MPE/iX 6.5, PowerPatch 1 Due in September
HP e3000 users who have been waiting for PowerPatch 1 to be released before upgrading to MPE/iX 6.5 will be able to begin migrating soon. HP has announced that PowerPatch 1, a collection of General Release patches that have been tested with MPE/iX 6.5 and that have been made available individually, will be released in September.
HP is also warning users that they should plan to update to either MPE/iX 6.0 or MPE/iX 6.5 this year because support for Release 5.5 will end on December 31, 2000. Most users are being encouraged to upgrade to 6.5, rather than 6.0. Release 6.5 offers a number of performance and capacity enhancements for high-end systems as well as bundled tools for using the HP e3000 with the Internet. Moreover, Release 6.5 will be supported longer than 6.0.
Support for Release 6.0 has been extended to April 30, 2002, the date on which support for 9x7 servers (917-987) will end.
Among the performance and capacity improvements in 6.5 are 40 percent improvement in performance on the high end of the HP e3000 line, with support for 10- and 12-way 997 servers; support for up to 16 GB of memory on PA8000 and PA8200 based servers (16 GB on 997 servers, 8 GB on 979KS, 989KS, 939KS/030, and 929KS/030 servers); and support for 128 GB fixed length record files and KSAM files in the operating system, command interpreter, and associated tools.
New Internet, intranet, e-services, and interoperability features in 6.5 include bundled and supported Web server software based on Apache, support for LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), and support for Java 2, including the Software Developer's Kit (SDK).