Goodbye to a trusted friend

[Jan van den Ende]

Many of you have come to know the "Amsterdam Police Cluster".
It was started many years back when the Amsterdam Police contracted me (and a year later my collegue Anton van Ruitenbeek) to manage their various VaxVMS systems.
When it became necessary to move to Alpha, we took the opportunity to integrate the various applications onto one cluster, and streamline management thereoff.

Several years ago our government dictated more standardisation and integration of IT of the various police organisations.
A new organisation was created, and police IT outsourced to that, intended to do just such.
Pretty quickly it was deemed not politically correct to take one of the "big" police organisations as standard, as that would be considered as "assimilation".
New configuration standards were developed, and the various applications gradually moved there.
Another target was (and is) to try and do without external (contract) personnel.

The Amsterdam VMS apps have now mostly moved over, and my contract terminated as of march 1(for Anton that moment came 1,5 years ago).

An unexpected event was my sudden emergency heart surgery in the night of 10-11 february.
(within 2 hours after the first signs I had been tranported to hospital, received a Dotter treatment and got a coronairy stent).

I have recovered sufficiently that I was able to attend the farewell dinner yesterday (for me as well as for Erdinc, another external contractant leaving).

That visit also was my formal farewell to the Amsterdam Cluster, which has for so long been considered "ours", and has become our pride.

As it stands now, the final shutdown will happen "in the next few weeks", making it improbable that it will reach the 11 years uptime mark.

... Since I have so often referenced it here, (and several of you have also attributed to spreading its fame) I considered it the right thing to do to tell you this news as well.

When the final shutdown will happen, I will report on it here one final time... :-(

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Robert Gezelter]

Jan,

First, my wishes for a full and speedy recovery!

Your work in maintaining non-stop uptime for over a decade is an achievement to be proud of. I can only request that someone do a display of the appropriate status information before the cluster is actually shutdown.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Karl Rohwedder]

Jan,

best wishes for your recovery and your future.

regards Kalle

[Kris Clippeleyr]

Jan,
It is sad to hear that yet another long term VMS customer has decided to finally pull the plug. The installed base is indeed getting smaller and smaller.
But then again...
I hope you will fully recover from your illness, and I hope to see you in Nashua this year.
Regards, and best wishes.
Kris (aka Qkcl)

[Oswald Knoppers_1]

Kris,

The Amsterdam cluster will be shutdown but the applications are moved to another VMS cluster. So this customer is not leaving VMS (yet).

Oswald

[Ian Miller.]

Jan, I hope you fully recover from your heart problem.

You and your colleagues achievements with this cluster in maintaining 100% application uptime while upgrading and relocating the hardware are an inspirational example to us all.

Perhaps you can now write a book or at least a paper for the VTJ.

I hope to be able to buy you a beer in Nashua in May.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

I hope the heart problem was not caused by the contract termination.

And I hope that you get a new VMS job. A U*** or M$$$ would be bad for the heart.

Wim

[Vladimir Fabecic]

Jan

I wish you full and speedy recovery!

There will be more VMS clusters for you and for all.
Let your heart be like VMS.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Is dat ff schrikken!
Ik hoop dat je er goed overheen komt!
Jammer dat er een einde aan deze rit komt.
Toch leuk dat ik in December nog even in Amsterdam langs heb kunnen komen.

Scary stuff! I wish you a speedy and full recovery.
Too bad about the long lived cluster. I'm glad I managed a quick onsite visit last December!

Cheers,
Hein.

[Jan van den Ende]

First of all:

thanks to all for the "good health" wishes.

It all happened so quickly, there was no time to be scared, but looking back, it is NOT something I care to repeat, nor wish for anybody else. (But fantastic that the help DOES exist when needed!!).

I am feeling quite well now (but very quickly tired still).
I have been incorporated in a quite extensive rehab program, so for the next few months that will be my "occupation".

@Bob:
I hope so too. I was promised to be kept informed, so...

@Qkcl:
See Oswald. He is in the central organisation, country-wide involved in moving some of the apps.

@Ian:
I started on that article, but somehow it is not progressing as I had hoped it would.
That Nashua beer at this moment does not look probable, as the company is very reluctant to sponsor overseas training. And the prognosis is that I will still be on (hopefully partial) sick leave in May, which does not help :-(

@Wim:
Impossible to prove or disprove, so just let's not blame anyone.
Another VMS job? Yeah, that WOULD be great. For the moment, prospects are rather bleak.
(anyone: if you know of a VMS opening in the south-west of the Netherlands: DO give me a message. One way to contact me is: jpe at vdende dot demon dot nl . More than one good beers promised)

@Vladimir:
(see @Wim): I just hope so!

@Hein,
yeah, that was nice. Nashua is not very probable (see @Ian), but somewhere somewhen I sure hope to share one with you once more!

Again, thanks all for the good wishes.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe