[Info-vax] VSI OpenVMS Alpha 8.4-2L2

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

First "look and feel" from 8.4-2L2 Alpha.

No issues with the upgrade as such. VSI ISO image copied
to and booted from a spare SAN disk and the upgrade was
run from there. No extra upgrade for TCPIP, it was run
in the same time.

...
jumping to bootstrap code

     OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V8.4-2L2
                     Copyright 2017 VMS Software, Inc.

$ tcpip sh ver

   HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Alpha Version V5.7 - ECO 5
   on a COMPAQ AlphaServer DS20E 666 MHz running OpenVMS V8.4-2L2

$

Performance seems to be slighty better but hard to quantify. I made
a very simple DCL script that just loops and does some lexical or
some file operations.

Same physical system, booted with 8.4 and 8.4-2L2.

The test that showed any major difference was a file test. Open, write
one line, close and delete done 1000 times. DIO/s goes from 1400 to
2000, CPU from 50% to 80% and total runtime is shorter with 10-20%.
So *something* is different. Other test shows minor improvments or
just similar figures. Nothing is worse so far... :-)

Our test app for web/javascript/ajax/Python/Rdb works as before or
slightly faster. 10-11 ms from click in the web browser to the
Rdb data is updated on the web page. Instant, more or less, from
an end-user view.

This is our test system. Continuing testing with some applications
tomorrow before deciding to go on with the dev and prod systems.


So in summery, it "works". :-)

Jan-Erik.