[Info-vax] OpenVMS Hobbyist Notification

[Zane H. Healy]

Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/2020 1:48 PM, Arne Vajh?j wrote:
>>
>> Production may run on VMWare.
>>
>> Very few will run on bare metal.
> 
> I'm doubting that.  Most VMS users are used to running on what we're now 
> calling "bare metal".  I'm thinking most will continue to do so.  Why 
> introduce the complexity of using a VM when it's not necessary or 
> desired?  Even so, some will do just that.  Else, who's been asking for 
> VMware?
> 
> Using a VM is not all good.  Some will not want another layer involved.

I think this becomes a question of, where is the VMS system running, and
what is it doing.  In a small company with a few systems I agree that at
times it may not make sense.  In larger enterprise, with large datacenters,
I disagree, and feel it will often make sense.  If you don't need the
performance of physical hardware, Virtual Machines make a *LOT* of sense. 
Even if you do need the performance, they may make sense (I've seen setups
where each VM gets its own physical host).  Have you looked at the current
state of Backup Software for VMS?  The options are far slimmer than they
were a few years ago.  With VM's, you can simply backup the VM, the backup
software doesn't care about the OS.  Worst case, you get a "Crash
Consistent" backup, if you have data where that's an issue, dump it to disk,
and include that as part of your VM backup.  It's also a lot easier and
faster to provision a new VM when you need a new system, than to purchase
and land new hardware.

I want to run VMS/x86 on my VMware cluster at home, as long as I can afford
a license for it, and am really looking forwards to that possibilty.  It
would be nice to be able to have a Hobbyist licnse for it, but I've not
ruled out buying a real license.

Zane