Talking with “Mr. PASE”, Tim Massaro
(by Christoph Cuscoleca, 2001)

The first time I met Tim was at the Common US Conference at Baltimore in October 2000. I was hanging around, looking for some information about PASE, when I saw a booth at the COMMON Expo with a guy talking about PASE. So I walked by and we started talking, and Tim Massaro, one of the guys standing at the booth, told me a lot of interesting things about PASE and the AS/400.

The next time I met Tim was again at an Expo both at the COMMON in New Orleans 2001. I told him about my project, and we started an interview, but a matter of time, we couldn’t finish it. So again we met at the IBM PIE in Rochester in summer 2001, and finally we finished the interview.

I am very glad to know Tim, because he is a real great guy and helped me a lot with my PASE project. Thanks to You Tim!

Tim Massaro (on the right) at the COMMON Expo in Baltimore 10/2000

PASE Interview (COMMON US, 12-18 May 2001, New Orleans and IBM PIE Rochester, August 2001) Mr. Tim Massaro (TM) and Christoph Cuscoleca (CC)

CC: Hi Tim, nice to meet You again. Would You please tell me a little bit about You and Your Job! When did You start working for IBM on the AS/400, and what did You do before You started working with PASE on the AS/400! Excuse me, I’m still using the name AS/400, I hope You don’t care!

TM : Sure, actually I started out working for IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, USA in 1980 working on the iSeries, oops, I mean the AS/400 or rather the System/38. Back then I was on the Work Management team and moved on to several assignments including teamleader of Message Handler and Operational Assistant.

CC: What exactly is Your part in the PASE project?

TM: I actually don’t work on the PASE project itself. I am more of a user of PASE. What happened is that my current department supports some tools that run on AIX, on the IBM RS/6000 or now called pSeries. In Feb of 2000 I experimented with running these tools in PASE. Things worked fantastically well and we found we could meet some customer’s needs, so by Feb 2001 we had a PRPQ ready for customers called iSeries Tools for Developers. This toolset contains various tools, many of which require PASE, that are handy for Unix developers who are porting applications to the iSeries. The toolset also provides productivity features and new

applications not previously available to iSeries customers.

CC: What is the strategy behind PASE?

TM: The idea behind PASE is that because both the iSeries and the pSeries run on the same PowerPC processor chip, the PASE developers could map a broad range of AIX interfaces and APIs to the correct iSeries function. This allows many AIX binaries to run unaltered on the iSeries box, and many more applications can run with only minor changes. So the strategy really is to provide for our customers a way to run a whole new set of applications (these AIX applications) directly on the iSeries. Please remember, all of my answers are my opinions and not necessarily those of IBM.

CC: What does PASE stand for? (Private Address Space Environment or Portable Application Solution Environment). Where does this names come from?

TM: Portable Application Solution Environment is the official definition for the PASE acronym. It tries to describe the fact that users can now more easily “port” applications to the iSeries, simply by running them in the PASE environment. Private Address Space Environment has also been used to describe PASE, this is because PASE applications have the full range of address access as they would on a Unix machine, however it is important to remember that on iSeries we are running PASE jobs in their own protected environment. The iSeries developer does not have to worry that a PASE application will run off the end of an array and wipe

out another job’s storage, as could happen in a Unix world. PASE does not allow this to happen, each PASE job runs in a protected iSeries job structure, and can be controlled with traditional iSeries commands such as WRKACTJOB.

CC: Why should someone use PASE, and who should use PASE?

TM: PASE should be used by businesses who would like to move an application to the iSeries platform, either to enter a new marketplace for their existing Unix based product, or to reduce the headache and cost involved in the number of machines they support in their shop.

CC: What are the benefits of PASE?

TM: New applications we have already mentioned that current applications can find a new marketplace, but another feature is that existing iSeries shops can find lots of Unix based Opensource on the internet, with a little searching, you may find tools that you can take advantage of. The iSeries Tools for Developers toolkit that I mentioned is an example of this. For zero investment, you can take a powerful editor such as emacs, download it from the internet and run it on your system to edit IFS files instead of using the lower function editf.

Tim Massaro with colleague at the COMMON Expo in New Orleans 05/2001

CC: What are the limits of PASE?

TM: As I mentioned before not all AIX interfaces are supported, in addition, for most customers the fact that PASE does not have a compiler could be limiting. Enhancements to PASE applications would require compiles be run on AIX.

CC: Is PASE easy to use?

TM: I found PASE to be very easy to use. In fact, for simple applications I simply ftped the binary files from AIX to the iSeries and ran them. One thing to be aware of is of course ASCII data is usually used in PASE and EBCDIC in the traditional environment. In general PASE takes care of the translation of this data.

CC: What do I have to know and to learn if I want to use PASE?

TM: Obviously some Unix knowledge is useful if you want to use PASE. Other than that, you will want to know about the QP2TERM shell environment (however in release V5R1 with the merged shells you can simply run in the standard qsh shell). There is also the QP2SHELL and RUN2PASE APIs that allow you to invoke PASE binaries from traditional ILE applications.

Also You should use the free applications analysis tool. This tool can verify whether your AIX applications contain any non-supported interface calls. This tool will also help determine how easily your application can be ported to PASE.

Another spot to learn about PASE is the following RedBook

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg245970.html?Open

CC: Isn’t it better to port UNIX programs to the AS/400, than to use PASE?

TM: It depends on the situation, first of all I recommend the free PartnerWorld port evaluation to get an idea if there are any potential trouble spots in your application. Potentially a careful rewrite could improve an application, however a quick port could even make things worse.

CC: Can You tell me a little bit about the technique behind PASE and how it works?

TM: Really PASE is an example of the IBM eServer strategy, take great technology from each platform, be that iSeries, pSeries, zSeries or xSeries and make it available across all the platforms. So PASE is an example of how we could take existing instructions/code from the AIX OS and merge then into the OS400 system offering an integrated AIX function to iSeries customers

CC: Are there any new functions of PASE in V5R1?

TM: New function for V5R1, one of the important features of V5R1 is that PASE code has been translated to other languages, along with that the integrated shell environment that allows one to type both qsh or PASE commands at the standard QSH command line is another nice feature.

Here is the official list for V5R1:

· 64-bit application support

· Translated messages for OS/400 PASE runtime libraries, shells, and utilities

· SQL CLI server mode support

· Documentation for OS/400 PASE runtime, shells, and utilities included in Information Center

· Header files and exports files for OS/400 PASE extensions to AIX runtime shipped in OS/400 option 30

· New core file format (for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications)

· Storage management performance improved using delayed allocation and copy-on-write mappings

· Several New/Changed Utilities to make PASE even more AIX-like

CC: How about the performance of PASE? (even compared to AIX)

TM: I can’t really make performance comparisons, but from personal experience I have found PASE to be very quick and no noticeable difference because I am using PASE. I have used it for demonstrations at COMMON on very small 170 model systems.

CC: What are, in Your opinion, the pros and cons of PASE on the AS/400?

TM: Pros would be the ease of integrating new software and the ability to reduce the number of machines I might have to support in my shop, Cons at this point would be that to enhance a PASE application my developers would have to have AIX boxes to do compiles on.

CC: What would You change in PASE, if You could?

TM: I would change a common misconception about PASE. I think some people think of PASE like something attached to the side of the system, but really the software that makes PASE happen is a truly an integrated part of SLIC and OS/400.

CC: What is PRPQ?

TM: Product Request for Price Quote, this is an old IBM term that basically means Beta code. Now remember that PASE is fully a part of the Operating system as a separately orderable option 33. Only iSeries Tools for Developer is a PRPQ. The reason this is a PRPQ is it contains some Open Source code that we can’t easily support and it also has not been translated into other languages as you would expect with a full product.

CC: Are there any typical PASE applications running on the AS/400?

TM: PASE is used by many customers as part of developing applications, and it is really not easy for us to keep tabs on who is currently using PASE, but the first applications ported using PASE have been in business intelligence (SPSS) and supply chain segments (J.D. Edwards Active Supply Chain Suite, and i2 Rhythm Suite).

Also in V5R1 the C++ compilers use PASE on the iSeries

CC: What are the AS/400 requirements using PASE? What else do I need to use it?

TM: PASE only runs on the newer versions of iSeries hardware. PASE was first available on V4R4, however it is fully there in V4R5 systems. It is Option 33 of the operating system, in V4R5 it was separately orderable, but nothing else is required to use PASE.

CC: What things should I take care of if I would like to use PASE?

TM: Nothing special needs to be taken care of for the PASE environment, possibly education, using the analysis tools at the PartnerWorld web site and the same authorization concerns you would have with the IFS

file structure.

CC: Can PASE be used in a “Productive Environment”?

TM: Yes PASE can be used in a Production Environment...it is truly integrated part of the system.

CC: How long does it take to implement a PASE project? What are the key risks?

TM: Budget some time for education perhaps and then use the PartnerWorld application analysis to help determine if you will have any hurdles.

CC: Are there any security risks running PASE programs?

TM: No special security factors for PASE other than the normal IFS file structure considerations

CC: Which UNIX versions are supported by PASE? Are there any plans for the future to enhance the support?

TM: V4R5 PASE is equivalent to a subset of AIX 4.3.3. I can’t really comment on any future plans, but I would say that this only makes sense that the newer versions of AIX would be supported.

CC: How about the future of PASE? Are there any major changes planned? What will be possible?

TM: Sorry, I really can’t comment on new enhancements, hopefully we will see you at COMMON next year where I can say more.

CC: Do You know some good information’s or programs about PASE on the Internet?

TM: http://www.iseriesnetwork.com has several articles available on the web about PASE and the iSeries tools for Developers (including a couple that I am the author of).

There is also a PASE newsgroup where people can ask questions

news://news.software.ibm.com/ibm.software.iseries.pase

CC: What is PASE from an AS/400 point of view?

TM: PASE is the integration of AIX function in the OS/400 Operating System to take advantage of the fact that both the iSeries and the pSeries eServers run on the PowerPC chip

CC: What is PASE from an UNIX point of view?

TM: PASE is the partial port of the AIX operating system to the OS/400 operating system

CC: Is there anything else You can tell me about PASE?

TM: Thanks for your interest, I hope this information has been helpful, I think you will find like I did that the PASE developers did a fantastic job and that it truly is amazing the things that can be run on PASE on the iSeries. A few years ago if you would have told me that Tetris or some other graphical application such as gnuplot or Emacs was running on the iSeries I would have assumed it would be running somehow on a green screen window or by using some client server application on a PC. But with PASE and VNC Xserver support even these applications run directly on the iSeries. I think that is a remarkable change in the function now shipped with every iSeries machine.

CC: Thanks very much for the interview, Tim. And I hope to see You again soon!