[Info-vax] VSI VMS Community License Program - PAKS Arrived today

[John H. Reinhardt]

On 8/12/2020 5:21 PM, Mark DeArman wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 10:59:55 -0500, "John H. Reinhardt"
> <johnhreinhardt at thereinhardts.org> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm disappointed on the lack of the HAOE PAK for Integrity.  This
>> means, among other things, no VMSCluster with Integrity systems,
>> something I have already set up and will have to break.  No Volume
>> Shadowing which all my systems use. I don't remember what else comes
>> with HAOE.  I'm also somewhat dispointed that patches andECOs will
>> not be available.  So much for testing on any VSI CLP system.  No
>> point in doing any bug testing/reporting if you won't get access to
>> them.  Maybe they will do like HP and release the SYSTEM patches
>> occasionally.
>>
> 
> This lack of volume shadowing PAKS is really a bad deal.  I'm
> dissapointed.  I was pretty excited to finally upgrade.  I just work
> on porting various opensource packages in my spare time for fun,
> exploring OpenVMS administration tasks, and other silly constructed
> problems.  But I'm not going to put any time into a system that
> doesn't have mirrored system drives, and disk mirroring for backups.
> 
> Mark
> 

I agree with you.  With that said volume shadowing is available on the Alpha platform which is where most Hobbyists will be.  When it comes to Integrity there is the option of using an HP Smart Array card which has hardware RAID-0, 1, 5 and JBOD.  There is thee P600 card which works in Integrity systems with PCI-X busses and SATA drives.  Or the P410 which is PCI-E and SATA.  For the likes of the RX2600 and ZX6000 with PCI-X and SCSI there are the Smart Array 5300 and 6400 series.  These cards are relatively cheap on EBay.  I bought two P410 cards for $13 and a 1GB flash backed cache for one was another $12.  The older SA6400 cards are creeping up in price but still can be had for under $50 usually.

When the x86 systems are released then we will have to see about what is licensed there.

Not the same, I know but at least you can get mirrored system drives and data drives.

-- 
John H. Reinhardt