INFO-VAX Sat, 26 Apr 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 232 Contents: CHARON Info-Day in Austria EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Re: Maximum IDE disk size for DS10L ? Re: OT: Need HTML Help Re: OT: Need HTML Help Re: OT: Need HTML Help PC Parts In Small Price U Nid Contact Mi!! Re: The Minimum You Need to Know About Service Oriented Architecture Re: Time synchronization Re: Time synchronization Re: Time synchronization Re: Time synchronization Re: Time synchronization Re: Time synchronization ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Apr 2008 23:55:38 GMT From: Hans Bachner Subject: CHARON Info-Day in Austria Message-ID: As the CHARON emulator products have been mentioned in this group from time to time I dare to announce an informational event about CHARON-VAX and CHARON-AXP. On May 7 an info-day (actually, an info-afternoon) will be held in Vienna, Austria by Software Resources International and its two partners NST-IT-Design and b.it.co IT Consulting. Some CHARON users will share their experiences with the products, and a product update will be given. The detailed program as well as registration instructions can be found on http://www.charon-vax.at (sorry, these pages are available in German only) As there are freely available (though somewhat restricted) versions of CHARON-VAX and CHARON-AXP, hobbyists are welcome to this event as well. I confess that I'm somewhat connected :-) to the hosts of this afternoon, but I do hope that some participants of this newsgroup will benefit from this announcement. See you on May 7 in Vienna :-) Regards, Hans. -- Hans Bachner http://b.it.co.at OpenVMS Consulting, Integration and SW Development CHARON-VAX, CHARON-AXP Sales - Migration - Support b.it.co IT Consulting GmbH Linz / Austria ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:38:05 -0700 (PDT) From: twnews@kittles.com Subject: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Message-ID: <700b6544-c4e4-4d4e-ba08-7190a3c2e4df@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> I am looking into getting an EVA based disk system to attach to my VMS cluster. The hitch is that my Alphas are AS4100 and I am NOT in a position to upgrade or change my Alphas and the 4100's have not been qualified with any of the remotely current EVA equipment. I was wondering if anyone out there had any VMS based AS4100 or similar models connected in any way to any EVA systems. If so, what combinations? I hope to end up with 2 AS4100 with VMS 7.3-2 connected to an EVA 4100 or 4400. I also have an AS1000 that I would connect if I can, but if I need to I can use MSCP for that. TIA Thomas Wirt Director of IS Kittle's Home Furnishings Indianapolis, IN, USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:10:47 +0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kari_Uusim=E4ki?= Subject: Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Message-ID: <481235a5$0$23854$9b536df3@news.fv.fi> twnews@kittles.com wrote: > I am looking into getting an EVA based disk system to attach to my VMS > cluster. The hitch is that my Alphas are AS4100 and I am NOT in a > position to upgrade or change my Alphas and the 4100's have not been > qualified with any of the remotely current EVA equipment. I was > wondering if anyone out there had any VMS based AS4100 or similar > models connected in any way to any EVA systems. If so, what > combinations? > > I hope to end up with 2 AS4100 with VMS 7.3-2 connected to an EVA 4100 > or 4400. I also have an AS1000 that I would connect if I can, but if > I need to I can use MSCP for that. > > TIA > > Thomas Wirt > Director of IS > Kittle's Home Furnishings > Indianapolis, IN, USA You can install a Fibre Channel Adapter (KGPSA-CA)in your AS4100 and connect it through a SAN switch to your EVA4x00. With VMS 7.3-2 it is supported. If you don't need to boot from the EVA, you can also install a KGPSA Adapter in your AS1000 also. Then you can share the EVA with all your VMS machines. If you need more information how to do it, you can post a question or contact me privately. Best Regards, Kari Uusimäki OpenVMS CSE ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:46:33 -0700 (PDT) From: ewilts@ewilts.org Subject: Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Message-ID: <67966993-629d-49f9-8edf-011666d077de@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On Apr 25, 2:38 pm, twn...@kittles.com wrote: > I am looking into getting an EVA based disk system to attach to my VMS > cluster. The hitch is that my Alphas are AS4100 and I am NOT in a > position to upgrade or change my Alphas and the 4100's have not been > qualified with any of the remotely current EVA equipment. I was > wondering if anyone out there had any VMS based AS4100 or similar > models connected in any way to any EVA systems. If so, what > combinations? I have run V7.3-2 AS4100 systems off of an EVA - I booted off the EVAs as well. This is a fully supported configuration. Although my entire cluster has no 4100s any more, it's still running V7.3-2. My cluster uptime is coming up to 9 years. The things you have watch out for is to make sure you have the latest patches for 7.3-2 - install a recent UPDATE kit (I think 15 is current but I'm too lazy to look that up right now) and you'll be set. Make sure your firmware on the Alphas is reasonably current. It is a bit of a pain to get the firmware on the HBAs updated but they don't change often. Your only choice of supported HBAs is the KGPSA and they're essentially rebranded Emulex LP8000s so I think the most recent firmware is something like 3.93. I've used EVA5000s for my storage (active/passive) but also have EVA8000-based storage (active/ active) for another VMS 7.3-2 system (a DS10 that also SAN boots). Download the wwidmgr guide - you'll need this to configure the AS4100 if you're booting from the SAN. For booting off the EVAs, you're limited to 4 paths - enough for an EVA5000 but not for an EVA8000. If you can't get to your storage after 4 paths though, you have some serious problems :-) Also, you can MSCP-server your SAN volumes. If you lose your HBAs in the host, make sure you've got a way of detecting that you're accessing your storage over MSCP and not over the SAN. It works so well that you might not even notice... Lastly, on the EVA side, configure the darn host "OS Unit ID:" in the presentation tab. It's easy to forget since most system don't need it and you'll pull your hair out trying to figure out why VMS doesn't see your shiny new lun. VMS does need it and the OS Unit ID becomes the number for your DGA device. Holler if you've got questions - it's generally straightforward though and it works well. Remember that fibre channel is not used for lock traffic though - you still need the nics. -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:ewilts@ewilts.org If I've helped you, please make a donation to my favorite charity at http://firstgiving.com/edwilts ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:26:24 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: EVA and Alpha Server 4100 Message-ID: <4812A0E0.B25D8D92@spam.comcast.net> Kari Uusimäki wrote: > > twnews@kittles.com wrote: > > I am looking into getting an EVA based disk system to attach to my VMS > > cluster. The hitch is that my Alphas are AS4100 and I am NOT in a > > position to upgrade or change my Alphas and the 4100's have not been > > qualified with any of the remotely current EVA equipment. I was > > wondering if anyone out there had any VMS based AS4100 or similar > > models connected in any way to any EVA systems. If so, what > > combinations? > > > > I hope to end up with 2 AS4100 with VMS 7.3-2 connected to an EVA 4100 > > or 4400. I also have an AS1000 that I would connect if I can, but if > > I need to I can use MSCP for that. > > > > TIA > > > > Thomas Wirt > > Director of IS > > Kittle's Home Furnishings > > Indianapolis, IN, USA > > You can install a Fibre Channel Adapter (KGPSA-CA)in your AS4100 and > connect it through a SAN switch to your EVA4x00. With VMS 7.3-2 it is > supported. Hhmmm... Interesting. I didn't know AS4100 supported ANY FC HBAs at all! Good to know... D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:03:38 GMT From: John Santos Subject: Re: Maximum IDE disk size for DS10L ? Message-ID: Marty Kuhrt wrote: > Michael Moroney wrote: > >> "John E. Malmberg" writes: >> >>> As I understand the issue, accessing the IDE devices past the 127 GB >>> limit requires putting the device in UDMA mode. UDMA mode has >>> stricter cabling requirements than DMA mode. I have seen DS10s with >>> UDMA cables and ones with normal DMA cables. My DS10 at home has a >>> UDMA cable. >> >> >>> HP never qualified UDMA mode on the Alpha Servers with built in IDE >>> controllers, as production of Alpha Servers is over, I do not expect >>> it to happen. >> >> >> It also requires driver changes, to use different transfer modes to >> access >> the higher blocks. >> >>> It is possible that a hobbyist or a third party may supply a DQDRIVER >>> that will support larger IDE drives, but I would not count on that. >>> It takes quite a bit of tests to really qualify a disk driver. >> >> >> I started looking at doing this to keep my skills up but didn't get >> hardly anywhere. (I once did disk driver work for VMS Engineering). >> I would have to start with the rather out-of-date DQDRIVER source on >> the freeware. I also heard (apparently incorrectly) that VMS >> Engineering was going to upgrade DQDRIVER themselves, and quit then. > > > While HP engineers understood how to update the DQDRIVER to handle the > 48 bit addressing necessary to get past 128G, they could not get the OK > to validate it. No validation means no "support". No support means > they would not be allowed to release it into the wild. > > Got some spare time? You could rewrite the DQDRIVER to do it. > > I have not done any driver work for a decade, and don't really care to > do this one to make a point. If I wanted to make this 500G drive work > on my test/dev hobbyist VMS systems, I'd get a SCSI to SATA adapter and > try again. For me it is not worth the time, or energy, to make a new > DQDRIVER for this one time test. I have too many projects that I work > on that make no money to take on another one, thanks. This is the rub... a SCSI to SATA adapter would require putting a SCSI card in the system, which is really only an issue with a DS10L because it only has one PCI slot. Same problem with an add-on IDE adapter. The DS10L has a built-in IDE adapter, so you can install a pair of IDE disks without using that precious PCI slot. For systems with more slots, this isn't much of an issue, but DS10L's are popular with hobbyists because they are abundant and relatively cheap. -- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:57:21 -0700 From: "Jeffrey H. Coffield" Subject: Re: OT: Need HTML Help Message-ID: David J Dachtera wrote: > "Jeffrey H. Coffield" wrote: >> David J Dachtera wrote: >> >>> I'm looking for a way to do something like this: >>> +----------+-------------------------------+ >>> | Button 1 | | >>> +----------+ | >>> | Button 2 | | >>> +----------+ | >>> | Button 3 | | >>> +----------+ | >>> | Button 4 | | >>> +----------+ | >>> | Button 5 | | >>> +----------+-------------------------------+ >>> >> See attached: >> >> Jeff C. >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> > > Thanx, Jeff! Really pointed me in the right direction. > > For what I did with it, see my wife's up and coming website: > http://www.fourpawsandfur.com/ and > http://www.fourpawsandfur.com/index_live.html for the full site (not yet > complete - the "home" links will take you back to the "under > construction" page which has no links; so, use the browser's BACK button > as needed). > > David J Dachtera > (formerly dba) DJE Systems Glad to help Jeff C. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:44:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: OT: Need HTML Help Message-ID: <5ac85cdb-acfa-40d7-ab6b-22d7ea1626de@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On Apr 25, 10:35=A0am, David J Dachtera wrote: > "Jeffrey H. Coffield" wrote: > > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > > > I'm looking for a way to do something like this: > > > +----------+-------------------------------+ > > > | Button 1 | =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > +----------+ =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > | Button 2 | =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > +----------+ =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > | Button 3 | =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > +----------+ =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > | Button 4 | =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > +----------+ =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > | Button 5 | =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 = =A0 | > > > +----------+-------------------------------+ > > > See attached: > > > Jeff C. > > > =A0 =A0 --------------------------------------------------------------- > > Thanx, Jeff! Really pointed me in the right direction. > > For what I did with it, see my wife's up and coming website:http://www.fou= rpawsandfur.com/andhttp://www.fourpawsandfur.com/index_live.htmlfor the full= site (not yet > complete - the "home" links will take you back to the "under > construction" page which has no links; so, use the browser's BACK button > as needed). > > David J Dachtera > (formerly dba) DJE Systems- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - This is quite impressive considering you used a plain text editor. :-) I took the liberty of dumping your HTML into the validator here: http://validator.w3.org/check =2E.. and was presented a report containing 27 errors. Many people don't think validation is necessary but if you want the page to be renedered the same way in all browsers, then you've got to do this. p.s. many of my own business and personal web pages are non-compliant but I'm slowly getting things converted over. I recently discovered that a page which isn't missing too many closing tags can use the TIDY option in the link I provided. TIDY is a tool which allows GARBAGE-IN to result in NON-GARBAGE-OUT. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:19:29 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: OT: Need HTML Help Message-ID: <48129F41.74B94651@spam.comcast.net> Neil Rieck wrote: > > On Apr 25, 10:35 am, David J Dachtera > wrote: > > "Jeffrey H. Coffield" wrote: > > > > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > > > > > I'm looking for a way to do something like this: > > > > +----------+-------------------------------+ > > > > | Button 1 | | > > > > +----------+ | > > > > | Button 2 | | > > > > +----------+ | > > > > | Button 3 | | > > > > +----------+ | > > > > | Button 4 | | > > > > +----------+ | > > > > | Button 5 | | > > > > +----------+-------------------------------+ > > > > > See attached: > > > > > Jeff C. > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Thanx, Jeff! Really pointed me in the right direction. > > > > For what I did with it, see my wife's up and coming website:http://www.fourpawsandfur.com/andhttp://www.fourpawsandfur.com/index_live.htmlfor the full site (not yet > > complete - the "home" links will take you back to the "under > > construction" page which has no links; so, use the browser's BACK button > > as needed). > > > > David J Dachtera > > (formerly dba) DJE Systems- Hide quoted text - > > > > - Show quoted text - > > This is quite impressive considering you used a plain text editor. > :-) > I took the liberty of dumping your HTML into the validator here: > > http://validator.w3.org/check > > ... and was presented a report containing 27 errors. > > Many people don't think validation is necessary but if you want the > page to be renedered the same way in all browsers, then you've got to > do this. > > p.s. many of my own business and personal web pages are non-compliant > but I'm slowly getting things converted over. I recently discovered > that a page which isn't missing too many closing tags can use the TIDY > option in the link I provided. TIDY is a tool which allows GARBAGE-IN > to result in NON-GARBAGE-OUT. Hhmmm... interesting ... however, "Tidy" makes some brash and not necessarily valid assumptions. For all of the complaints from Validator, I'd have to go back and clean up Tidy's "mess". D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:21:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Manisa999@gmail.com Subject: PC Parts In Small Price U Nid Contact Mi!! Message-ID: <28f1a519-dd69-4203-895c-997b2eb08729@v26g2000prm.googlegroups.com> SEXY SEGMENT *********************************** http://bigsexmovies.notlong.com/ http://indiansexx.notlong.com/ *********************************** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:08:00 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: The Minimum You Need to Know About Service Oriented Architecture Message-ID: <48129C90.56BF47FD@spam.comcast.net> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > > In article <4811E8FA.6490BF5F@spam.comcast.net>, > David J Dachtera writes: > > JF Mezei wrote: > >> > >> David J Dachtera wrote: > >> > >> > Seems a shame to "hide the lamp under a bushel" due to some "religious" > >> > thing. VMS needs all the exposure it can get, even from the "sinners". > >> > >> You don't own VMS. HP doesn't even own VMS. It owns something called > >> OpenVMS, and it is HP's job to give its own products all the exposure HO > >> wants this product to get. > > > > Well, while you underscored my point in one way, you missed it in > > another. > > > > "yyyc186" has some, I can only call it, "religious" aversion to Amazon, > > even though it's -THE- biggest, most popular book buying site on the > > web. (Grudges are fine as far as they go if you're into that sort of > > thing, but they're not very profitable.) > > > > It's rather like boycotting television or "Hollywood" movies due to the > > corruption, drugs, sex, rock-and-roll, etc. which characterize such > > things. > > > > For example, I cannot condone rap or a lot of other genres; however, I > > would never consider instructing my marketing people to not buy ad > > time/space in those media markets if I had a product that needed maximum > > exposure. > > > > For another example, I don't particularly appreciate PayPal's commission > > structures or eBay's insertion fees and commissions. Given the > > alternatives, however, I don't rule them out. > > > > Well, having been openly cheated by Amazon and having to spend a good > deal of my time and effort getting my money back for a product billed > but never delivered (and not deliverable as they had no copies and it > was out of print, something I would expect a book seller to understand) > I wouldn't bet that his aversion to Amazon is necessarily "religious". > > I no longer deal with Amazon at all. > > Sadly, this seems to be the nature of INTERNET business. Just another > play on the old "bait and switch". they establish themselves living on > the INTERNET hype and then turn into just another rip-off operation. > > Which is why I also don't do E-bay. If we all lived by that philosophy, poor Sue would be out of a job (or at least not working for VMS), because it would have died long ago). We've all had our bad experiences. You can't judge an outfit by the results of a single encounter. Jerks are everywhere. Sometimes, you get 'em, sometimes you don't. That said, even I do that: WaMu took from 31-Aug-2001 to 15-Dec-2001 to post our August 2001 mortgage payment. It had gotten to the point of daily phone calls, getting a manager's mailing address and sending our payments directly to her certified mnail, and writing the WA state BBB demanding that either the note gets sold to someother outfit or the loan gets forgiven. Took another six years to get them to correct that item on our credit report. Needless to say, we refinanced with a local bank who does not sell their notes and we do not even consider doing business with WaMu. Then again, they have plenty of competition - they're nothing special in their market, unlike Amazon which is the largest, most popular and most recogizable and, therefore, the best place to market such a book. Let it stick in your craw or let it go and move on - the choice is yours. D.J.D. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:00:24 +0200 From: Marc Van Dyck Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: Marc Van Dyck wrote : > What is the most sensible way to synchronize the time in a mid-size > OpenVMS farm today ? > > - Use NTP everywhere and forget the rest ? > - Use DTSS with an NTP time provider ? > - Synchronize time on internet time server ? > - Use a radio time source ? > - ... > > The installation I speak about is made of about 20 systems, some > clustered, some not. Mix Alpha/Itanium. And surrounded by a much > larger population of Unix and Windows systems. > > What are other people over here doing ? So, as far as I can see, DTSS is an old piece of software that has become useless and can just be dropped ? What are its performances compared to NTP ? It still starts automatically with Decnet, if I remember well. Should/Can it be disabled, and if yes, how ? -- Marc Van Dyck ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:30:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Ken.Fairfield@gmail.com Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: <33893117-75c2-4015-bb71-5205a8e6b0cc@i36g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Apr 25, 1:00 pm, Marc Van Dyck wrote: > Marc Van Dyck wrote : [...] > So, as far as I can see, DTSS is an old piece of software that has > become useless and can just be dropped ? What are its performances > compared to NTP ? It still starts automatically with Decnet, if I > remember well. Should/Can it be disabled, and if yes, how ? I think that's over-stating it. At my previous employer, we used DTSS for all the VMS systems, but one system (or a pair?) served as DTSS masters and were in turn synchronized to NTP. Two points: 1) DTSS is better at keeping all nodes closer to the same time (better precision?). This was the motivator at my previous employer where timestamps generated by different cluster nodes had to be correct to better then 0.5 secs (and were typically >0.1 secs). 2) DTSS is more difficult to set up initially, and has a variety of potential gotcha's if not done correctly. We experienced a variety of these... That said, once set up, DTSS is pretty much "set it and forget it", especially if you want the system to do the time changes automatically for you. One final note is that the infrastructure/network people had is put our NTP to the nearest router as the source. They basically cascaded NTP throughout the network via the routers rather than have servers provide that function. -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:37:52 +0200 From: Marc Van Dyck Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: Ken.Fairfield@gmail.com used his keyboard to write : > On Apr 25, 1:00 pm, Marc Van Dyck wrote: >> Marc Van Dyck wrote : > [...] >> So, as far as I can see, DTSS is an old piece of software that has >> become useless and can just be dropped ? What are its performances >> compared to NTP ? It still starts automatically with Decnet, if I >> remember well. Should/Can it be disabled, and if yes, how ? > > I think that's over-stating it. At my previous employer, > we used DTSS for all the VMS systems, but one system > (or a pair?) served as DTSS masters and were in turn > synchronized to NTP. > > Two points: > > 1) DTSS is better at keeping all nodes closer to the > same time (better precision?). This was the motivator > at my previous employer where timestamps generated > by different cluster nodes had to be correct to better > then 0.5 secs (and were typically >0.1 secs). > > 2) DTSS is more difficult to set up initially, and has a > variety of potential gotcha's if not done correctly. > We experienced a variety of these... > > That said, once set up, DTSS is pretty much "set it and > forget it", especially if you want the system to do the > time changes automatically for you. > > One final note is that the infrastructure/network people > had is put our NTP to the nearest router as the source. > They basically cascaded NTP throughout the network > via the routers rather than have servers provide that > function. > > -Ken DTSS set-up, I'm used to it. That leaves only one difficulty, which is writing the DTSS time provider. Our network uses two utility boxes that get various time sources (Internet, GPS, radio) and provide NTP and SNTP time service. How do I bridge DTSS and that ? I have written in the past a Pascal program that acted as a DTSS time provider, using radio time stamps. Do I need to go this route again ? -- Marc Van Dyck ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 2008 22:52:42 GMT From: Hans Bachner Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: Hi Marc, Marc Van Dyck wrote: > What is the most sensible way to synchronize the time in a mid-size > OpenVMS farm today ? > > - Use NTP everywhere and forget the rest ? > - Use DTSS with an NTP time provider ? > - Synchronize time on internet time server ? > - Use a radio time source ? > - ... > > The installation I speak about is made of about 20 systems, some > clustered, some not. Mix Alpha/Itanium. And surrounded by a much > larger population of Unix and Windows systems. > > What are other people over here doing ? With only Alpha and Itanium systems (assuming reasonably recent versions of OpenVMS) the advantage of DTSS (with an NTP provider or a radio time source, depending on your personal preferences) over NTP is small, but still existent. With DTSS, you just enable it (or don't explicitly disable it) and it will find its servers on the LAN (or even WAN with a bit of additional configuration). It also takes care about DST changes. With NTP, you need to define your servers and peers on every single node using NTP, and if someng changes, apply changes to this configuration again on every single node. DST changes cn be taken care of by using the AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV system parameter. So if you have the DECnet extended functions license for at least two or three nodes, I'd prefer DTSS and configure theses nodes as DTSS servers relying on NTP to get the correct time. If you run versions before V7.3 (or have a VAX in your environment, which you don't), there's no AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV parameter, so the advantage of DTSS over NTP is even bigger. Hans. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:52:05 -0500 (CDT) From: sms@antinode.org (Steven M. Schweda) Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: <08042517520506_2020CE0A@antinode.org> From: Marc Van Dyck > DTSS set-up, I'm used to it. That sounds familiar. > That leaves only one difficulty, which > is writing the DTSS time provider. Our network uses two utility boxes > that get various time sources (Internet, GPS, radio) and provide NTP > and > SNTP time service. How do I bridge DTSS and that ? I have written in > the past a Pascal program that acted as a DTSS time provider, using > radio time stamps. Do I need to go this route again ? Have you looked into SYS$COMMON:[SYSHLP.EXAMPLES.DTSS]? Long ago, I did some minor clean-up on the NTP examples: http://antinode.org/dec/sw/dtss_ntp.html I haven't looked lately, so the example code may look better now than it did when I made my changes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:19:57 +0200 From: Marc Van Dyck Subject: Re: Time synchronization Message-ID: Steven M. Schweda wrote on 26/04/2008 : > From: Marc Van Dyck > >> DTSS set-up, I'm used to it. > > That sounds familiar. > >> That leaves only one difficulty, which >> is writing the DTSS time provider. Our network uses two utility boxes >> that get various time sources (Internet, GPS, radio) and provide NTP >> and >> SNTP time service. How do I bridge DTSS and that ? I have written in >> the past a Pascal program that acted as a DTSS time provider, using >> radio time stamps. Do I need to go this route again ? > > Have you looked into SYS$COMMON:[SYSHLP.EXAMPLES.DTSS]? Long ago, I > did some minor clean-up on the NTP examples: > > http://antinode.org/dec/sw/dtss_ntp.html > > I haven't looked lately, so the example code may look better now than it > did when I made my changes. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Steven M. Schweda sms@antinode-org > 382 South Warwick Street (+1) 651-699-9818 > Saint Paul MN 55105-2547 This is where I took inspiration to write my DTSS time provider program. There are places where I just did copy/translate (as I write in Pascal while all examples are in C) without actually understanding everything. A more extended documentation on all this would be interesting, in fact it would made a very good subject for a paper in the technical journal, or a Bootcamp session... -- Marc Van Dyck ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.232 ************************