Tru64 UNIX/HP-UX interoperability and migrations questions
peter wolfe
I'm an engineer in the Tru64 Systems Management Engineering Group.
I am currently investigating interoperability and migration
issues for Tru64 UNIX and HP-UX systems and looking for your feedback.
This message has been cross-posted to several Tru64 and HP-UX forums:
- Encompass - the Compaq/HP user's group
- www.compaqusers.org
- Tru64.org Tru64 Unix-SIG mailing list and the Tru64 Managers mailing
list
- comp.sys.hp.hp-ux, comp.unix.tru64 newsgroups
- hpux-...@dutchworks.nl mailing list
- HP IT Resource Center, HP-UX forums
If you think there are others forums where this should be posted,
please let me know.
Background:
With the merger of Compaq and HP, clear product roadmaps were announced.
From the UNIX perspective, a summary of the roadmaps is as follows:
- HP will continue with the previously published roadmaps for both
PA-RISC and AlphaServer systems. HP will continue development of the
PA-8800 and PA-8900 processors, as well as the EV7 and EV79 Alpha
processors. Longer term, the plan is to migrate to servers based on
the Itanium Processor Family (IPF).
- HP and Compaq both offered UNIX operating systems: HP-UX and Compaq
Tru64 UNIX. HP-UX will be the long-term UNIX for the new HP. We plan
to take the best features from Tru64 UNIX, such as TruClusters and
the Advanced File System (AdvFS), and move them to HP-UX.
For additional, roadmap details, please refer to
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/07may02b.htm
Questions:
Given this background, we have several issues:
- tighter integration of Tru64/Alpha and HP-UX/PA-RISC or HP-UX/IPF
systems today
- for customers planning the move to HP-UX, documentation and tools to
aid in the transition.
I personally am interested in the interoperability/migration issue from the
perspective of system administration. Though HP-UX and Tru64 have much in
common, there are definite differences in management and system configuration.
I am especially interested in understanding the challenges an administrator
will encounter such as application portability, storage migration, database
migration, etc.
If you are a system administrator I'd like to provide some example
migration/interoperability ideas in order to help frame the discussion:
1) If you are an existing Tru64 UNIX admin, what Tru64 features should be
added:
- to allow Tru64 to interoperate with HP-UX
- to allow a Tru64 admin to prepare for an eventual HP-UX migration.
Some examples:
- A simple example. HP-UX is System V based and Tru64 is BSD/OSF1
based. Many management commands reflect these differences. For
example, ps(1), df(1) vs. HP-UX's df(1) and bdf(1), sar (8) ,
etc. The System V versions of many frequently used commands are
currently available on the Tru64 Associated Products CD-ROM in the
Extended System V Functionality (ESVF) kit. Right
now they are packaged off to the side and you have
to 1) know about them 2) find the Associated Products CD and install
them. A Tru64 admin looking to move to HP-UX would probably want
easier access to these commands. We could offer them as part of the
base OS install instead of making the admin do an additional,
optional installation
- A Tru64/HP-UX Interoperability/migration guide. HP in the past has done
HP-UX interoperability/migrations guides for AIX, Solaris, and
Irix:
AIX/Solaris: http://www.InterWorks.org/Tech/
Irix: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpv37626/lpv37626.pdf
The guides focus on documenting the OS similarities and differences
near and dear to the administrator's heart: system startup and
shutdown, installation, network management, configuration, file system
and storage management, etc. There is nothing that you couldn't learn
from reading the standard system documentation but it's all collected
in one place and presented in the context of an operating system
you are already familiar with.
- NIS interoperability in an Enhanced Security (C2) mixed Tru64/HP-UX
environment.
- Better OpenView support. For example:
- OpenView performance agent/GlancePlus client support
- Oracle 9i RAC SMART Plug-In (SPI)
- Printing. Tru64 uses a BSD based print subsystem and HP-UX a
System V one. How big an issue is this for your shop? Do you
use either vendor's Advanced Printing products? LPRng?
2) If you are an HP-UX administrator coming from a Tru64 UNIX background,
what sorts of tools would you like to see move forward from Tru64. Some
possible examples:
- HP-UX ports of useful subsystems, tools, and utilities. For example,
- syscheck
- collect
- Event Management (EVM)
- diskconfig
- tape library compatibility (e.g. ability to read vdump tapes)
- device naming. Porting TruClusters to HP-UX will involve the same
device naming changes it did on Tru64. This was a large change to the
system and administrative tools/scripts. For a single system,
both device name spaces can coexist. For a TruCluster, the system
has to move to the new device naming convention. For the early
TruCluster releases, clu_migrate scripts were provided to help
automate the device naming conversion. Did you use these scripts and
were they useful in your environment?
- More BSD compatibility at the command level where appropriate (e.g
ps(1) )
With this background, the questions I have are:
1) what features of Tru64UNIX do you like best?
2) what features of HP-UX do you like best?
3) what types of tools do you believe would be most useful to your
organization for migrating from Tru64 to HP-UX
4) What interoperability tools would you like to see when working
in mixed Tru64 UNIX and HP-UX environments?
5) Any additional comments/requests?
These questions are purposely open-ended. Any and all feedback is welcome.
--
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|Peter Wolfe, Tru64 Systems Management Engineering |
|Hewlett-Packard Co. Peter...@hp.com |
|200 Rt 9 North, Manalapan, NJ 07726 (732) 577-6010 |
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