[Info-vax] Moving away from OpenVMS

[David Froble]

Eric Smith wrote:
> So the writing appears to be on the wall, and after scouring the web
> and chatting to colleagues, I've finally been convinced that our large
> business-critical application currently running on OpenVMS (IA64) has
> to be moved to something that will be supported fifteen years down the
> line.
> 
> Since this is a niche community, I'm appealing to anyone in the know
> to find out who specialises in COBOL system migrations, specifically
> *from* OpenVMS, to any modern platform (interpretation: Windows or
> Linux)?  I'm looking for someone to come in and do the whole job and
> leave us with a system that behaves just as it did before.

If you think you got 15 more years of VMS, what's the hurry ?

Then again, it might take more than 15 years ....

I think others have given good advice when they say "talk to HP".  While JF likes to run 
around declaring "the sky is falling", I don't (yet) have any lumps on my head.

If enough people talk to HP, perhaps it will cause HP to see that continuing to support 
VMS is a good idea.  If they don't hear from anyone, perhaps they'll think the train has 
already left ..

There are 2 basic (as I see it) questions for the future.  One is whether you will need 
more functionality in the OS, and the other is support for then current devices.

If you will not need any new features, then what's running today will run just as well 15 
and even 100 years down the road.  Big problem here is, you won't know what you need, 
until you know you need it.

The list of old disk drives is rather long.  Today it's S-ATA, and maybe serial SCSI, 
don't know.  What will it be tomorrow?

One seeming solution for hardware support is to run in emulation on current hardware. 
This takes care of the CPU, memory, disks, and basically everything else.  I see myself 
contemplating this path in the future.  50 pin SCSI disks just aren't made anymore.

As for disks, the way things are going, they look to be replaced as primary storage by 
solid state disks.  It's starting now, and will most likely continue to grow and become 
more cost effective.

The real kick in the teeth is whatever you choose may be in worse shape than VMS in 15 years.

The basic question I put to people is, if you don't have to spend a lot of money this year 
for what at best will be a sideways move, and most likely a downward move (you'll never 
get it all working as good as your current system), then why do so?  Conversions, ports, 
and such should be delayed until the pain is more than the cost of the change.  Anything 
else is throwing money away for no gain.


Or, you could really get stupid and contract with one of the "off-shore software" vendors. 
  If you do, I'd suggest that you don't pay one cent until you're 100% satisfied.  Even if 
you don't pay them anything when they fail to delived what you need, they'll have eaten up 
plenty of your time.