Hewlett-Packard Cos proprietary HP 3000 symmetric multi-processing server is, contrary to predictions more than four years ago, very much alive and kicking and has just had yet another facelift that includes all the latest buzzwords – Java, Windows NT, clustering and the internet. As long ago as 1993 there was doubt about the future of the 3000 and its proprietary MPE/iX operating system, but vendors at that time confirmed there was a large and loyal base of high throughput transaction users that was unlikely to migrate to the Unix-based HP 9000 or other alternatives. As one UK-based vendor said I think Hewlett has given up trying to bury the HP 3000 and has decided that it has a future (CI No 2,207). That future now includes the MPE/iX 5.5 Express 3 operating system, where HP has improved interoperability with Windows NT through a 32-bit ODBC open database connectivity link, which gives Window 95 and NT-based applications access to Image/SQL and Allbase/SQL on the HP3000. HP has also enhanced Cobol II and Transact, to handle data structures for larger programs. MPE/iX Express 3 supports Java version 1.1.2, including a Just-in-Time compiler, which, the company says, enables the machines to be accessed over the internet. Earlier in the year, the company introduced an upgrade to the machine with its PA-8000 RISC chip, which it says gave a performance improvement of 25% over the most powerful existing HP 3000 systems, and it also offers the SharePlex/iX cluster bundle, to enable clustered HP3000 systems to share files, databases and programs seamlessly over a network. HP 3000 9X9KS customers also get the option of an additional 28 input/output slots, taking it to a maximum 36, which it says matches I/O capacity previously only available on a mainframe. The next release of MPE/ix, Express 4, will also apparently sort out the thorny issue of Year 2000 fixes to the operating system.
