[Info-vax] 1 year.

[already5chosen at yahoo.com]

On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 6:30:06 AM UTC+3, Kerry Main wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
> > Stephen Hoffman
> > Sent: 08-Aug-15 6:39 PM
> > To: info-vax at info-vax.com
> > Subject: Re: [New Info-vax] 1 year.
> > 
> > On 2015-08-08 19:54:35 +0000, already5chosen at yahoo.com said:
> > 
> > > Yes, more or less. Except that AEST appears to be a static translator,
> > 
> > Incremental translation and instruction emulation are necessarily
> > performed.  Details are in the previously-linked documentation.
> > 
> > Using application translation for the environment that IanD has
> > described is likely more expensive, with no improvements in their
> > current results and quite possibly with a reductions in stability or
> > availability or maintainability.   It's unclear why emulation would be
> > acceptable to responsible managers here, either.  Particularly given it
> > hasn't already been deemed acceptable some time over the past decade
> > or
> > so.
> > 
> > This particular translation case also involves moving to a platform
> > where Kittson as the last Itanium processor being discussed for
> > OpenVMS
> > itself, and where VSI has already picked the follow-on architecture
> > with OpenVMS porting to x86-64.
> > 
> > Management wants to migrate and has a replacement environment and
> > wants
> > this particular environment gone, so -- in the absence of a viable
> > financial justification to the contrary, and quite possibly even with
> > such a justification -- that's the target here.   Build a financial case
> > to stay with OpenVMS.  Or get going on the migration.
> > 
> 
> Would building an Alpha HW emulator on OpenVMS/X86-64 not be a 
> more preferred option? 

I see no advantages over existing Stromasys products and numerous disadvantages.
The biggest one - OpenVMS/X86-64 does not exist.
The second biggest - when it finally exists, drivers availability will always remain far behind Windows Server. Running host VMS OS in para-virtualization mode under VMWare or under its Winduws or Linux counterparts can partially alleviate the issue, but only partially and at cost of making already slow solution even slower.

On the other hand, application-level binary translation demonstrated very good performance. IA32EL claimed, on average, 50-60% of native (i.e. the same sources recompiled for Itanium) performance for apps that spend almost no time in syscalls. Applications that spend more time in syscalls and native libraries calls will fare even better.

>
> Future VAX HW emulators???
> 
> From a Customer perspective, standardize on one X86-64 platform and 
> move older environments to new platform with zero (or low) impact?
> 
> Latest OpenVMS running on V9.x/X86-64 and older env's running on
> same server running OpenVMS Alpha .. similar to VMware.
> 
> Course, the mix would depend on performance requirements.
> 
> Big benefit would be to get all those Alpha/VAX systems on new HW
> (HP ProLiants?) and under monthly service support contracts to VSI.
> 
> Would certainly help monthly revenue stream.
> 
> There is also quite a bit of experience with building HW emulators via 
> other vendors, so perhaps, one could be contracted separately to do 
> this?

Yes, Stromasys emulators work, but they are far from speed demons.

> 
> Kerry