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(Dated) June 30, 2004
To the OpenMPE Community,
I want to take this opportunity to provide another update on items of interest to the OpenMPE community. As with my April update, I'll start with some general HP e3000 news items.
- In May, Jeff Vance posted vCSY's responses to the 2004 System Improvement Ballot. Seven of the top 15 tactical items are In Plan, two others have usable, scripting workarounds, and work has
already begun on several of the In Plan items. As we indicated earlier, we will be providing you with another SIB update at HP World in August.
- MPE/iX Release 7.5 PowerPatch 2 is now available. The Communicator for this release, describes several recent
capability enhancements to MPE/iX, including Host-based DTC Management, High-Availability FailOver/iX (HAFO) support for Fibre Channel disk arrays, and limited support for Ultrium tape on
MPE/iX.
Next, I'd like to update you on one element of the end-of-life roadmap, the conversion of used HP 9000s to HP e3000s. We reopened this item in April at the request of the OpenMPE Board of Directors
and began the investigation in May. To provide a framework for our investigation, we defined the objective as "helping to meet the platform hardware needs of HP customers whose businesses depend on
increasing the performance and/or capacity of their existing HP e3000s in a marketplace with limited availability of HP e3000 systems."
We have decided that, under very select circumstances, HP, or an HP-authorized channel, will perform the conversion of a used HP 9000 into an HP e3000. We will only consider such conversions on a
case-by-case basis when HP determines that a customer or partner has a business critical need, and there is a clear shortage of used HP e3000 systems within resale channels to meet that need. The
types of conversions will be limited by the availability of parts after HP ensures an adequate supply of parts to meet current and future HP 9000 and HP e3000 customer support obligations.
Conversions may be limited to A- and N-Class systems, with a limited potential for 9x9 conversions.
More information on this topic can be found in an FAQ.
Finally, we continue to encourage all customers to plan their transitions off the HP e3000 by the end of 2006. Customers who find themselves in a situation where they cannot buy a used HP e3000 to
meet their growing business needs should contact HP. We will work with you to try to help you resolve your business need.
That's it for now. I look forward to talking with you at HP World in Chicago.
Regards,
Ross McDonald, MPE/iX R&D
Director of Engineering
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