[Info-vax] Where is VMS used for new projects?

[Neil Rieck]

On Feb 19, 8:43 am, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
undress to reply) wrote:
> In article
> <9b1e7d8c-0c9e-4c10-9e34-bc58305a4... at u14g2000vbg.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Neil Rieck <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> writes:
> > 3) Our team intends to move to Itanium but corporate bean counters
> > think that route will be too expensive.
>
> I'm pretty sure that this is not the case; I think the license costs are
> lower on Itanium.  Also, if you buy Itania with the same processing
> power, you will use less electricity.  It would be silly not to take
> this into account.

You are 100% correct. From my perspective a complete Alpha system with
licenses was only 20% (maybe less) that of an equivalent VAX while
being 5-10 times faster. People with OpenVMS software support
contracts got a steep discount when transferring licenses. So I am
hoping to see that moving from Alpha to Itanium would also be 20%
lower.

The problem with bean counters (at least where I work) is that they
never look at TCO issues like reduced power and air conditioning
(which come out of two different budgets paid by someone else). They
only see these mini-computer guys asking them to cut a cheque for
technologies (Itanium, OpenVMS, whatever) the bean counters never
heard about at university. To add to my woes, much (perhaps 80%) of
the IS/IT work has already been outsourced to contractors so there is
always a temptation for them to do nothing while the department either
fades into oblivion or our computer needs are also outsourced. That's
where we depend upon support from middle management from operations to
support us because our systems have such long up times (532 days as of
this morning).


NSR