Archive - previous News, Seminars and Events

Listen to the latest OpenVMS.org VMS audio update.

Also see the User Groups sub-section of the XDelta web site.

16^th - 17^th October 2006

HP OpenVMS UK Technical Update
CCT Venue, Aldersgate House, next to the Barbican Tube Station, London, UK.

This event gave UK and European users the opportunity to meet HP OpenVMS Engineering and experts from around the world.

As usual at an OpenVMS event, the passion for the subject ran deep. The sessions were well attended and very interesting. I came away feeling a lot more positive about the future for OpenVMS.

26^th - 28^th June 2006.

21^st UKCMG Annual Conference & Exhibition 2006
The Chesford Grange Hotel, Warwick, CV8 2LD.

Each year UKCMG hold a three-day Annual Conference and Exhibition. Delegates can tap into the best expertise and experience the industry has to offer, develop their technical skills, explore business solutions and meet their peers within the industry.

For the agenda, registration, hotel, questions and other information please see the UKCMG conference web site.

June 2006 - Hardware architecture and performance (PDF, 72KB)

21^st - 26^th May 2006 with pre-symposium events starting the preceeding week.

OpenVMS Symposium (advanced technical bootcamp), HP OpenVMS Engineering, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.
Held at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in Nashua adjacent to ZKO (Spit Brook Road).

The May 2006 OpenVMS advanced technical symposium was yet another outstanding event. It gave attendees the opportunity to meet OpenVMS engineers, users and experts from around the world. A great opportunity to meet up with old friends and make new friends.

See the OpenVMS Symposium (advanced technical bootcamp) web site for further information.

The John Wisniewski Spirit Award.

Dave Cathey (of Montagar Software Concepts in the USA) was presented with the John Wisniewski Spirit Award. This award from peers and colleagues within the OpenVMS community around the world recognises the outstanding contribution, quality and value of his work over many years.

VMS Engineering created this award in 2004 in memory of a larger-than-life guy called John Wisniewski. He was a well-known and passionate OpenVMS expert who poured huge amounts of energy into his teaching, writing and consulting work. John was the guy who started the OpenVMS Hobbyist programme and who trounced all-comers at DEFCON with an impregnable OpenVMS system.

Previous recipients are:
2004: Brian Schenkenberger (of Tmesis in the USA) and Al Meier (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in the USA).
2005: Colin Butcher (of XDelta Limited in the UK) and Kerry Main (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in Canada).
2006: Dave Cathey (of Montagar Software Concepts in the USA) and Keith Parris (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in the USA).

28^th February 2006 - HP, Worton Grange (formerly DECpark), Imperial Way, Reading, RG2 0TE (M4 J11).

HPUG event - Implementing OpenVMS systems for availability and performance - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

OpenVMS systems can provide unmatched levels of performance and availability if the system is well designed. This seminar discussed the underlying principles of availability and performance and how they can be applied in an OpenVMS environment.

28^th February 2006 - Implementing OpenVMS systems for availability and performance (PDF, 117KB)

26^th January 2006

HPUG management group changes

Colin Butcher has resigned from the management board of the HP User Group (UK).

John Owen, current chairman of the HP User Group (UK), commented "I, and the whole group, value immensely the contribution he has made to user group activities."

Colin still intends to give seminars for the User Group because he believes that education is important and because he enjoys the buzz of teaching. He's also looking forward to the next OpenVMS advanced technical symposium in May 2006.

12^th July 2005 - HP, Filton Road, Bristol (near M4 / M32 junction and Bristol Parkway station).

HPUG event - "Hands-on" Building an OpenVMS web server - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar demonstrated the process of building a OpenVMS based web server using a partitioned AlphaServer system running as a Galaxy cluster. Held at HP Labs, Bristol.

12^th July 2005 - Building an OpenVMS web server (PDF, 98KB)

5^th - 10^th June 2005 with pre-symposium events starting on the 1^stJune.

OpenVMS Symposium (advanced technical bootcamp), HP OpenVMS Engineering, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.
Held at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in Nashua adjacent to ZKO (Spit Brook Road).

The June 2005 OpenVMS advanced technical symposium was yet another outstanding event. It gave attendees the opportunity to meet OpenVMS engineers, users and experts from around the world. A great opportunity to meet up with old friends and make new friends.

The sessions were all of very high quality and provided a huge wealth of information about current and new directions for the OpenVMS operating system and the underlying hardware platforms. The overall atmosphere was one of enthusiasm and co-operation with everyone participating in all that was available. In all it was a thoroughly enjoyable, interesting and exhausting week.

See the OpenVMS Symposium (advanced technical bootcamp) web site for further information.

Jun. 2005 - DECnet-Plus and DECnet over IP (PDF, 114KB) seminar slides.

The John Wisniewski Spirit Award.

VMS Engineering created this award in 2004 in memory of a larger-than-life guy called John Wisniewski. He was a well-known and passionate OpenVMS expert who poured huge amounts of energy into his teaching, writing and consulting work. John was the guy who started the OpenVMS Hobbyist programme and who trounced all-comers at DEFCON with an impregnable OpenVMS system.

Previous recipients are Brian Schenkenberger (of Tmesis in the USA) and Al Meier (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in the USA). This years recipients are Colin Butcher (of XDelta Limited in the UK) and Kerry Main (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in Canada).

Colin was presented with the John Wisniewski Spirit Award by Ann McQuaid (head of HP OpenVMS Engineering) at the HP OpenVMS Symposium in June 2005. This award from peers and colleagues within the VMS community around the world recognises the outstanding contribution, quality and value of his work over many years.

On a more personal note - it came as a huge surprise and it is a wonderful thing to have received. Thank you.

Sue Skonetski's achievements recognised by bootcamp attendees.

Sue Skonetski (the driving force behind the bootcamp and "mother hen" of the HP OpenVMS Ambassadors) was given a blue topaz and white gold necklace in recognition of her efforts and for her achievements in creating a community of OpenVMS professionals from around the world. Everyone present at the bootcamp contributed generously towards this within a couple of hours. A well deserved and spontaneous gesture from all.

24^th May 2005 (evening)

AICS evening seminar - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar series is open to AICS members and guests only.

Held at the BCS Office in London.

24^th May 2005 - Networks - how they work (PDF, 75KB)

March 2005

Nemonix Engineering Inc.™ announce their Dual channel Gigabit Ethernet PCI bus module for HP AlphaServers.

The controller was jointly engineered over the past year by Nemonix Engineering Inc.™ and HP OpenVMS Engineering.

Supported configurations include the HP AlphaServer DS, ES, and GS series systems running OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 and above. It provides improved network IO throughput and helps to save precious PCI bus slots.

See here for further information.

10^th March 2005 (evening)

topinterim evening seminar - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar series is open to topinterim members and guests only.

Held at the Baker Tilly office in Manchester.

10^th March 2005 - Taming the technological monster (PDF, 83KB)
10^th March 2005 - Small office network functional diagram (PDF, 33KB)

1^st March 2005 - HP, Worton Grange, Reading. (A33 / M4 junction 11).

HPUG event - OpenVMS V8.2 – "bare metal" install on Integrity (Itanium 2) and Alpha - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

As you will know from recent announcements OpenVMS V8.2 is now available on both Integrity (Itanium 2) and Alpha.

This seminar demonstrated the “bare metal” build of OpenVMS V8.2 on both Integrity and Alpha, concentrating on the Integrity server systems using a RX2600 demonstration unit.

OpenVMS V8.2 on Integrity - bare metal install (PDF, 176KB)

February 2005 - HP OpenVMS Technical Journal V5.

The HP OpenVMS Technical Journal V5 includes the article "Decnet-Plus technical overview" by Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

Article Abstract: This article provides a technical overview of DECnet-Plus, including DECnet over IP. DECnet-Plus is the latest implementation of DIGITAL Network Architecture (DNA) Phase V. The purpose of this article is to explain some of the history, background, structure and mechanisms that make up what is often simply referred to as "Phase V". It is hoped that this will assist system designers and managers to better understand the capabilities of DECnet-Plus and thereby ease migration from DECnet Phase IV to DECnet-Plus, especially when using DECnet over IP in a predominantly TCP/IP based WAN infrastructure. The author has extensive consulting experience gained by working with DECnet on mission-critical OpenVMS systems. This article has been written in response to many of the situations and queries that have occurred over the years.

Read the HP OpenVMS Technical Journal V5 article.
Read the full HP OpenVMS Technical Journal V5.

Read the latest HP OpenVMS Technical Journal.

My thanks to Phil Milgrom of HP OpenVMS Engineering who kindly volunteered to be the technical author and who greatly assisted me in writing this. It wouldn't be anywhere near as readable as it is without his help.

18^th January 2005 - Hawthorns Hotel, Clifton, Bristol.

BCS regional event - High Availability & Disaster Tolerance - Systems Design - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

See the BCS events schedule.
See the BCS Bristol branch events schedule.

BCS 18^th Jan. 2005 - High Availability and Disaster Tolerance - Systems Design (PDF, 91KB)

8^th December 2004 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London.

HPUG event - OpenVMS on Integrity (Itanium Processor Family), Alpha & VAX - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited and Martin Riley of HP.

This seminar demonstrated the RX2600 system itself and the installation of OpenVMS E8.2 on a RX2600 Integrity server, OpenVMS E8.2 and V7.3-2 on an AlphaServer DS10L and OpenVMS V7.3 on a 4000-100 VAX.

HPUG 8^th Dec. 2004 - OpenVMS on Integrity, Alpha & VAX (V7.3, V7.3-2 and E8.2) (PDF, 157KB)

10th November 2004

Top Consultant - thought leadership articles.

Corporate governance and the technology infrastructure by Colin Butcher.

TopConsultant 7^th Nov. 2004 - Corporate governance and the technology infrastructure (PDF, 69KB)

1^st November 2004 (evening)

topinterim evening seminar - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar series is open to topinterim members and guests only.

Held at the Kingston Smith City office in London.

1^st Nov. 2004 - Taming the technological monster (PDF, 86KB)
1^st Nov. 2004 - SOHO network functional diagram (PDF, 27KB)

29^th October 2004

Conspectus - Enterprise & E-Business Applications (October 2004 issue).

The October 2004 issue of Conspectus includes a three page article by Colin Butcher about the implications for your IT Infrastructure of running Enterprise Applications.

Conspectus Oct. 2004 - Enterprise and E-Business Applications - What lies beneath (PDF, 89KB)

Saturday 16^th October 2004

HPUG event - Visit to Bletchley Park - the home of Colossus.

Several members of OpenVMS Engineering joined us on a special trip to Bletchley Park and their Computer Museum. We were fortunate to see all sorts of things not generally on view to the general public as part of a normal visit.

The Computer Museum volunteers put on an excellent display of early DEC equipment, much of it running. The highlight was probably spending time with the Colossus rebuild project and it's prime mover - Tony Sale.

See the excellent review contributed by David Rayfield.

Thursday 14^th - Friday 15^th October 2004

HP OpenVMS Engineering - Technical Update (London)

This was an excellent two day update with in-depth technical presentations given by both OpenVMS Engineering and Oracle RDb Engineering.

Dave Foddy (the much respected ex-HP OpenVMS Ambassador) made a guest appearance.

Tuesday 28^th September 2004 - HP Worton Grange, Reading, Berkshire.

HPUG event - Migration issues: VAX - Alpha - Integrity (Itanium Processor Family) - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar gave a wide-ranging overview of the issues typically associated with porting applications between hardware platforms. It also demonstrated OpenVMS E8.2 on a RX2600 Integrity server, OpenVMS E8.2 and V7.3-2 on an AlphaServer DS10L and OpenVMS V7.3 on a 4000-100 VAX.

Migration issues VAX - Alpha - Integrity (PDF, 129KB)

Also see the User Groups sub-section of the XDelta web site.

16^th September 2004 - CSC Alliance House, Chorley.

HPUG event - Installing OpenVMS on current platforms - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited and Ray Turner of HP.

This seminar demonstrated the RX2600 system itself and the installation of OpenVMS E8.2 on a RX2600 Integrity server, OpenVMS E8.2 and V7.3-2 on an AlphaServer DS10L and OpenVMS V7.3 on a 4000-100 VAX.

HPUG 8^th Dec. 2004 - OpenVMS on Integrity, Alpha & VAX (V7.3, V7.3-2 and E8.2) (PDF, 157KB)

16^th July 2004 (morning)

FSB (Bristol Branch) - Communications Technology Seminar - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

"Communications Technology" was the first of a series of seminars designed to assist FSB members understand how to apply technology in a practical manner to their businesses. There was a huge level of interest and interaction from the audience with some excellent feedback and requests for more such events. Thanks to Jeff Cottrell of the FSB Bristol Branch for the event logistics.

This seminar series is open to FSB members and guests only.

Held at IoD Hub, Bristol.

16^th July 2004 - Communications technology (PDF, 215KB)

15^th July 2004

HPUG event - DECnet and DECnet over IP - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This event gave an overview of DECnet (Phase IV and Phase V, aka DECnet/OSI and DECnet-Plus) and DECnet over IP using DECnet-Plus and TCPIP Services on OpenVMS.

DECnet and DECnet over IP (PDF, 108KB)

13^th July 2004

Computer Weekly - OpenVMS in the news.

Whole page article by Colin Butcher on OpenVMS: Hack-proof and crash-resistant: have you discovered the OS world's best kept secret?

Computer Weekly on-line article

13^th Text of article (PDF, 68K)
13^th Scanned image of article (PDF, 888K)

28^th June 2004 (evening)

Technology Workshop Q & A - John Chinery of Amicore eBusiness and Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar series is open to SWIG members and guests only.

Held at Right Coutts Bristol office.

28^th June 2004 - IT Basics (PDF, 68KB)

2^nd June 2004 (evening)

topinterim evening seminar - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar series is open to topinterim members and guests only.

Held at the Saffery Champness office in Bristol.

1^st November 2004 - Taming the technological monster (PDF, 86KB)
1^st November 2004 - SOHO network functional diagram (PDF, 27KB)
2^nd June 2004 - Post seminar notes (PDF, 60KB)

17^th - 21^st May 2004

OpenVMS Symposium, HP OpenVMS Engineering, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.

The third OpenVMS Symposium was another outstanding event. Held at the Sheraton Hotel in Nashua.

See the OpenVMS Advanced Technical Bootcamp web site for further information.

29^th April 2004

HPUG event - Hardware Platform Architecture - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This event gave an overview of how and why the various components of a computer system operate and interact.

Hardware Platform Architecture (PDF, 100KB)

3^rd February 2004

HPUG event - Installing OpenVMS on current platforms - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited and Ray Turner of HP.

This seminar demonstrated the RX2600 system itself and the installation of OpenVMS V8.1 on a RX2600 Integrity server, OpenVMS V7.3-2 on a DS20E Alpha and OpenVMS V7.3 on a 4000-100 VAX.

HPUG 8^th Dec. 2004 - OpenVMS on Integrity, Alpha & VAX (V7.3, V7.3-2 and E8.2) (PDF, 157KB)

20th January 2004

Computer Weekly - OpenVMS V8.1 in the news.

See article by James Rogers of Computer Weekly about "Users welcome HP's commitment to long-term future of OpenVMS" based on an interview with Colin Butcher (XDelta Limited, also Board member of HPUG).

16^th - 18^th November 2003

PCG at CBI National Conference, NEC, Birmingham.

The PCG (Professional Contractors Group) was at the CBI National Conference to raise awareness of freelance working by individuals and specialist companies.

See the PCG brochure "Freelancers your flexible workforce" for further information.

11^th - 14^th November 2003

OpenVMS Symposium, HP OpenVMS Engineering, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.

The second OpenVMS Symposium in November 2003 was an outstanding event. The event was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Nashua.

See the OpenVMS Advanced Technical Bootcamp web site for further information.

4^th October 2003

PCG Annual Conference at the Marriott Hotel, Heathrow, UK.

Colin Butcher was invited to speak at the PCG (Professional Contractors Group) annual conference.

See the PCG Conference web site for further information.

To coincide with the PCG Conference the PCG Magazine "Freelancing Matters 2" contains an article about XDelta Limited.

A Personal View of the Future for Freelance Working (PDF, 51KB)

30th September - 2^nd October 2003

HP EMEA Pre-sales Knowledge Transfer Event at HP in Böblingen.

Colin Butcher was invited to speak at the technical training sessions for HP resellers around Europe who use and resell HP products and services.

See the HP EMEA Pre-sales KTE web site for further details.

Networks session (PDF, 69KB)
Storage session (PDF, 71KB)
VAX hardware upgrades session (PDF, 411KB)
OpenVMS High Availability configurations session (PDF, 143KB)

August 2003

BCS I.T. Professional Awards 2003 - I.T. Consultant of the Year.

XDelta Limited is pleased to announce that Colin Butcher was selected as one of the four finalists in the British Computer Society I.T. Professional 2003 awards in the category I.T. Consultant of the Year. This is in recognition of his work with HP (formerly Digital / Compaq) and OpenVMS Engineering.

The BCS I.T. Professional Awards brings together two formerly established awards programmes into a single, high profile event to reflect and celebrate the nation's I.T. industry as a leading global player.

See the BCS I.T. Professional Awards web site for further information.

The results were announced on the evening of 24^th September at the Awards dinner. Congratulations to Gill Hunt of Hunt Lancaster on being awarded the winners trophy.

July 2003

Nemonix Engineering Inc. and XDelta Limited sign exclusive EMEA agreement.

XDelta Limited of Bristol, UK and Nemonix Engineering Inc. of Holliston, Massachusetts, USA are pleased to announce the appointment of XDelta as the exclusive UK/EMEA distributor of performance enhancement products for the VAX range of computer systems.

There are still many organisations around the world successfully running business critical applications on their VAX systems. They may not be ready to migrate to newer OpenVMS platforms such as Alpha, or cannot do so for application specific reasons, yet they need faster CPUs, more memory, SCSI storage subsystems (UWD) and Fast Ethernet (10/100 FDX).

Nemonix has been in business for 18 years manufacturing a variety of hardware enhancements for VAX systems to satisfy this important market and help bring older VAX systems into line with modern I.T. infrastructures.

XDelta is very pleased to offer this comprehensive range of VAX performance upgrade products complemented by expert systems knowledge, thus enabling clients to operate the most highly available business solutions in the world. Interested resellers and end users in the UK and Europe are requested to contact XDelta for further information.

VAX, Alpha and OpenVMS are trademarks of Hewlett Packard.