Congrat thread for John Gillings

[Willem Grooters]

The second HP hat. John made it!

Congratulations, John. Keep 'm rollin.

Willem

[Ian Miller.]

Another VMS only pro! - keep up the good work. Onwards and upwards

[Lokesh_2]

Congratulations from me too !!

Best wishes,
Lokesh

[labadie_1]

Congratulations John !

And I had the pleasure to meet him at Decus Europe at Lyon in 2002!

[Antoniov.]

Congratulations John.
Still work well!

Antoniov

[Ganesh Babu]

Congrats John..

Ganesh

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello,

IIRC John is responsible for the original "ITRC patch" side in Australia, which some people might think was better than what we have now. He deserves lots and lots of credit for that one too!

Also he is the first "hat" from downunder. Three cheers for this!

All the best and please stay with us here.

Greetings, Martin

P.S. Just for grins, the top members here are from a really wide geographic background

German working in the US
Italian
United Kingdom
Netherlands
India
Australia

[labadie_1]

As you talk about this australian web site...
the author knew what the word ergonomy meant.

have you gone to the CA ftp site for (former) Polycenter products ? The CA people (and many others) should have a look at the former australian site.

[John Gillings · Accepted solution]

Thanks guys.

Unlike most of you, this is part of my real job ;-)

The Australian web site was a group effort by the OpenVMS team in the Sydney CSC, led by myself and James Cameron. However, the most important influence in its format and content was direct feedback from users. (and, strictly speaking the ECO web site was NOT part of our jobs, nor was it ever officially sanctioned, and none of you would believe the pile of scrap and hacked up code that ran it :-)

The new ITRC site is different, and is still missing some of the features I'd like it to have, but it also already has several features that I always wanted but didn't have the resources to implement.

Remember that it's an adaption from a site designed for HP-UX, somewhat force fitted to OpenVMS. Keep sending your feedback and we'll eventually make it much better than the Sydney CSC site (click "contact hp" in the top left corner of every page, then "ask a question about using the IT Resourource Center")

Also a quick plug... Did you know that HP has a certification program for OpenVMS?

See http://www.hp.com/certification/

Just a few exams and you can qualify for "OpenVMS Certified Systems Administrator", "OpenVMS Certified Systems Engineer" or "OpenVMS Accredited Systems Engineer"

I suspect that many of the people here could sit these exams cold and pass.

[V. Nyga]

Congrats John!

Enjoy your first hat and
go for the next one.

Volkmar
*the best hat is the pointed one* ;-)

[Willem Grooters]

As Martin stated:
Just for grins, the top members here are from a really wide geographic background

Additional - I fear symptomatic:
NARROW in area of business:

German working in the US - banking/finance
Italian - (independent consultant?)
United Kingdom - development/system management/outsourcing
Netherlands - development/system management/outsourcing

VMS knowlegde seems more widespread OUTSIDE HP:

German working in the US - non-HP
Italian - non-HP
United Kingdom - non-HP
Netherlands - non-HP
India - HP
Australia - HP

(taken from the personal information so don't blame me for errors).

Is this something to worry about?

[Jan van den Ende]

Congrats from me to!!.

John,

about your staement:
>> I suspect that many of the people here could sit these exams cold and pass. <<

Well, at Decus Lyon at the Dutch evening I had "some" wine, and at least one of those glasses must have been foul :<( , so I wasn't feeling too happy next morning.
My bus got stuck in the traffic jam, the plenary session had already started, they wouldn't let anybody in anymore (yes, after complaining that was changed thereafter) and there was no coffee in between breaks.
Having nothing else to do, and finding there was room in the examination room, I 'passed some time' by doing the administration exam.
Like you predict, well over the line. That is: NO extra preparation, No coffee, under a well-develloped hangover.
Mind you, I do not propagate this way of examination: in the afternoon, after some paracetamol, a good meal, and a lot of coffee I used my (already) reserved timeslot at the examinations, and the results for "Accredited Systems Engineer" (although in itself more difficult then Administration) were a lot better.

So, to all those who didn't do it already:
Yes, I agree with John, most people in this community can pass with little or no extra effort, and you would be surprised at how much it is valued, and, especially in consultancy situations, how much credibility you gain just be being certified!

Jan

[Lokesh_2]

I have done OpenVMS system administration certification (HP0-651)in sep 2003. The exam was good , having questions on different topics & concepts. Though passing the exam is easy, but to get better marks, needs some preparation ( just a quick review of documentation is enough to referesh commands etc... ) .

Best wishes,
Lokesh Jain

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Willem,

I do not think that you can draw the general conclusion that VMS knowledge is more widespread outside hp from the forum stats. After all this is a customer forum, so I think they intentively let us come to our own conclusions for the most time and only chip in when needed. And at least for my part I find their comments generally very useful.

As for industry coverage in my opinion it is difficult to draw conclusions from the list. While it is clear that I work in one of the "target" markets, e.g. Ian over at EDS might have multiple customers in various areas. What you might conclude from the list is that companies seem to have a tendency to outsource VMS management.

Greetings, Martin

[Antoniov.]

Hello,
Martin & Willen you opened a new thread.
For your information I'm 45 years old; I'm an indipendent developer (C and Cobol) & consultant for VMS from 15 years. My customer are very little company. I never gone to Europe Decus but next time may be I will go so I can kwown somebody of you; started to learn spoken english.

Martin I agree customers outsource their VMS system; here in Italy is very common way.

Cheers
Antoniov

[Mike Naime]

To interrupt the thread at this point... :-)

Congratulations John!
Please keep contributing!

Mike Naime

[Mike Naime]

And from the Bottom of the Top 10 list...

US - NON-HP Hardware/OS Systems management & SAN

We have a LOT of ex-DEC'ies working for us.

Can you find me on this page?
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/success-stories.html

[Willem Grooters]

Mike,
Since you haven't stated your company and I haven't met (yet) it's hard to locate you....

In our company, we have a number of DECies as well. But I guess this applies to more companies that appear in this Forum...

Martin:
I know. It's a users community, and when HP people get in, the give the insight you need (making things clear at once. John has done quite a good thing in this forum!)

Antonio:
Check your mail....

Jan:
We zien mekaar wel op de eerstvolgende VMS SIG bijeenkomst.

(Since this was COMPLETELY off topic, this is the last of it)

Willem

[Mike Naime]

Willem, I wasn't trying to make it that hard to figure out, but I figured that if I gave any more clues, I should have just posted the success story link. I was hoping that some people would actually go read the success stories. I found them interesting. They gave me some other perspectives on VMS life out there. I suspect that most of us live in our own little VMS worlds and are not really aware of what the others are doing with it out there.


Based on other posts that I have made....

"Congratulations Martin from Kansas City."
This should be enough info. There is only one US company in Kansas City on that page

"You have me beat on sheer number of Alphaservers. I have 156 with about 20 more on order. But mine are all in one data center!"
Large data center. Big Company. You can cross off the smaller companies.

"I logged a support call with my Platinum support TAMS"
Of the US companies. Only one lists Platinum support in the story.


By not blatanly stating the company name, my management cannot say that I posted the information that I worked for company XXX. And my posts here are in no way considered to be recommendations of that same company.

For even more stories.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/casestudies/atoz.html

[F. Beest]

Congrats on the new hat. Enjoy it and keep it up. Party on...