  File transfer and networking with Microsoft? 
 The Question is:
 
Our company has a digital alpha (dec 3000 ) that
is currently running OPEN VMS v 1.5-1H1.
 
This system has one task only. It is conneted to
a image recorder called an LVT. This LVT was
orginaly sold as a complete intergrated package
by Kodak for pre-press houses such as my employer.
 
The Aplha is a stand alone system and is NOT
networked to the MACs that comprise our working
environment. Our problem boils down to this:
 
We can only sneaker net files into the Alpha by
walking over and using a syquest that is attached
to the Alpha. For a bunch policy reasons that
are rather boring they want to keep it off the
network and network the Alpha to a PC running
NT .... so that we have a 'little' network
comprised of the Alpha and the NT machine so to
speak in the corner.... where we all can now
walk over and use the NT as a means of transfering
files to the Alpha machine. The primary reason
my employer wants to take this approach is because
it is easy to attach any device to the NT PC -
zip,jaz, syquest etc.
 
My question is this, how hard a task is it to
connect an Alpha running OpenVms and a NT pc.
using a in-expensive hub from Fry's.
 
Should I get them to upgrade to a more current
version of Open VMS first?
 
And to further stir this pot they only want to
use Windows NT Workstation 4x they do not want
to pay for a full version of NT server software.
 
The only other background I have not mentioned is
when LVT was a sub-division of KODAK we had great
service and last summer KODAK sold it to another
company. ---- who has told us our only recourse
is to buy a whole new system ... printer, nt pc
etc... which will run about 30k and my boss wants
to see if wew can go this route first before
we spend a great deal of money.
 
It is obvious, I think by now I am not a 'network
professional' and my expierence with computers is
basicly installing software and setting up PC's
and MAC's... but I have been doing this for ten
years and know aliitle about TCP/IP and basic
networking. But i am not, a 'VMS/UNIX gearhead'
(sic) if only to provide you with a better picture.
 
thanks for yor time and I hope you anwser
 
 
sincerely
 
jack smith
 
 
 The Answer is:
 
  You will want to move to OpenVMS Alpha V6.2, V7.1-2, or V7.2, after
  determining what (if any) OpenVMS version dependencies might be present
  in the LVT package.  V1.5 and V1.5-1H1 are no longer supported releases.
 
  Most OpenVMS systems were sold with a NAS license package, which permits
  the installation and use of networking packages such as DECnet and (more
  interesting in this case) TCP/IP Services.  The latter permits connections
  to remote systems via FTP, NFS, PCNFS, and similar IP-based protocols.
 
  More involved would be the installation and configuration of the PATHWORKS
  (Advanced Server) or SAMBA packages, which would allow the OpenVMS system
  to more directly participate in the Windows NT network environment.  (With
  PATHWORKS LanManager and OpenVMS V7.1 and later, the same password can be
  used on the Windows NT domain and on OpenVMS, and a password change in
  either place will also change it in the other.)
 
  It is interesting that you want to add devices to the Windows NT system,
  though you already have these devices connected on the OpenVMS system.
  Recent versions of OpenVMS are also reasonably good at connecting to
  "odd" SCSI devices.  (Though one should never underestimate the
  bandwidth of a delivery truck filled with Zip disks...)  There are
  tools available that can read FAT format disks directly on OpenVMS,
  as well, if this is a concern.
 
  An OpenVMS system tends to be completely immune to the Microsoft Word
  macro viruses, bootstrap block viruses, Exchange-related viruses, and
  similar such problems commonly found among various Microsoft Windows
  NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98 systems.
 
  OpenVMS upgrade and installation documentation, as well as new features
  documentation is available in the OpenVMS documentation set.  TCP/IP has
  its own documentation, as does PATHWORKS (Advanced Server).
 
