[Info-vax] VSI software

[Hans Bachner]

Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) schrieb am 05.08.2020 um 17:13:
> In article <rgee06$1nr$1 at dont-email.me>, Dave Froble
> <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
> 
>>> If Alpha, Itanium, and x86 can be clustered together, why not the latest
>>> VMS from HP(E)?  My guess is that for those running clusters, they've
>>> been doing rolling upgrades for decades.
>>>
>>
>> Well, if I needed an answer on this, I'd go directly to VSI.  Perhaps
>> that would require VSI support.
>>
>> Hans mentioned that HPe VMS and VSI VMS can be clustered on Alpha and
>> itanic.  I don't know, but if this is currently possible, then one
>> should be able to do a rolling upgrade to VSI VMS on those platforms.
>> One would then think that if you're totally on VSI VMS, inclusion of x86
>> VMS in that cluster might work.
> 
> Latest I've heard it's not a software problem but perhaps not possible
> with the Community License.
> 
>> [...]
Phillip, I believe you mix up to different pieces of information.

OpenVMS V9 will most certainly not cluster with HP VMS versions. As I 
mentioned before, VSI plans major changes in clustering (I believe 
encrypted communication was one of the things mention most often) which 
require an ECO for VMS V8.x systems. For reasons explained several times 
in this newsgroup (and even in this thread) VSI cannot issue ECOs for HP 
VMS versions. No ECO - no cluster with V9.

The rumor that the Community License will not support clusters probably 
is derived from a single sentence in the Community License Agreement:

"You may Use one copy of the Software on one device at a time."

There were speculations whether this was just the result of copy/paste 
from a different licensing agreement or intentional - so far, noone from 
VSI has clarified what this really means and if it will stay part of the 
agreement. But even if this was an intentionally added clause it only 
prohibits use of the Community License und multiple virtual machines (or 
multiple emulator instances) on the same hardware box. This would be a 
big restriction for many users (imho), but would not prevent you from 
running multiple (clustered) instances on different hardware boxes.

I hope this sheds some light (as much as a non-VSI person can shed) on 
the situation.

Hans.