[Info-vax] satellite one hour ahead

[David Froble]

Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <nusmt9$3v3$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman
> <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes: 
> 
>> You're trying to run OpenVMS on old and out-of-date hardware, 
> 
> Old yes, but supported on the versions I'm running.
> 
>> with 
>> ancient and ill-patched software, 
> 
> 7.3-2 was current when patch access was cut off; not much more a 
> hobbyist can do.
> 
>> and you're not able or not willing to 
>> spend the time and effort and budget required.   
> 
> Life is short; resources are finite.
> 
>> That's inherently 
> 
>> As for software reinstallations?   Enterprise servers are not precious 
>> pets, they're blunt instruments.   OpenVMS is particularly inept here, 
>> as some of these old servers have decades of software accretions and 
>> barnacles, and as OpenVMS just isn't very good at repeatable 
>> deployments.  This is why reinstallations are increasingly preferred, 
>> too.  Your available hardware is also problematic, as the configuration 
>> you've forced yourself into for HBVS and related doesn't particularly 
>> help with what you want to do with these servers.
> 
> It would be nice if fresh installations were possible without requiring 
> a huge amount of post-upgrade configuration.
> 

Ok, define "huge" ....

Perhaps contrary to "the grinch" I've mentioned that I find VMS rather easy to 
install.

Just what custom stuff do you have that would be so hard to work with?  I'll 
admit, such might exist, but I'm not aware of anything very hard, or time consuming.

Now I must ask, do you have a disaster recovery plan?  Even hobbyists should 
have something like this.  If you do have such, then the steps to recover your 
desired configuration should already be defined.  If not, now might be the time 
to work up such a document?

I'm assuming that you have command files to set up the custom logicals to define 
your custom environment.  I believe, without getting into details, that it's 
been mentioned there are 19 pieces of data that would be better placed into a 
single database, with better user interface.  Regardless, 19 isn't such a large 
number.  Not saying I'm always right, but, if it was me, I'd have a command file 
set up to move the required common files and set up the custom logicals.  But 
that's just me, even if I'm not a full time, or even part time, system manager.

Perhaps not, but I'm thinking I could do the upgrade (new install) and 
re-configure the custom environment in several hours.  And when I was done, it 
would be repeatable.  YMMV ....

That written, I'll be the first to confess that some progress is called for. 
The idea of compressed libraries is one which is way past it's "sell by" date. 
And a few other things.