Archive - previous News, Seminars and Events

TNMoC Industry Seminars series

22^nd May 2009 - The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, U.K.

Installing and setting up Apache and SIMH on OpenVMS

Colin Butcher and Camiel Vanderhoeven gave a seminar about installing and configuring an OpenVMS web server using CSWS (based on Apache) and about setting up SIMH (Bob Supnik's simulator environment for a range of target systems).

15^th May 2009 - The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, U.K.

Installing and setting up OpenVMS systems

Colin Butcher gave a seminar about installing and configuring OpenVMS on the three supported hardware platforms: Integrity, Alpha and VAX. We ended up with a running three-architecture OpenVMS cluster!

See The National Museum of Computing events web pages for further information.

The idea for this seminar series is for TNMoC to involve practising professionals in giving seminars on various aspects of the design and implementation of computer systems.

18^th - 19^th May 2009 - Oxford Belfry Hotel, Oxford, U.K.

EuroTEC 2009 - the UKCMG Annual Conference and Exhibition

18^th May 2009 - Performance testing and monitoring for mission-critical systems

28^th - 30^th April 2009 - Harrogate International Centre, Harrogate, HG1 5LA, U.K.

HC2009 Conference & Exhibition

Mission-critical healthcare: NHSBT Pulse

Colin Butcher gave a session about the recent successful implementation of new "Pulse" system for the NHSBT (NHS Blood & Transplant).
This project is the current lead story by the Availability Digest on the HP OpenVMS web pages.

30^th April 2009 - Mission-critical healthcare: NHSBT Pulse

See the HC2009 Conference & Exhibition web pages for further information.

March 2009

Gartner report on "Best practices: Migration planning for AlphaServer users" lists XDelta

See the Gartner report "Best practices: Migration planning for AlphaServer users" for further details. XDelta is listed as one of eleven companies world-wide that undertake such work.

19^th March 2009 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London, U.K.

HP User Group OpenVMS Day - Chris Brown (HP), Ray Turner (HP), Anders Johansson (HP), Dave Holt (HPUG), Colin Butcher (XDelta)

IPCI (IP Cluster Interconnect) and Volume Shadowing enhancements (slides courtesy of Nilakantan Madahevan of HP OpenVMS Engineering).
19^th March 2009 - OpenVMS performance on Integrity for HPUG OpenVMS update day

See the HP OpenVMS and HPUG web pages for further information.

16^th March 2009 - National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1, U.K.

AICS Seminar - Virtualisation - Colin Butcher (XDelta)

16^th March 2009 - Virtualisation

See the AICS web pages for further information.

28^th February 2009 - Trinity Arts Centre, Bristol, U.K.

Techadventure - an adventure in technology, organised by Shevek and friends.

Bring your projects and demos along. Have fun.

See the Techadventure web site for further information.

17^th February 2009 - Palmer Building, Whiteknights campus, Reading University, U.K.

BCS Reading branch - Disaster-tolerant systems - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

Disaster-tolerant systems

The design and implementation of highly available disaster-tolerant systems requires a more disciplined approach than is common in the IT industry. It is important to have a sound understanding of the technology as well as the ability to communicate effectively and see the project through to successful completion. Colin has successfully delivered several large and complex projects in extremely demanding environments. This session discussed some of the key issues involved in this kind of project.

See the BCS Reading branch web pages for further information.

28^th November 2008 - 10 St. James's Square, London, U.K.

Topinterim annual symposium - "Change we can believe in" - Public sector business.

See the topinterim web site for further information.

19^th - 20^th November 2008 - Nieuwegein, Utrecht, The Netherlands

HP Dutchworld - OpenVMS Technical Update - Gerrit Woertmann (HP), Chris Brown (HP), Jurgen Eijmberts (Intel), Johan Buijser & Marcel Willems (Oracle), Ton van der Zwet (Kadaster), Colin Butcher (XDelta)

Colin gave several session at the HP Dutchworld event. The overall event was well organised and very well attended. The exhibition hall was very busy with a lot of stands by HP and business partners. Having excellent coffee provided by the Barista Company was a splendid idea.

Networking with OpenVMS systems: DECnet Phase V, DECnet over IP, LAN failover, failsafe IP
Performance: getting the best from your new system platform
IPCI (IP Cluster Interconnect) and Volume Shadowing enhancements (slides courtesy of Nilakantan Madahevan of HP OpenVMS Engineering).
Disaster tolerant clusters

See Gerrit Woertman's HP Dutchworld - OpenVMS track web pages for further information.

10^th - 12^th November 2008 - Mannheim, Germany

Community Connect Europe (the European arm of the HP User Group) event - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

Designing virtualised infrastructures

This session provided an overview of virtualisation and the design principles that apply to virtualised infrastructures. There are a wide range of issues to be considered and the context within which your business operates will help to determine to what extent virtualisation is applicable across the different aspects of your organisation.

Data networks and storage networks: a technical overview

Systems cannot operate in isolation. With the move towards a virtualised environment the demands placed on storage and networks have never been greater. Understanding the way that network and storage infrastructures function is increasingly important. This applies across the board from systems management to application design and deployment. This session provided an in-depth technical overview of how network and storage infrastructures work and interact with the systems that connect to them.

See the Community Connect Europe web site for further information.

14^th October 2008 - London, U.K.

UKCMG event - How performance affects service - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

How performance affects service

See the UKCMG web site for further information.

1^st October 2008 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London, U.K.

HPUG event - Data Networking and Storage Networking - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

Data Networking and Storage Networking

See the HPUG web site for further information.

September 2008

Colin Butcher short-listed as one of the finalists for "IT Consultant of the Year 2008" in the BCS IT Professional Awards.

This nomination is for his design and implementation work on the new "Pulse" system for the NHSBT (NHS Blood & Transplant). This project is the current lead story on the HP OpenVMS web pages.

Availability Digest article on NHSBT Pulse national system

See the BCS web site for further information about the IT Professional Awards.

16^th - 17^th September 2008 - Kistamässan, Kista, Stockholm, Sweden

HP OpenVMS Technical Update - Sue Skonetski (HP), Anders Johansson (HP), Burns Fisher (HP), Doug Gordon (HP), Barry Keirstein (HP), Colin Butcher (XDelta)

Disaster-tolerant clustering with OpenVMS on Integrity
Performance: getting the best from your new system platform

See the HP Sweden OpenVMS Technical Update web pages for further information.

September 2008

Colin Butcher achieves Engineering Council registration as Chartered Engineer via the BCS.

See the BCS and Engineering Council web sites for further information.

18^th - 23^rd May 2008 with pre-symposium events.

OpenVMS Advanced Technical Symposium ("bootcamp"), HP OpenVMS Engineering, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.
Held at the Radisson Hotel (formerly the Sheraton Tara Hotel) in Nashua adjacent to ZKO (Spit Brook Road).

The 2008 OpenVMS advanced technical symposium was yet another outstanding event. It gives attendees the opportunity to meet OpenVMS engineers, users and experts from around the world. It's also a great event at which to meet up with old friends and make new friends.

See the OpenVMS Advanced Technical Symposium ("bootcamp") web site for further information.

Availability Digest article on OpenVMS clustering
This article was based on a two day pre-bootcamp seminar given by Keith Parris and Colin Butcher, attended by Bill Highleyman of the Availability Digest.

Block 249B - Disaster-tolerant clustering with OpenVMS on Integrity
Block 277 - Networking with OpenVMS systems

The Ambassador Spirit Award (formerly the John Wisniewski Spirit Award).

Volker Halle (of Invenate in Germany) 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. Volker is one of the main contributors to the ITRC forums and it is great to see his tireless contribution valued this way.

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, also www.openvmshobbyist.com) and Keith Parris (OpenVMS Ambassador for HP in the USA).
2007: Ian Miller (of EDS in the UK, also www.openvms.org).

1^st April 2008 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London, U.K.

HP User Group OpenVMS Day - Chris Brown (HP), Ray Turner (HP), Dave Holt (HP), Nic Clews (CSC), Colin Butcher (XDelta)

See the HP OpenVMS web pages for further information.

March 2008

Colin Butcher awarded Chartered IT Professional Fellowship of the British Computer Society.

See the BCS web site for further information.

23^rdJanuary 2008 - BCS, Davidson Building, Southampton Street, London, U.K.

BCS Group Membership Forum - Professionalism and leadership - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

Professionalism and leadership

See the BCS Group membership web pages for further information.

27^thNovember 2007 - NCC, International Press Centre, London, U.K.

NCC EA-SE workshop - Performance and Capacity Planning - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

See the NCC EA-SE programme web page for further information.

6^thNovember 2007 - NCC, International Press Centre, London, U.K.

NCC EA-SE workshop - Risk and Complexity - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

See the NCC EA-SE programme web page for further information.

30^th - 31^st October 2007 - Hilton Hotel, Olympia, London, U.K.

UKCMG 2 day seminar - Systems Engineering for Availability and Performance - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

See the UKCMG seminar web page for further information.

Seminar description
Seminar slide set

4^th October 2007 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London, U.K.

HPUG event - Data Networking and Storage Networking - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar provided a technical introduction to the principles and products commonly used in data networking and in storage networking.

4^th October 2007 - Data Networking and Storage Networking

1^st - 2^nd October 2007 - NBC (Nieuwegein Business Center), Blokhoeve 1, 3438 LC Nieuwegein, Utrecht, Netherlands

HP and Interex Netherlands OpenVMS Technical Update event

See the HP Netherlands OpenVMS TUD web page for further information.

• Sue Skonetski, Manager Engineering Programs, HP OpenVMS Engineering
• Andy Goldstein, Principal Member of Technical Staff, HP OpenVMS Engineering
• Jim Janetos, Technical Manager, HP OpenVMS Engineering
• John Shortt, Blades Project Leader, HP OpenVMS Engineering
• Meg Watson, Distributed Netbeans Project Leader, HP OpenVMS Engineering
• Colin Butcher, OpenVMS Consulting, XDelta Limited
• Gerrit Woertman, OpenVMS Ambassador, HP Netherlands (event organisation and planning)

1^st October 2007 - Availability & Performance: Multi-site disaster-tolerant environments
2^nd October 2007 - Migrating to Integrity

19^th July 2007 - HP, 88 Wood Street, London, U.K.

HP OpenVMS roadshow - Mary-Jane Vazquez (HP), Ray Turner (HP), Dave Holt (HP), Colin Butcher (XDelta)

19^th July 2007 - Migrating to Integrity - latest version (HP Netherlands OpenVMS TUD)
19^th July 2007 - OpenVMS roadshow: Bootcamp summary

25^th - 27^th June 2007.

UKCMG Annual Conference & Exhibition 2007, Whittlebury Hall Hotel, Northamptonshire.

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 2007 - Principles of performance
June 2007 - Principles of availability

20^th - 25^th May 2007 with pre-symposium events.

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 2007 OpenVMS advanced technical symposium was yet another outstanding event. It gives attendees the opportunity to meet OpenVMS engineers, users and experts from around the world. It's also a great event at which to meet up with old friends and make new friends.

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

May 2007 - A112 Designing OpenVMS systems for availability and performance
May 2007 - A184 Networking with OpenVMS systems

The John Wisniewski Spirit Award.

Ian Miller (of EDS in the UK) 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. Ian is one of the main contributors to OpenVMS.org.

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).

24^th April 2007 - HP, Filton Road, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, U.K.

HPUG event - Migrating to Integrity from Alpha and VAX - Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited.

This seminar compares the different hardware platforms and discussse the typical issues to be addressed when porting from one platform to another, including performance, system configurations, floating point data formats, the importance of data alignment, device support, EFI console, multiple core processors, hyperthreading and blade systems.

24^th April 2007 - Migrating to Integrity - latest version (HP Netherlands OpenVMS TUD)

22^nd January 2007

PMP Evaluation Centre - IT Infrastructure, Security & Business Continuity.

Colin Butcher of XDelta Limited worries that there is a growing "expertise gap", caused by the loss of experienced staff and the lack of new people coming through to take their place.

IT Infrastructure, Security & Business Continuity - Mind the gap

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

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

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

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 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

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
10^th March 2005 - Small office network functional diagram

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

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

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)

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

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
1^st Nov. 2004 - SOHO network functional diagram

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

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

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)

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

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

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
13^th Scanned image of article

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

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
1^st November 2004 - SOHO network functional diagram
2^nd June 2004 - Post seminar notes

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

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)

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

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
Storage session
VAX hardware upgrades session
OpenVMS High Availability configurations session

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 EMEA agreement.

XDelta Limited of Bristol, UK and Nemonix Engineering Inc. of Massachusetts, USA are pleased to announce the appointment of XDelta as the 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.