[Info-vax] Some hardware questions on the field test

[Mark Berryman]

I have the following hardware related questions on the V9.1 field test.

1. What is the CPU model that best supports the features used by VMS 
that would work in a DL380 gen 9 system?

For example, my current CPUs appear to be from the HASWELL family, which 
have the TSX instructions permanently disabled in microcode.  I'd like 
to know if there is a better choice to use and kind of impact it would 
have on VMS.

2. Attempting to configure SAN-based tape drives crashes the system. 
Are SAN-based tapes supported yet?  (This happened while running a bare 
metal configuration).

3. The roadmap lists Intel and Broadcom Ethernet adapters.  My DL380 has 
HP Ethernet adapters, specifically the HP 331i 1G and HP 533FLR-T 10G 
adapters.  Are there any near term plans to support HP adapters or 
should I try to find an add-in card using the Intel or Broadcom chips?

4. Does anyone have the field test running as an ESXi virtual host that 
is able to cluster with, and share SAN storage with, other VMS hosts? 
If so, could you send me a sample config because so far, I am not having 
any luck.

Mark Berryman