[Info-vax] VSI software

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <hp30ldFkpe0U1 at mid.individual.net>, Hans Bachner
<hans at bachner.priv.at> writes: 

> 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. 

That is clear, at least now.

> 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.

But apparently I can cluster Alpha going back to 7.3-2 with VSI Alpha, 
do a rolling upgrade so that all nodes are VSI Alpha, then do a rolling 
upgrade to VSI x86 (though of course a fresh install will be involved 
for x86, though probably not for VSI Alpha).

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

I'm not sure; that was discussed here, but the "license doesn't support 
cluster" came from somewhere else.

> "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.

We'll have to see, but as I said, I'm not sure that the quote above is 
the source of the confusion.

It might be an issue if the license is node-specific, but one can get 
only one license.