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

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-09-23 23:30:49 +0000, IanD said:

> Ouch, I had no idea it so so expensive

Last I checked, a clustering license was ~$25K each, for some low-end 
Alpha systems.

A decade ago, I priced out low-end servers for use here.   Then-HP was 
over US$20K for their low-end OpenVMS I64 and Itanium server 
configuration — that's without clustering, Oracle and most of the other 
software and licenses — versus US$1K for an entire low-end server with 
hardware, software, and three years software and hardware support.    I 
very nearly purchased the whole package for the cost of the OpenVMS 
license.  That server was also vastly easier to install and maintain, 
and I have some familiarity with OpenVMS server management.   And with 
SQLite and PostgreSQL and other tools, relational databases are 
available.

Prices on competing servers and software have dropped, too.   Ignoring 
Centos and other free options, one's offering has gone from US$1K to 
~$20.   Oracle has more than a little competition for databases, too.

> So Oracle have committed to x86 on OpenvMS?
> 
> I was under the impression they were fence sitting waiting to see if 
> VSI was sustainable longer term?

Oracle will likely want access to the port before they decide, and 
they'll likely also want VSI to fund the Oracle port, and they'll 
probably want to turn a profit from that effort.  That's certainly what 
the managers of most businesses would ask for, if they were in Oracle's 
position in these or other negotiations.  Why should Oracle take on the 
risk?

> Funny, I put together a document showing what they could do today. I 
> created a simple html form that used the web server (WASD) to grab data 
> out of RDB and display it to the screen - sure I'm simple but it showed 
> them this is functionality available today - the Application people 
> have been telling the business it's an old system and nothing more can 
> be done as it's terminal based only (Lies, Dam lies, Incompetence...)

Maybe the applications don't lend themselves to that transition, 
though.   Getting data out of a database is easy.   Getting the 
business logic extracted from the usual morass of code is no small 
project, and retrofitting a different front-end can verge on a large 
code refactor if not a (preferably rolling) application rewrite.

> They are already facing issues just getting the data over the Oracle. 
> There some nasty data that is apparently in encrypted form in the DB 
> and when I went looking, it's a function call to an external EXE which 
> has no source code. Let's hope the encryption isn't anything complex. 
> I'll have a go at brute-forcing the data trying the usual tricks that 
> people did all those years ago like some simple bit-wise operators 
> otherwise they are looking at getting some people in who know 
> deciphering better than little old amateur me.
> It's an interest activity for me, I'm not actually part of the DB 
> migration activities

If the crypto isn't stupid-grade and if it isn't some common algo, and 
assuming the licenses permit it, it'd probably be easier to 
reverse-engineer the executables and figure out what they're doing.   
Very few OpenVMS applications have been written with anti-reversing.

> Our customer has been fed a stream of BS over the years and they think 
> linux is their savior and will have them skipping off into IT heaven 
> *sigh*

Hopefully VSI knocks most of the worst of the rust off the platform 
over the next five or ten years, but staying competitive never ends and 
the competitors are also always moving forward.

Every business is eventually encounters cases where they can deliver 
what the customer asks for, what the customer really wants or needs, or 
where they can avoid even entering into a deal or can end future 
dealing with a customer.  I also know of many former OpenVMS customers 
now running RHEL, too.  More are moving.   It may or may not be IT 
heaven, but it works for them, and that's all that really matters.



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