[Info-vax] VMS - what is the current thinking amongst the user community

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Jon.Power at sector7.com wrote:
> It been a long time since I posted anything - Sector7 has been working
> away at migrating various applications - not much change there - We
> are releasing 3.3 of the migration libraries - which provide full
> duplex asynchronous I/O, AST's (supervisor, kernel, user etc) - and
> has tested at doing over 50,000 lock conversion per second on some old
> Intel equipment.
> 
> So much for the bits and bytes - Obviously, the projects we see these
> days are no longer the 'low hanging fruit' - we are - as always -
> focused on complex code migrations - I would be very interested in
> understanding what the VMS users "feel about" VMS. We seem to be
> seeing large corporations with UNIX as the focus - that have a VMS
> server / cluster that is working perfectly - but - represents a very
> small percentage of the organizations skill set - and yet is as
> mission critial as any other server.
> 
> We wont be soliciting / calling or even emailing - but - If anyone
> feel so inclined I'd especially like to hear:
> 
> (a) Is your VMS system running mainly home grown application or
> packaged

I use it for a few sorting or searching jobs using tools not readily 
available to me on Windows.

> (b) If homegrown - are there any specific VMS API/ Subsystems - that
> make VMS irreplaceable (lock manager, clustering etc)
> (c) Is there any 'software' that would make life easier - I hate to
> use the DEC I14Y "Interoperability" - only because - I still miss
> DECUS / New Orleans and the TGV guys paying a for several great nights
> out.
> (d) Is there still the religious fervor associated with VMS? (after
> having to duplicate the AST/QIO/Lock Manager mechanisms - I have even
> a greater appreciation of VMS internals)

VMS people believe in their O/S.  We know it, have known it, in some 
cases, for thirty years!  There are a minimum of traps for the unwary.
It's the friendliest system I know of to work with interactively.

> (e) What programming languages are popular ? (no one has asked for
> BASIC or DIBOL for 2 or 3 years)

I use DCL, Fortran and C for the most of little coding I do.  One of my 
consulting clients uses VAX BASIC for his applications.  I've done a 
very little work in VAX Macro, a couple of device drivers.

At my last job, the VMS systems ran Oracle and used a 3GL from Ross 
Systems to handle order entry.  Marketing also used a VMS system but 
with Sybase instead of Oracle.  VMS and Sybase were also used to store 
and retrieve customer "imprints".  The business printed stationary, 
business cards, checks, and holiday cards.  The customer's "imprint" was 
usually some combination of logo, name, address and/or phone number 
stored in a typesetting language; run this through the proper software 
and hardware and you get printing plates.  We also sold/resold other 
things we could put your imprint on: letter openers, coffee mugs, 
chocolate, calculators, pens and pencils. . . .  All the doodads that 
businesses give to their customers

> (f) If VMS was going to be replaced - as VMS guys - what target would
> you lean toward (AIX/HPUX/LINUX/Solaris x86)

I'd go with Solaris.  It's not that AIX/HPUX/LINUX couldn't do the same 
jobs but Solaris is the one I'm comfortable with.  SPARC hardware was/is 
readily available and cheap and I'm comfortable with it as well.  I've 
run Solaris 8 and 9 on X86 hardware as well as SPARC.

> 
> I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this.
> 

Not a problem!  Now for the matter of my consulting fee. . . . ;-)