[Info-vax] "Not so" nice for VMS

[George Cook]

In article <7537stF161g82U1 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
> Sorry about the pun above, but I couldn't resist.  :-)
> 
> I ran into someone I am sure at least a couple of people here will
> remember this morning.  Bob Curley.  Seems he has been talked into
> un-retiring for some part-time work for a couple of months.  While
> bringing a VMS dinosaur back may seem promising, it isn't.  He 
> informed me that VMS is on its way out of the administrative side
> of the house, here, just as it did from the academic side.  Why,
> you ask?  Because SCT Banner has informed them that they are no
> loinger going to support VMS and, as has been stated here repeatedly,
> it's the applications, not the OS that makes the difference.  He
> also mentioned something about Oracle being involved in the decision
> but I was not aware of any changes at Oracle regarding VMS support.
> So, it looks like a move to Linux or Windows.  And I got the idea
> the timeframe was by this summer as that was how long they wanted Bob
> to stick around.

We also run Banner on VMS.  Yes, support is being dropped after 
Banner V8, but few sites are even running V8 yet and the next release
after V8 has been indefinitely postponed.  In other words, it will
be at least three or four years before we are forced off VMS.

As far as I know the reason for dropping support has nothing to do
with any action by Oracle.  SCT has been trying to drop VMS support
for years even though it was where Banner was originally developed.
The most recent announcement I saw from SCT said "we are working with
HP to help you leverage the latest HP technology" ... "move to HP-UX
or Linux today."  Not a single one of our member institions who have
moved off VMS has purchased a single piece of hardware from HP.  They
all bought Dell or IBM hardware.  When we finally move the last Banner
systems here off VMS, it will be to AIX or Linux (on non-HP hardware).
As far as I know, HP has not made even the slightest effort to keep
us or our member institutions on HP hardware.

I suspect HP has been actively encouraging SCT to drop VMS support
for years, but SCT's customers have been very resistant to moving
off VMS.


George Cook
WVNET