From: richard_maher@my-deja.com Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 7:11 AM To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com Subject: Re: DECdtm and TUXEDO questions Hi Thierry, If DECdtm supported the Transaction Internet Protocol (TIP) then alot more doors would open up to you but until then and to the best of my knowledge: The good news is that if you're only running Rdb/VMS then the 2PC is achievable whether you use TUXEDO, MQ-Series, TIER3, straight socket calls or task-to-task communication. Please note that you *won't* be using Tuxedo for its XA functionality but merely as a conduit (or 2nd pipe in th TIP sense) for passing DECdtm TIDs (Transaction Identifiers and BIDs (Branch Identifiers, later to be refered to as Application Participant Identifiers) around. I will send you a Mailbox and a DECnet Task-to-Task example, via seperate mail as I can't get any attachments to work here :-( The bad news is that you don't appear to be running DECnet and DECdtm needs it. (I believe that the code for TCP/IP DECdtm is there but needs a final tweak and, obviously, testing before it could be released. But apparently I have to ferret out the many customers, such as yourself, that can prove that they have a legitimate need for this functionality and prostrate them before Rich Marcello before he will consider funding such a project) Maybe you can get by with DECnet over TCP/IP. I've also included some recent discussions on the subject that you may find interesting. I'm not sure if the customer that Yves was talking about was in fact SNCF but I hope you will find the information useful. The thing that I found curious was the fact that Bill Gettys of OracleRdb did not quote a contact or colleague in BEA for VMS/XA future directions/strategy and instead relied on the same web and local reference library data that a layman like myself might refer to. I'm sure that the formal communication channels have been in place for many years and Bill just didn't want to quote anybody? I have also come across the following web site on my travels, that may or may not be of any interest to you from a comparison point of view, that discusses what some of the more viable parts of Compaq are doing with Tuxedo and TIP and Non-Stop Transaction Manager/MP: http://himalaya.compaq.com/view.asp?ioid=189 Regards Richard Maher. What follows is an extract from a recent thread in the Oracle Rdb List server: -----Original Message----- From: Yves Lhérault [mailto:yves.lherault@SPAMNOTbea.com] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 7:04 PM To: Richard Maher Subject: Re: DECdtm enhancement Hi Richard, Sorry for not responding immediatly : been at customer ... No problem with quoting me in a technical discussion. My point here is with rdb not supporting XA, it is very difficult to think of any application spanning multiple DBs if RDB is one of them. So, exit Rdb. And it's a pity, because RDB users love it ! Best regards Yves From: Yves Lhérault To: Subject: Re: RDB and XA Support with TUXEDO on OVMS Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 20:45:07 +0200 Hi Richard (comments embedded) > Hi Yves, > > I was waiting for someone from Oracle to reply to you but I guess > it's not going to happen. (At least publicly). It appears that the > torrent of ODBC, OCI, SQL/services queries is taking up all available > bandwidth. I expected some reply for Oracle too... > >So what's new here: I've a customer wanting to run RDB 7 with TUXEDO > >and support transactions using XA. > Who is the customer? (Worth a try :-) and what *exactly* are their > requirements? Was it you or them that first mentioned TUXEDO and XA? The customer is a large (over 100K employees) French company, already a BEA customer (that's why I didn't use "prospect" or "potential customer" ;-)) for TUXEDO. They recently decided to port some of their old apps to TUXEDO on OpenVMS and required some advice. As they're using RDB, they expect to continue using it. And they're thinking of integrating with other DBs in the near future, hence XA. > >Is the full support of XA now availbale in RDB > NO! Rdb engineering is looking at it. Apparently the XA (Transarc Encina > compatible) code is, sorry was, available on TRU64. If Rdb lifted a finger > to help with a *decent* XA version of DECdtm then we may be getting > somewhere on VMS. I don't want to enter any war here against engineering. While there were no or few customers requiring XA, I understand the economics of not developping it. But now, it would help a lot. The only references I found on XA/RDB are dated 1998 and things do not seem to have evolved. > >(that is allowing different processes to start/commit) ? > YES! Rdb/VMS has had this functionality/capability for about *10* TEN > years. DECnet-work wide! I've been a deccie for years and I know DECdtm (liked it) and RdB. Just want to go one step further... -----Original Message----- From: Ian Smith [mailto:Ian.E.Smith@SPAMNOToracle.com] Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 3:22 PM To: oraclerdb@jcc.com Subject: Re: RDB and XA Support with TUXEDO on OVMS Richard Maher wrote: > I don't understand how there could have been heaps of money for XA > compliance in Rdb/Tru64 yet Rdb/VMS continues to be starved of the budget > for this and other functionality, even though it was Rdb/*V.M.S* users' > license fees that paid for Rdb/Tru64 and Rdb/NT. DECdtm didn't run on OSF, so we needed a 2PC transaction monitor. We chose the ENCINA XA model. > But then I find it absolutely inconceivable that no one from Oracle > Rdb got in touch with Yves let alone replied to his question here. But I did and I directed him to the appropriate channel. Maybe he didn't get my mail. > But I'm forgetting listserver etiquette and that this is not a formal > support channel :-( Exactly, and there are some questions asked in this forum which do not need or warrant a public response. > Is it true that the XA code for Rdb/VMS is already in situ but is just > turned off? > As I mentioned above we implemented the ENCINA XA model, unfortunately the TUXEDO XA implementation doesn't play well with Rdb and the changes to Rdb require more than "turning on" the support. If you attend the Rdb Forum then I can explain more in person (sign up now). So while we are interested, other matters are seen as more pressing. While an email letter campaign might get some attention it doesn't help us complete other tasks on our plate any faster. As you will learn at the Rdb Forum at the end of September... -- Ian Smith Read the Technical Corner column Oracle Rdb Engineering Group in the Rdb Web Journal email: Ian.E.Smith@oracle.com http://www.oracle.com/rdb (Standard disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Oracle Corporation) -----Original Message----- From: Bill Gettys [mailto:Bill.Gettys@SPAMNOToracle.com] Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 4:28 PM To: oraclerdb@jcc.com Subject: Re: RDB and XA Support with TUXEDO on OVMS Richard and Yves, Please look at the BEA web site for their list of supported platforms. There is no entry for OpenVMS as either a supported or planned platform for version 7.1, their latest. See http://www.bea.com/products/tuxedo/platforms.html The only releases that ever supported OpenVMS were their versions 6.5 and 6.4 (client support only). They support VMS version 7.2 with version 7.1 binaries only. See http://www.bea.com/products/tuxedo/platforms_6.html Some of our engineers believe it would take a tremendous amount of work for Rdb to support Tuxedo and would potentially destabilize the code for all our customers. The resources we would have to devote to that effort would be better utilized on other projects that have more immediate benefit to more customers IMHO. I am not encouraged to change my mind when I read that Tuxedo no longer seems interested in OpenVMS. Bill Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.