[Info-vax] Updated HPE/VSI OpenVMS V8.4-2L1 Marketing Brochures

[David Froble]

IanD wrote:
> On Monday, September 19, 2016 at 9:41:03 PM UTC+10, clairg... at gmail.com wrote:
>> RE: Alpha
>>
>> Alpha is a very difficult issue for us. We have people coming to us looking for Alpha support
>> but the only way we can provide it at this time is for the customer to upgrade to a VSI release.
>> If you have been running on 7.3-2 for 10+ years do you really want to disturb that environment?
>>
> 
> Those environments are throwing their money at like the likes of Stormasys and other emulators
> 
> What they want is to reduce their risk of their environments blowing up. At this stage of the game that would be aging hardware most of all
> 
> Beyond that, I suspect they would love a path forward
> 
> That is certainly the case where I am
> 
> If someone came along and said "For X $'s, we can move you forward", they would jump at the chance. The systems are being decommissioned to remove risk of failure not because they are tired of OpenVMS (yeah, we are on 7.3-2) 
> 
>> The Alpha Evaluation Kit (AEK) gave us a means to get some feedback on the OS itself, beyond
>> what we do ourselves. That was good. We provided no layered products with the AEK.
>>
>> Our real motivation for considering Alpha releases is to provide a better path to get to x86; get
>> up to date first and it will be an easier move. However, we have always wondered if we can 
>> provide the layered products needed by these older environments. Do we really want to support
>> some really ancient HW?
>>
> 
> If we had a clear path onto x86 from Alpha 7.3-2, I suspect we would stay on OpenVMS going forward (but that includes the Application as well)
> 
> Alas, the decision was made some time ago to vacate OpenVMS before VSI clearly stating concrete intentions of forging an OpenVMS pathway to x86
> 
> I would say there's a number of shops out there wanting support on Alpha but more importantly, want someone to help them find a pathway onto Itanium and/or x86
> 
>> We are working with partners who have lists of thousands of Alpha systems. We are contacting
>> these users to see first, if they are interested in upgrading, and if they are, what do they need 
>> for SW beyond the OS and what HW platforms are they on. We have a good idea of what we
>> can provide. The question is - can we provide the layered products to satisfy enough customers
>> to make this a worthwhile venture for us. We can’t just be spreading good will here since every
>> minute we spend on Alpha we are not  spending on x86.
>>
> 
> Yeah, it's a balancing act and a difficult one, I don't envy your position at all
> 
> There must be core packages though that people are using more than others. I guess weighing up what to bring over and what to leave behind isn't always easy and it's not a 1:1 relationship either.
> 
> For those that are on arcane software constructs, they will either have to pay to bring that software across or pay to migrate elsewhere, finding a way to keep them on OpenVMS may be very difficult
>  
>> People seem to think that just because there are thousands of Alpha systems out there that they
>> should become VSI customers and make us lots of money. It’s not that obvious.
> 
> I look at the porting efforts that will go into moving the platform I look after onto a linux based oracle offering. It's not going to be cheap at all. I'd guess in the millions actually by the time it's all done
> 
> VSI with all it's expertise would probably make easy work of getting things over to Itanium with the latest version of RDB. The Application side would be more work but it could be done. There's talk of source code issues but I've heard for the right money that's not a stumbling block.
> 
> The current folk doing the port know zero about OpenVMS and they are trying to move it all to linux. 
> 
> If someone had said to the business 12 months ago, here's how we could move you off that old hardware and you could retain your existing application functionality because it's a port on the same OS / code base, I think they might have jumped at it. 
> 
> The only winner in what's happening where I work will be Oracle and whomever does the development work and OpenVMS will vanish as a presence here probably forever :-(
> 
> There will be no future OpenVMS licensing agreements being renewed here and that is a crying shame, it's the loss of a presence that's going to hurt OpenVMS going forward

So, prepare a short presentation, and submit it to the powers that be.  You 
could point out the "safety" in not losing the current working app.  Costs would 
need to be pointed out, including getting the sources, and building them first 
on itanic, and later on x86.  Not going to be cheap, but perhaps much cheaper 
than a from scratch re-write.  Once you got the sources, you would not face that 
problem again, and you'd have future flexibility.

That re-write from scratch is going to have some problems, and may never reach 
what you now have.  It's a bottomless money pit.

Never know, might work, and if it doesn't how are you worse off than now?