[Info-vax] Message from HP.

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

JF Mezei wrote 2013-12-20 19:20:
>
>> •OpenVMS/Integrity  8.4 SS to 2020
>> •OpenVMS/Integrity  8.4 MPS w/o SE from 2020 to 2025
>> •OpenVMS/Integrity  8.3 PVS w/o SE to 2018
>> •OpenVMS/Alpha      8.4 SS (?) to 2016, MPS w/o SE to 2018
>> •OpenVMS/Alpha      8.3 PVS w/o SE to 2016, MPS w/o SE to 2018
>> •OpenVMS/Alpha      7.3 PVS w/o SE to 2016, MPS w/o SE to 2018
>> •OpenVMS/Alpha      6.2 PVS w/o SE to 2016, MPS w/o SE to 2018
>
>
> Considering that VMS is mature,...

What is *your* defenition of "mature"? Or can you point
to some document that clearly describes that with regard
to software?

> I would have expected...

Who cares?

> Alpha and
> Integrity support commitments to be the same. Also, I would have
> expected 8.3 to be treated the same since it is the last stable release
> of VMS.
>

You have not been following up the last 5 years.
But we know that, so that's OK.

> On the other hand, considering there is no definition of "sustaining
> engineering" (one part time contrator in India ?), it is hard to know
> whether there would be any real difference between support with or
> without sustnaining engineering.
>
> My hope is that customers still on Alpha and/or 8.3 will have a chat
> with HP to explain why they don't move to 8.4 and why they need
> continued support until they leave HP.

If you're on 8.3, there is no real reason not to run 8.4.
You can not make a case against HP on that ground.

>
> BTW, what of VAX-VMS support ? Does HP still sell some support ? Or did
> VAX-VMS support go out the door when HP shut down VMS engineering ?
>
> If I were a large shop, my main concern right now would be hardware
> support. One accepts that VMS is no longer developped, and in a way, it
> makes for mroe stable systems. But hardware support is important to make
> sure the old software still runs.
>
> I really doubt someone who is still on Alpha will want to upgrade to
> IA64 before going to Linux. They may choose to move to emulated Alpha on
> 8086s.
>

Depends on if you want support or not. IA64 gets standard support at
least until 2020. Running emulated doesn't give you that support.