[Info-vax] VMS on a PC

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Jan 17, 11:02 pm, Roger Ivie <ri... at ridgenet.net> wrote:
> On 2009-01-17, Roger Ivie <ri... at ridgenet.net> wrote:
>
> > On 2009-01-17, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> >> And as new 8086s come along, they are perhaps less likely to require VMS
> >> updates to allow VMS to run on it
>
> > Ah! An optimist! It is well known that you never wind up throwing out old
> > PC hardware because you just can't find a Vista driver for it, right?
>
> OK, I got that backwards and should have said something more like "It is
> well known that finding a Windows 98 driver for your spiffy new hardware
> isn't a problem, right?"
> --
> roger ivie
> ri... at ridgenet.net

You are of course right in the general desktop or laptop churn
nightmare, which is why I specifically said Proliant. For those that
aren't aware, Proliants are the family of servers introduced by Compaq
some considerable time ago (1993?), and still continued by HP, because
to all intents and purposes they are the definition of "industry
standard server" [1], and they generally sell like hot cakes (with two
obvious historical exceptions: the rebadged Unisys 32way box, and the
Compaq-designed Itanium box). Lots more info at http://www.hp.com/go/proliant

Proliant kit generally goes on being sold (and being largely
compatible) for as long as Intel will supply compatible chips (which
aren't necessarily the same ones as in a domestic PC); sometimes the
chips in a Proliant aren't even Intel ones at all. When an Intel chip
in a Proliant goes end of life, there's likely something very similar
in an AMD-based Proliant, or a follow-on from Intel, and it'll likely
carry on running the server OS which the customer chose (might be
Windows, might equally be Linux or a BSD, who knows). When an Itanium
chip in an Integrity goes end of life, there's... [2]

Plenty of organisations are happy to run their business on Proliant
hardware. At the high end there are plenty of reliability,
availability, and serviceability (RAS) features on Proliant. Maybe if
folk try really really hard they'll find a feature that's in Integrity
that doesn't have an equivalent in upmarket Proliant (other than,
obviously, VMS and HP-UX capability). Maybe that doesn't matter if the
only target market for Integrity is the "RISC replacement" or
"mainframe replacement" market, as per Intel's usual Itanium
presentation stuff and as per HP's "mainframe replacement" spokesman,
John Pickett.

For those outside the mainframe world that can live with x86 but for
some reason don't like Proliant from Compaq/HP, Dell have kit which
conceptually isn't a million miles off, kit which is good enough to
satisfy a lot of Windows and Linux users, although it is unlikely ever
to be of interest to the VMS community even if there was VMS/x86 (it's
an extra cost to qualify, with no worthwhile extra benefit in
revenue?).

How late is QuickPath (specifically, Tukwila) at the moment? It's easy
to find references saying it was due in 2007, was it ever due earlier?
In May 2008 Intel were saying "servers in early 2009" [3], does that
still apply? And what's next for Itanium after Tukwila? Poulson, or
not?

That's my bang on the drum for today.

[1] Ten millionth Proliant shipped, ten years of number one server by
volume (2005):
http://h41131.www4.hp.com/emea_middle_east/en/press/HP_Makes_Computing_History_with_Shipment_of_10_Millionth_HP_ProLiant_Server_.html

[2] In a QuickPath system, if the system vendor has no more IA64
chips, in theory you throw away the IA64s and put in a faster Xeon. In
reality?

[3] http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146043/tukwila_itanium_servers_due_early_next_year_intel_said.html