[Info-vax] Best "Standalone" boot versions for Alpha and Itanium

[Rich Jordan]

Assuming compatible hardware, which versions of the VMS distribution media are the best for use as standalone maintenance and backup?  I think V8.4 Alpha had issues (leaving V8.3 or a remastered later V8.4 as a preferred choice), but I'm not sure on Integrity.

We're doing a standalone in prep for a move for an rx3600 currently stalled at 8.3 with _some_ updates including the MUP.  Hopefully post-move we'll get the chance to at least bring it up to date for that version.  Any issue with the V8.4 (or V8.3-1H1) Itanium boot disk?

Thanks.  We're only getting one shot at the backup; the downtime is pretty tight, and the baseline 6.5 hours for an online backup to tape (with system quiet) was used to create a 7.5 hour window for the operation (and we'll also have the online backup to tape /ignore=interlock (yes I know but better than nothing), _maybe_ a disk to disk image if we can squeeze the time, and the application backup to staging disks done with applications and users quiesced so should be ok)

So whats the go to version of VMS for this?

Thanks.