alternate volume set would be positioned to the restart data block on the appropriate tape reel and the job would continue. Note that once the data block being read from the alternate volume set member of the shadow set became greater than the beginning block number for the next reel of the VAX-39 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs original volume, set the original volume set could be used as a recovery volume set for the alternate shadow set member currently in use. NOTE this capability would also need to apply to a containment volume set with multiple data sets. SECURITY 19. Security support must be provided for: A. Physical tracking (sign out/sign in of tapes) of volume sets. B. Access validation similar to the resource pooling description. C. Modification validation similar to resource pooling description. D. Access and modification controls to a finer granularity than the whole file. Possibly to a two dimensional matrix defined by data field and record identifiers. E. Declassification of data set procedures and authorization to declassify. ARCHIVAL NEEDS 20. Archival capability. Some form of data set archival is needed in a tape management system. Note that for this discussion the source data set can reside on EITHER a TAPE DATA SET or a DISK FILE. If the source data set resides in a disk file some record of the migration and resultant state must be placed into the disk file system until the user deletes the entry or recovers the VAX-40 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs data set to disk. NOTE that deletion of the disk entry does not automatically delete the archived data set from the tape management system, A separate deletion is required to delete the archived data set. However a disk file delete may indicate that a file should be moved from the rapid recovery archival area to a slower long term archival area. Under some set of predefined conditions a data set will be defined as inactive and will begin a migration process to less active storage. (This is normally restricted to disk files but I feel that inclusion of tape volume sets into the record keeping facility will significantly reduce the management problems of finding data.) The triggering process will need to consider how long the files have been inactive, free space shortages on disk drives, needs that the system manager may have to temporarily reallocate the disk space or just that the user wants the disk files moved off of disk to archival storage. When a data set has been archived, any user attempt to access the data set will result in an automatic reload of the data set from archival storage to either the original disk file or a new tape volume set and release of the short term archival entry. Additionally some explicit facility is needed to allow extraction of a contained data set from a containment volume set to either a tape volume set or a disk file in some directory. Additionally support is needed to delete data sets from containment volume sets and modify their attributes. Once an archival process is triggered the following events can happen to the data set: A. Place it in the waste can (to avoid upsetting Apple who owns the trash can ICON!) and delete it. Placing a tape volume set in the waste can releases the component tape reels to the users available tape reel resource pool or to the groups pool or to the tape managers pool. VAX-41 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs B. Assign a new expiration criteria and abort the migration. C. Migrate the data set into fast recovery archival and assign an expiration criteria that will move the data set from fast recovery archival to either slow recovery archival storage or the waste can. This movement of data to the waste can after removal from tape or disk may be used to provide a short term recovery window for all files and a longer term recovery for valuable files. This methodology would be useful in having the tape management system perform much of the record keeping for a backup system. D. Migrate the data set into slow recovery archival. Note files do not automatically enter the waste can, a positive user response is required or failing a response within a set time limit the tape manager can override. If the tape manager overrides, a user notification must be given that the files were deleted by the tape manager. During the archival process data sets that are migrating off of disk or tape to archival storage should be stored in containment volume sets that are members of a shadow set. All archival containment volume sets should be periodically purged of deleted data sets and recompressed automatically by the tape management system. This process will also need to update the record keeping entries in the tape management system database. For archival purposes it is frequently desirable to reduce the physical number of reels that data is stored on. Some facility to concatenate many discrete data sets each occupying a single volume set into a containment volume set consisting of several reels and containing several data sets is needed. The value of this facility is obvious in archiving the 75 individual partial reels that represent one week of data input for one of MSA's processing groups. This compressed file consists of 10 reels of data at 6250 bpi and 32000 byte blocks. This support facility must not require placing VAX-42 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs the data sets to be concatenated on disk as an intermediate step. The concatenation facility must be able to accept mixed disk and tape inputs while preserving all attributes of the individual data sets. RESOURCE POOLING 21. Resource pooling. Since tapes and drives represent a finite resource, most users require infinite resources and inevitable conflict arises. A way to solve this is to provide some form of quota management for Disk space, Disk drives (for mountable packs), Tape reels and Tape drives. The quota management system should provide for quotas assigned by: A. Anarchy (no restrictions). B. Group (paralleling disk UIC based affiliations). C. Owner (paralleling disk UIC based affiliations). D. World (paralleling disk UIC based affiliations). E. System (paralleling disk UIC based affiliations). F. Tape ACL (definition of some arbitrary collection of users and or attributes). 22. A BAD tape pool. Frequently tape reels that go bad are bad only at the load point and are repairable. The value of this concept may be insignificant with the advent of cartridge tapes like the TK50. Cartridge reels are generally not repairable due to the lack of spare parts, though some creative users may try to scavenge parts from multiple cartridges to repair one cartridge. Also the wear pattern on a TK50 cartridge is not as intensely focused on one physical location. Some items to consider in providing a bad tape pool are: VAX-43 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs A. Retirement of the tape reel id. B. Replacement of the tape reel with another of the same id. C. Repair of the tape reel. D. Release of the tape reel from the bad tape pool to the available tape pool of the tapes owner or to the tape managers pool. E. Replacement of a bad tape reel in a write volume set and re scheduling the job for execution. F. Replacement of a bad tape reel in a write volume set by copying the data written successfully to the current bad tape reel onto one or more replacement tape reels and retrying the failed write operation. This requires an extra tape transport to perform as well as modification of the volume set component tape reel definition. This is not affected by the existence of a tape volume shadow set. 23. Free tape pool. The tape management system needs to provide support for tracking and reassignment of available tape reels by: A. Individual user. B. Group relationship by both project and uic. C. The tape manager. D. Scratch tape pool E. Any other definitive relationship that can be defined by a process similar to ACL's. F. Allow authorized "owners" to reassign tape reels into some other group both permanently or temporarily. VAX-44 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Tape Management System Needs 24. Scratch tape pool. The tape management system should provide a shareable resource pool of tape reels that can be freely used by any one for the duration of a job step. Additionally some "grace period" of time defined by the tape manager should exist, where the user could hold onto the tape reels temporarily. This is useful to allow retention of data across jobs or a recovery point to restart processing at in the event of error or machine failure. This concept of scratch tape management would be very useful if implemented in a similar fashion for disk volumes, a very good example of this use would be sort work files. VAX-45 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX System SIG Committee List VAX System SIG Committee List As of August 25, 1986 Osman K. Ahmad - Large Systems Integration Working Group Association of American Railroads Technical Center, Research and Test Department 3140 South Federal Street Chicago, IL 60616 Joe Angelico - Assistant Symposium Coordinator US Coast Guard CCGD8(DT) Hale Boggs Federal Building 500 Camp Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 Elizabeth Bailey - Volunteer Coordinator 222 CEB Tennessee Valley Authority Muscle Shoals, AL 35660 June Baker - Advisor Computer Sciences Corporation 6565 Arlington Boulevard Falls Church, VA 22046 Joe L. Bingham - Librarian Mantech International 2320 Mill Road Alexandria, VA 22314 Bob Boyd - Commercial Working Group GE Microelectronics Center MS 2P-04 Post Office Box 13409 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 C. Douglas Brown - Security Sandia Labs Division 2644 P.O. Box 5800 Albuquerque, NM 87185 VAX-46 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX System SIG Committee List Jim Caddick - VAXcluster General Datacom Strait Turnpike Middlebury, CT 06762-1299 Jack Cundiff - Symposium Coordinator Horry-Georgetown Post Office Box 1966 Conway, SC 29526 Tom Danforth - Handout Editor Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Woods Hole, MA 02543 Barbara Dow-Pleines - MicroVAX Working Group Magic One 1971 Mount Pleasant Road San Jose, CA 95148 (408) 238-0861 Jim Downward - Migration and Host Development, VAXintosh Working Group KMS Fusion Incorporated 3941 Research Park Drive Ann Arbor MI 48106 Jane Furze - Campground 3830 West Cochise Phoenix, AZ 85064 Dennis Frayne - Real Time/Process Control Working Group McDonnell Douglas 5301 Bolsa Avenue Huntington Beach, CA 92646 Carl E. Friedberg - Internals Working Group In House Systems 165 William Street New York, NY 10038 Don Golden - Communications Committee Representative c/o Shell Oil Company Westhollow Research Center Post Office Box 1380, Room D2132 Houston, TX 77001 VAX-47 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX System SIG Committee List B. Hancock - Network Working Group Dimension Data Systems, Incorporated 2510 Limestone Lane Garland, TX 75040 (214) 495-7353 Jeffrey S. Jalbert - Historian J C C Post Office Box 381 Granville, OH 43023 614-587-0157 Ray Kaplan - MicroVAX Working Group Pivotal, Incorporated Post Office Box 32647 Tucson, AZ 85715-32647 (602) 886-5563 Lawrence J. Kilgallen - Newsletter Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 Margaret Knox - Chair Computation Center University of Texas Austin, Texas 78712 Art McClinton - Advisor MITRE 1820 Dolley Madison Boulevard McLean, VA 22102 Ross W. Miller - Vice Chair and Working Group Coordinator Online Data Processing, Inc. N 637 Hamilton Spokane, WA 99202 Mark D. Oakley - System Improvement Request Battelle Columbus Labs Room 11-6-008 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2669 VAX-48 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX System SIG Committee List Eugene Pal - Multiprocessor Working Group US Army CAORA (ATOR-CAT-C) Fort Leavenworth, KA Susan Rehse - System Management Working Group Lockheed Missiles 3251 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94301-1187 Bob Robbins - Advisor Array Computer Consultants 5364 Woodvale Drive Sarasota, FL 33582 Larry Robertson - Real Time/Process Control Working Group Bear Computer Systems Inc. 5651 Case Avenue North Hollywood, CA David Schmidt - LUG Coordinator, Hardware Working Group Management Sciences Associates 5100 Centre Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15232 Al Siegel - Advisor Battelle Memorial Institute 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2693 D. Slater - Artificial Intelligence Working Group Institute for Defense Analysis 1801 North Beavregard Street Alexandria, VA 22314 VAX-49 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form A SIG Information Interchange Please reprint in the next issue of the Pageswapper If this is a reply to a previous I/O, which number? ________ Caption: ______________________________________________________ Message: ______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Contact: Name _______________________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Telephone ____________________________ Signature _____________________________ Date ________________ Mail this form to: Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station, Cambridge, MA 02139-0901, USA For information about on-line submission, dial (in the United States): (617) 262-6830 and log in with the username PAGESWAPPER. PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 INPUT/OUTPUT Submission Form Tear out or photocopy reverse to submit an I/O item Larry Kilgallen, PAGESWAPPER Editor Box 81, MIT Station Cambridge, MA 02139-0901 USA PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 System Improvement Request Submission Form System Improvement Request Submission Form Page 1 of _____ ________________________________________________________________ Submittor: Firm: Address: Phone: ________________________________________________________________ How to write an SIR: Describe the capability you would like to see available on VAX systems. Be as specific as possible. Please don't assume we know how it's done on the XYZ system. Justify why the capability would be useful and give an example of its use. If you wish, suggest a possible implementation of your request. ________________________________________________________________ Abstract (Please limit to four lines): ________________________________________________________________ Description and examples (use additional pages if required) PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 System Improvement Request Submission Form Tear out or photocopy reverse to submit an SIR Mark D. Oakley Battelle Columbus Division Room 11-6-008 505 King Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43201-2369 USA PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Non-DEC VMS Product Registration Form Non-DEC VMS Product Registration Form Note: If a category is not applicable, please write in "N/A". Each description can only be up to 70 characters. Product name ------------------------------------------------ A. Facility name or software acronym ----------------- Short description --------------------------------- VMS Error Message status code, Yes or No? --------- B. Logical name prefix(es) -------------------------- C. System wide process name(s) ---------------------- D. System wide mailbox name(s) ---------------------- E. Shareable images -------------------------- F. Company name -------------------------- Contact name -------------------------- Address -------------------------- -------------------------- Phone number -------------------------- Mail to: Digital Equipment Corporation 110 Spitbrook Road Nashua, NH 03062-2698 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 Non-DEC VMS Product Registration Form Attn. VMS Product Registrar ZKO1-2/D19 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX Tape Drive Questionaire VAX Tape Drive Questionaire VAX SIG Hardware Working Group Tape Drive Questionaire Over the past few years a number of Symposium attendees have expressed concern over DEC's tape drives. During the past few months the working group has put togather a questionaire addressing HIGH PERFORMANCE tape drives, to determine just how important the issue of good quality high performance tape transports drives is to the SIG membership. Rather than limiting the input on this critical area to those who attend a specific symposia we are publishing it in the PAGESWAPPER to obtain the widest possible response. We appreciate your efforts to fill this out and return it to: Dave Schmidt Hardware Working Group Chair Management Science Associates 5100 Centre Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa. 15232 The deadline for responding to the questionaire will be three weeks after the PAGESWAPPER is delivered, based on my receipt of the issue. Once the responses have been received the material will be used to present a position paper to DEC and publish it in the PAGESWAPPER. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Please define the size of your computing faciliy. 1. Name and address. (OPTIONAL) VAX-56 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX Tape Drive Questionaire 2. Installed VAX models (please indicate the number of each type): ___ MicroVAX I/II ___ VAX-11/7XX ___ VAX 8XXX 3. Are any of your CPU's in a VAXcluster? ___ Yes ___ NO 4. Does your site utilize an IBM system? ___ Yes ___ NO 5. Does your site use tapes from an IBM site? ___ Yes ___ NO 6. Total disk storage for all of your CPU's? ___________ 7. How many tape drives are installed at your site? ________ 8. Are you using reel-to-reel tape drives with your VAX systems? ______ YES ______ No If yes, please list all makes and models: _____________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 9. How many tapes are in your tape library? __________ 10. On average, how many tape mounts per normal working day are performed at your site? _______ What are your current tape applications? Do you expect them to change over the next 5 to 10 years? How? VAX-57 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX Tape Drive Questionaire Are you aware of or do you use IBM 3480 cartridge tape drives? ______ Aware of ______ Use ______ Neither aware of nor use. If you are aware of or use IBM 3480 cartridge tape drives, and currently use reel-to-reel tape drives. Do you think a 3480-type of DEC cartridge drive would be better than, about the same as or worse than your current reel to reel drives for each of the items below? Better than About the Worse Than Reel-to-reel same as reel-to-reel reel-to-reel Performance ____________ ____________ ____________ Cost of ownership ____________ ____________ ____________ Data Integrity ____________ ____________ ____________ Reliability ____________ ____________ ____________ Meets Current Application Needs ____________ ____________ ____________ Meets Future Application Needs ____________ ____________ ____________ Ease of USE ____________ ____________ ____________ Other (please list) VAX-58 PAGESWAPPER - November 1986 - Volume 8 Number 4 VAX Tape Drive Questionaire ________________ ____________ ____________ ____________ Two years from now if you could have either a 3480-type DEC drive or your current reel-to-reel tape drive (BUT NOT BOTH), which would you choose? ___ 3480-type DEC drive ___ Reel-to-reel ___ Can't Decide Several years ago DEC offered an IBM plug compatible tape controller. If such a product was available again would your organization purchase it? ___ Would purchase ___ Would be interested ___ No interest If a product was available to allow DEC and IBM systems to share tape drive(s), How much would your organization benefit from it? ___ Substantial benefit ___ Some benefit ___ No benefit If your organization would benefit from such a product, who would be your vendor of choice? ______________________ Thank you for completing this survey. VAX-59