[Info-vax] Final Orace release on VMS.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/14/2020 6:27 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote :
>> On 11/13/2020 12:09 PM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>>> Jan-Erik Söderholm formulated the question :
>>>> Den 2020-11-13 kl. 17:01, skrev Phillip Helbig (undress to reply):
>>>>> My guess is that the number who would like Oracle Classic on VMS is 
>>>>> much
>>>>> smaller.  Can you point to even one person?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'v got a private message (and I think it was mentioned in the event
>>>> yesterday from France) that at least two custerers in France have said
>>>> that they will leave VMS due to Oracle "Classic" leaving VMS.
>>>
>>> I'm one of them. Without the Oracle Client, OpenVMS where I work
>>> is dead. Fortunately I'll be retired before that. But VSI can write
>>> off 25 systems that will never be migrated to X86.
>>
>> How is Oracle policy regarding client version vs server version?
>> Does server version N require client version N or do they support
>> client N-1 to N or N-2 to N or?
>>
>> Do you need supported client library?

> We are on 11 with the client on OpenVMS and on 12 with the databases
> on dedicated Linux servers. Now those servers can migrate to 19 and
> compatibility is ensured. But :
> 
> - Oracle support for 11 will end in 2022 and we are a regulated industry
> which implies mandatory support for software products. A waiver for a
> year or two can be possible, but not more than that;

So Oracle's decision and the requirement for support means
the VMS systems are out sometime 2022-2024.

> Databases run on dedicated servers and are accessed by a lot of
> different application systems, running on HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Linux,
> Windows... and VMS.
> 
> This diversity is caused by the fact that our company is the result of a
> series of mergers from which we inherited radically different IT
> strategies.

Not unusual.

> Manpower and budget to harmonize all that simply did not exist, and so
> we focused on easy gains first, and VMS was not one of them : we have
> more than 30 years of continuous application software development
> running on those platforms. ACMS, DECforms, FMS, lots of RMS indexed
> files, you name it... Last time a migration was estimated, it arrived at
> more than 200 man.years of work.

=$$$$$$$$

> Migrating, over time, all data to Oracle was one of our most successful
> consolidations strategies, and I do not see us abandoning that direction
> any time soon, and certainly not for preserving the OpenVMS platform
> which is already seen as a peeble in their shoe by many of our managers.
> So yes, the Oracle support is definitely political, while the survival
> of VMS, until now, is more the result of a cost-based decision.
> 
> I already had no doubt that OpenVMS would finally disappear from our
> IT landscape, but was secretely hoping that the X86 migration would
> re-vitalize it a bit, and give it some 10 more years of existence.
> Bummer...

:-(

Arne