Valour (software)

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Valour is a copy/backup/restore program for IBM's VM environment.

Contents

The product

Valour, also called DiskWorks as well as strategic marketing brands chosen by vendors, grew out of a plan to rewrite the aging Westinghouse Disc Utility (WDU) and target the full range of IBM operating systems.

Westinghouse Disk Utility, popularly called WDU, is a copy/backup/restore program for IBM's DOS, DOS/VS, and DOS/VSE environments. In 1978, it was reported that WDU, a product of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, was in use at over 3,000 sites.

Valour runs as a highly privileged CMS task, designed to accommodate any model disc drive or tape drive. The product incorporated a number of unique concepts and technologies. It was one of the earliest products to use a primitive form of windowing, including dialogue boxes capable of real-time updates. [1]

The Conversational Monitor System is a simple interactive single-user operating system. CMS was originally developed as part of IBM's CP/CMS operating system, which went into production use in 1967. CMS is part of IBM's VM family, which runs on IBM mainframe computers. VM was first announced in 1972, and is still in use today as z/VM.

The product offered a wide variety of hierarchical backups, data streaming, alternating tape drives, and an ability to defragment minidisks. [1]

Defragmentation rearrangement of sectors on a hard disk into contiguous units

In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions (fragments). It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Some defragmentation utilities try to keep smaller files within a single directory together, as they are often accessed in sequence.

Development

Valour, also called DiskWorks, grew out of a joint effort between Westinghouse and III of Orlando, Florida. Original plans called for both VM/CMS and VSE versions led by Dr. Ray Ferguson of Westinghouse and Leigh Lundin of III. John Gaston was selected to lead the VSE team. Part way into development, Westinghouse began to break up the division during the outsourcing thrust of the Reaganomics era. Through badly managed negotiations, Westinghouse ended up with neither developers or outsourcing partners, which spelled the end for one of the industries foremost software groups.

z/VSE is an operating system for IBM mainframe computers, the latest one in the DOS/360 lineage, which originated in 1965. Announced Feb. 1, 2005 by IBM as successor to VSA/ESA 2.7, then-new z/VSEwas named to reflect the new "System z" branding for IBM's mainframe product line.

Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity that is or could be done internally, and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another.

Reaganomics economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan

Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics, referred to as trickle-down economics or voodoo economics by political opponents, and free-market economics by political advocates.

The VM product was developed by III (Independent Intelligence Incorporated) of Orlando, Florida. The software designer was Leigh Lundin. Other core developers included Dr. Ray Ferguson, Kevin Beauregard, Mark Woodruff, and Jean-François Groff.

Orlando, Florida City in Central Florida

Orlando is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Orange County. Located in Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released in July 2017. These figures make it the 23rd-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the third-largest metropolitan area in Florida. As of 2015, Orlando had an estimated city-proper population of 280,257, making it the 73rd-largest city in the United States, the fourth-largest city in Florida, and the state's largest inland city.

Product development occurred at III offices within Westinghouse Automation Intelligence division, Orlando, Florida. Broad range in-depth testing was conducted at IBM's data center in Tampa, Florida and the IBM lab in Böblingen, Germany.

Data center building or room where computer servers and related equipment are operated

A data center or data centre is a building, dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.

Tampa, Florida City in Central Florida

Tampa is a major city in, and the county seat of, Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. It is on the west coast of Florida on Tampa Bay, near the Gulf of Mexico, and is the largest city in the Tampa Bay Area. The bay's port is the largest in the state, near downtown's Channel District. Bayshore Boulevard runs along the bay, and is east of the historic Hyde Park neighborhood.

Böblingen Place in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Böblingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, seat of Böblingen County. Sindelfingen and Böblingen are contiguous.

The team first built an OOPS environment using a combination of procedural Rexx and assembler language. Valour may have been one of the first commercial products that looked to object-oriented programming to underpin its development platform.

Development brought new techniques and concepts, including its own hi-speed access method, network hierarchical data structures, windowing, and a buffer block concept referred to as granularity.

Marketing

The product had a feature unique for its time. By changing a table and a splash screen, the product could be re-labeled or re-branded for any distributor in any Roman language. As such, the product was localized for France, Germany, Switzerland, and Netherlands, each with local marketing companies. III contracted with distributors using a non-exclusive license.

For example, the distributor in the US branded it USR/Backup, [2] while a German company, SysCon, labeled it SysCon/I. [3]

Westinghouse Electric Management Systems, SA (WEMSSA), Paris, London, Geneva, Zürich, Munich, and Amsterdam, acquired the marketing rights, initially for Europe, Africa, and the Far East. Westinghouse Electric, Pittsburgh, subsequently acquired rights for the Americas.

Through legal agreements, III then contracted with other companies and distributors.

Over time, Valour (DiskWorks) replaced competing products [4] acquired by Dowling Associates of Dublin, Ohio.

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References

  1. 1 2 Valour User Manual © 1999
  2. ↑ USR sales literature © 1998
  3. ↑ SysCon brochure
  4. ↑ VM Software's Backup/CMS
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