The TechnicalCounsel(sm) News -- April 2008
Volume 5 Number 2 April 2008

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the April issue of The TechnicalCounsel(sm) News, our consulting practice's quarterly newsletter.

In this issue:

Trenton Computer Festival features OpenVMS for the Hobbyist: Industrial Strength at No Cost

On April 26, 2008, Mr. Gezelter will present OpenVMS for the Hobbyist: Industrial Strength at No Cost as part of the 33rd Annual Trenton Computer Festival, one of the oldest forums for computing hobbyists.

Hewlett-Packard’s OpenVMS is ranked as the Gold Standard for security and reliability. Since May 1997, over 1,200,000 licenses have been issued at no-cost to hobbyists who wish to work with OpenVMS on a non-commercial, personal hobby basis. The low-cost availability of VAX, Alpha, and simulated environments has made fully functional Hobbyist OpenVMS systems, including all Enterprise-level functionality, within the reach of every hobbyist.

This presentation will cover the functionality available with the OpenVMS Hobbyist program and how to get started as an OpenVMS hobbyist.

A complete abstract of this talk and information about the presentation can be found at:

11th Annual New York State Cyber Security Conference features Compartmented Networks: A Corporate Solution for Privacy, Integrity, and Security

On June 5, 2008, the New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination (CSCIC) will host Compartmented Networks: A Corporate Solution for Privacy, Integrity, and Security as part of the 11th Annual New York State Cyber Security Conference.

Network security is often implemented as a firewall protecting the organization from the outside. This approach is not adequate for most organizations as has been demonstrated by many of the recent series of compromises at major corporations. The large numbers of systems within organizations and reality of compromised systems within the corporate network require a more nuanced approach to network security. This presentation will address how security can be enabled by defense-in-depth strategies that reduce the exposure of critical systems to rogues.

A complete abstract of this talk, and pointers to the conference www site can be found at:

OpenVMS Technical Journal features Strategies for Migrating from Alpha and VAX to Integrity

At Hewlett-Packard’s Technology Forum in June, Mr. Gezelter will present Strategies for Migrating from Alpha and VAX Systems to HP Integrity Servers on OpenVMS.

Without question, everyone agrees that the best way to migrate to HP’s Integrity servers from Alpha and VAX is to re-compile, re-link, and re-qualify. If your sources, build procedures, and qualification procedures are current, this is the fastest, surest, and safest path to transition.

Others are challenged by one or more of these conditions. The obstacle may be technical, in terms of old or missing sources, inter-relations between components, or lack of staff time to make volumes of small changes. Business issues, including leases on existing systems, operational commitments, and business initiatives, also present obstacles. All of these can induce difficulties in what should be an otherwise straightforward process.

The presentation explores how unique OpenVMS features provide leverage enabling unique strategies to achieve low-risk, low-effort transitions to the Integrity platform while transparently maintaining commitments to the enterprise. These OpenVMS facilities, including the Alpha Image Translator, the Translated Image Environment, logical names, mixed-architecture OpenVMS clusters, and Host-based volume shadowing enable us to allow a transition from Alpha and VAX to HP Integrity on an incremental basis, reducing risk and increasing flexibility.

The full abstract and information about this presentation can be found at:

A complete abstract of this talk, and pointers to the conference www site can be found at:

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