[Info-vax] OpenVMS Potential Platform of Interest: Intel NUCs

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2022-06-27 11:44:33 +0000, Bob Gezelter said:

> A small form factor box like this would be a good platform for OpenVMS 
> in a wide variety of customer and developer contexts. Using it as a VM 
> host would be a good starting point Some complexity would be reduced by 
> direct support for bare hardware operation.

I've been looking at NUCs for a while, and I'm not really sure who 
Intel is targeting with those.

For most* developers, I'd expect it'll be hypervisor guests, probably 
running on whatever other x86-64-based system the developer is already 
using as their main client.

Particularly as the hypervisor setup docs become available and 
established for OpenVMS guests.

Whether that hypervisor might be VMware (particularly given the 
Broadcom subscription licensing changes) or one of the other 
hypervisors?

For production servers needing small server boxes with Xeon D and Xeon 
E processors:
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/embedded/mini-tower

SuperServer 5028L-TN2 is analogous to the HPE ProLiant MicroServer boxes.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/midtower/5028/sys-5028l-tn2.cfm
https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/c/4237916

For those other folks seeking small (cheap, and variously used) 
bottom-end server boxes for developers in the general range of Intel 
NUC, see this project:
Systems: https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
Overview: 
https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/ 


Usual issue with all of these choices is figuring out which combination 
of processor and server hardware is supported by OpenVMS, or the costs 
and risk of buying one and testing it yourself.


*This excluding PH, and any others here preferring to running OpenVMS 
native boot, and not already running Windows, Mac, Linux, etc., as 
their desktop.

ps: CivetWeb and Lua updates just out from VSI.


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