[Info-vax] question about VSI licensing

[Neil Rieck]

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 10:10:22 AM UTC-4, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 7/25/2019 9:56 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> > On 7/25/2019 9:47 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> >> Colleagues,
> >>
> >> Our OpenVMS I64 support agreement with HPE is about to expire and I'd
> >> like to
> >> move everything to VSI so I'm trying to build a business case that
> >> might be
> >> acceptable to management before I bug anyone at VSI sales. (my boss
> >> flatly
> >> refused my request last year)
> 
> Just go to VSI and get a quote.  That's what they do.  Then you'll have 
> all you need.  As for your boss, is he possibly planning on getting rid 
> of VMS?  If not, he'll have to compromise at some time.
> 
> >> HP/HPE required that every layered product be licensed (we have HP
> >> licenses
> >> for: OS, FMS, BASIC, C, C++) but I have observed that licensing
> >> relaxes every
> >> time the OpenVMS ecosystem transferred to a new company. So here's my
> >> question: do these layered products require individual VSI licenses or
> >> are
> >> they all covered by the OS license?
> >
> > For IA64, the model has not changed from HPE.
> >
> > However, it's my understanding that if you trade in your HPE licenses, you
> > can get a substantial discount on the VSI licenses.
> >
> > For Alpha, it's a simpler model, with a single PAK for all LP's that
> > I *think* is included with the OS license.  In other words, if you purchase
> > an Alpha OS license from us, you get the LP license included.  There is
> > no reduction (that I know of) if you explicitly reject the LP license.
> 
> For Rob, and other VSI lurkers here, all I will say about this topic is 
> that VSI to some extent is still retaining parts of a past failed 
> business model.  Failure is to be avoided.  Just offer people the 
> capability to use your products as long as they purchase support.  For 
> those who won't purchase new licenses for something they have already 
> purchased, you're not getting anything, anmd won't get anything. 
> Possibly drive people away from VMS.  Look at what you can get, and 
> maximize that.
> 
> 
> -- 
> David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
> DFE Ultralights, Inc.
> 170 Grimplin Road
> Vanderbilt, PA  15486

That's actually the sticking point with my immediate manager. We purchased a new  Itanium server mid 2015 along with new licenses. As part of that purchase we got free support, hardware and software, for three years. Saving money by not having to buy support for three years was part of that business case. The support quote from VSI last year included the purchase of new licenses and that's when the boss flipped. He didn't care that HP/E was getting out of the OpenVMS business. So we were forced to stay with HPE until the end of this month. We just received a new quote from HPE which the boss hasn't signed but I can't help feeling we're wasting money because the HPE contract doesn't allow us to upgrade past version 8.4

Not sure about your organizations but there are a lot of no-nothing MBAs running around here chanting the "Linux is free" mantra which wastes a lot of time and bandwidth. These people are so misinformed that they think that "OpenVMS is flavor of UNIX" (because it is not Windows), and that "Linux is a drop in replacement for UNIX. While it is true that a bunch of Solaris and HP-UX systems have already been replaced with Linux (customer facing production systems are mandated to use RHEL while development and user acceptance systems are mandated to use CentOS) I can assure everyone that "drop in" it is not as easy as it sounds.

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck/net