[Info-vax] rx2800i2 sales/support window changes

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Shael Richmond wrote 2014-02-17 18:28:
> On Friday, February 14, 2014 3:09:56 PM UTC-6, Keith Parris wrote:
>> On 2/12/2014 10:04 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
>>
>>> If HP has no plans for an IA64 emulator on Linux, then those shops
>>> who
>>
>>> are "stuck" on VMS should consider instead moving from IA64 to
>>> Alpha
>>
>>> VMS, at which point they can move to an emulated instance on x86
>>> servers
>>
>>
>>
>> Customers who have migrated already from (VAX or) Alpha to Integrity,
>>
>> and traded in all their licenses, old hardware, etc. (or those
>> customers
>>
>> who started out on Integrity) are unlikely to find moving to Alpha on
>>
>> emulators attractive at all, for multiple reasons:
>>
>> 1) Performance. They got a performance gain going to Integrity from
>>
>> Alpha (or VAX). Running under emulation of Alpha is extremely
>> unlikely
>>
>> to give them anywhere near the performance they are getting on
>> Integrity
>>
>> native today.
>>
>> 2) Support. Since HP Mature Product Support for OpenVMS 8.4 on Alpha
>> is
>>
>> committed only through at least the end of 2018, whereas MPS on
>> OpenVMS
>>
>> 8.4 on Integrity is committed through at least the end of 2025,
>> anyone
>>
>> interested in longevity of support would probably aim to get to the
>>
>> safest landing zone of OpenVMS 8.4 running on Integrity.
>>
>>
>>
>> I expect the prospect of Itanium emulation to start to become
>> attractive
>>
>> as individual hardware platforms age and after they lose hardware
>>
>> support from HP and start to fail frequently, and the necessary
>> decade
>>
>> or two has elapsed from a platform's heyday so that system
>> performance
>>
>> of an emulator can at least match the original hardware platform's
>>
>> performance.
>
> I finally got an answer from Stromasys that said an emulated DS25 would
> be slower than the actual DS25.  However I could have it emulate two
> cores to get better performance at the cost of buying additional VMS
> licenses.
>

OK, a two CPU emulated DS25 vs. a one CPU real DS25, right? That
will not get you better single thread performance of course, but
*may* give you better system wide performance. But not as good
as a two CPU real DS25... :-)

So the real performance is very much depending in the workload.

Jan-Erik.

> Shael
>