[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

abrsvc dansabrservices at yahoo.com
Tue Feb 15 09:49:36 EST 2022


On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 9:04:13 AM UTC-5, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-02-15, Bill Gunshannon <bill.gu... at gmail.com> wrote: 
> > 
> > National Computing Group 
> > West Mifflin, PA 
> > 
> > Document, plan and execute the modernization of Fortran applications 
> > running on OpenVMS systems to a virtualized Windows Server environment. 
> > -------- 
> > 
> > Does anyone watch for these postings and then try to convince them to 
> > not move away from VMS? Or at least find out why they are moving. 
> >
> By the time a porting effort gets to that stage, it's usually too late 
> as emotionally they are in a place where they have decided they need 
> to get rid of the old system and only the details of how that is to 
> be done needs to be worked out. 
> 
> What is interesting however, is why now instead of, say, 5 years ago ? 
> 
> Did they initially wait for VSI to complete the port to x86-64 VMS, 
> but now, 7.5 years later without a production-ready version of x86-64 VMS, 
> did they finally decide to move away from VMS ? 

Many of the clients that I have had in  the last few years moved from OpenVMS because of specialized hardware requirements.
Some considered using emulators, but without the special hardware, could not.
Others are moving away because of software resources not being available.  While the applications are solid and rarely require update, the concern is that there are few who use the older languages or understand that environment any more.  I have seen more movement into a hybrid environment where more modern techniques and languages are used for front end (consumer facing) parts of the code with the backend remaining on OpenVMS. I think that this trend will continue.

I am dealing with a client now that is "replicating" their ACMS based system to a Linux based one for the terminal handling via web services.  The backend RDB database will remain in place on OpenVMS.  This will extend their platform for years.  They are still debating the pathway though.  Emulation appears to be the easiest and least expensive given the cost for RDB on newer servers.

> 
> I wonder if anything could be done to keep other customers waiting 
> a little longer, or if it's simply too late and some customers have 
> decided to finally move from VMS ? 
> 
> One problem might be that you can't emulate an Itanium system, unlike 
> an Alpha system, so people might be having concerns around the age of 
> their Itanium systems. 
> 
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.



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