[Info-vax] What does VMS get used for, these days?

[IanD]

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 5:45:54 AM UTC+11, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <278cc014-2429-4664... at googlegroups.com>,
> r... at rbcarleton.com (Robert Carleton) wrote: 
> 
> > One thing that stands out about OpenVMS is its record-oriented 
> > filesystem (Files-11), along with its extensive batch facilities. 
> > The Linux and Microsoft Windows environments don't really seem to 
> > have those kinds of tools as part of their baseline.
> They don't. They follow the classical UNIX model of files as nothing but 
> sequences of bytes. Windows' NTFS provides Alternate Data Streams, which 
> were created to support classic Mac OS resource forks, but they're very 
> little used. There are third-party batch systems for both Linux and 
> Windows, but I haven't looked at them this century. 
> 
> Record-orientated filesystems are really quite alien to people used to 
> the UNIX model, and caused me significant FUD when I first started 
> working on VMS. This wasn't helped by record-orientation not actually 
> being useful for the work that I was doing, supporting programmers 
> working on code that had to work on many platforms.
> > It seems like at least some organizations where there is a significant 
> > culture separating duties, they might choose OpenVMS as an alternative 
> > to z/OS and friends.
> Well, VMS is doubtless a /lot/ cheaper to run than an IBM mainframe, but 
> has less certainty of being around in the long term. Going after some of 
> the other legacy mainframe markets might make more sense, but they're all 
> rather different from each other. 
> 
> John

The IBM Mainframes are seeing expansion where I work

Security is seen as paramount and being able to wrap up whole applications under a single framework in terms of security is seen as a huge advantage 

We are seeing certain applications being moved off other platforms and back onto the Mainframes, especially anything pertaining to data transfers and external interface exposure

I can't see VMS competing in this space, IBM really has done a good sales job on the security side even down to enabling security aspects on their CPU's that will offload certain operations to hardware for increased protections in flight (good sales pitch no doubt)

I would have thought VMS could leverage it's historical reputation in security to give it an advantage against Linux at least, but I'm not convinced it has done enough to ensure it's up to date in the modern security landscape and it really needs to make sure it has it's ducks all in a row and then some because any failure in the security arena could/would end VMS chances of making a comeback