[Info-vax] i4 Possible?

[fhsjvl at gmail.com]

Our tests show that OpenVMS runs without any problem on an Integrity rx2800 i4 server with one Intel Itanium 9560 
processor ("Poulson" 8-core 2.53 Ghz) as well as on an Integrity rx2800 i4 office friendly server with two Intel 
Itanium 9520 processors ("Poulson" 4-core 1.73 Ghz). A CPU bound test job doing integer and floating point 
operations shows roughly the same performance on an rx2800 i2 with a "Tukwila" 1.6 GHz processor and an rx2800 i4 
with a "Poulson" 1.73 GHz processor.

The rx2800 i2 server and the rx2800 i4 server are nearly identical (contrary to the i2 and i4 blades, someone told 
me). For that reason there was a proposal from some people inside HP to support OpenVMS on rx2800 i4 only. The 
reasoning being that while establishing full support for OpenVMS Poulson might not have been profitable, limited support for the 
rx2800 i4 would. This proposal was customer driven, meaning that several customers wanted to buy stand-alone
entry-level Itanium systems with OpenVMS (do not think that everybody uses blades only). 

But, obviously, the powers that be at HP did not listen to anyone. Maybe because it is too late already. I have
heard talking about the size of the OpenVMS engineering staff a few days ago. The number of FTEs engaged in 
OpenVMS engineering seems to be so astonishingly low that it is correct to say that OpenVMS engineering has shut 
down already.