[Info-vax] History of DECSET / CMS

[Andrew Shaw]

On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 12:06:03 PM UTC+11, Dave Froble wrote:

> Was there any reasons to move to another environment?
> 
This was before my time, I have only been with this organisation 18 months now, but I hear tell that it was mainly due to a lack of VMS expertise.


> > Now there is a project going
> on looking at bringing in a 3rd party package to take over our core
> engine functionality, but that is moving extremely slowly too, for a
> number of reasons.
> 
> Is there a reason for doing so?
There will be a reason. Is it a well thought out and solid reason? That's a different question and one which I am not capable of answering! I am but a lowly tech guy and decisions like these are made by the pointy headed managers you mention below ;-) Quite what their thinking is I cannot fathom, but the corporate bottom line will be the underlying consideration. One of the principal concerns will also be the lack of VMS expertise, which is very real here in Australia.


> 
> > The bottom line is that I really don't see a serious move away from
> VMS for us in the immediate future. I am watching very keenly what the
> good folks at VSI are doing as once the x86 solution becomes viable then
> virtualization becomes a very real option for us. I'm not sure if we
> will virtualise or not, we have some extremely sensitive performance
> requirements that previous emulator solutions have never been able to
> come close to, but this is a different world now. Anyway, that's a
> decision for down the track.
> 
> That is one concern with VMs.  Timing can make or break an app.
> 
Yes indeed :-)

> 
> If it is working well, then what possible business reason would there be 
> to spend money on at best a lateral move, and possibly a worse solution?
> 
> Yeah, there is the pointy haired managers that wail "we want WEENDOZE".
> 

The biggest issue is, again, lack of VMS expertise in this country. For a large organisation such as ours to have its core IT product based on a technology stack that the organisation truly doesn't understand and cannot resource, and one that the world is moving away from, makes little business sense.

Much the same way as you guys in this group seem to know each other pretty well, and from what I can tell comprise the vast majority of active VMS savvy folk in most of the rest of the world, the world of Aussie true VMS expertise is equally small. In fact the VSI representative here in Australia is a VMS guy I have worked with in the past. It truly is a small world - and its even smaller down here !