[Info-vax] ES47 2G FC and rx2800 i4 8G FC in same VMS Cluster with Shadowsets on shared storage controller? Is this possible?

[ergamenes at gmail.com]

On Friday, 13 March 2020 08:54:56 UTC, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)  wrote:

> Considering that Alpha has been dead for almost 20 years, and x86 seems 
> to be just around the corner, isn't it worth it to wait, say, a year or 
> two and move directly to x86?

Well, suppose we believe the VSI roadmap and we have a developer's release in Q4, it's a bit of a stretch to hang the migration of a production system on it. Realistically, third party vendors are going to start their migration in '21, assuming that's ever going to happen. And if you have in house code to port, it's a long time to wait before starting.

And, as I am sure VSI hackers know all too well, the best way to write portable code is to port it. Our own codebase is in a hell of a lot better shape than it was in the Alpha era, and all the VAX-floatisms have gone.

And being a generation or two behind on hardware is a problem that only gets worse. I'd think I'd stick around for 9.2 before playing with mixed architecture FC.

Finally, in the corporate world you can't always save up your budget and spend it next year; also, there are always externalities to consider. Maybe the reliability and performance of the existing systems are an issue, and there is a budget to fix it. "We are going to fix it in two years time, with a product that doesn't exist yet" may not be an acceptable answer.