[Info-vax] report of the last "rendez-vous autour de VMS" (2-FEB-2024)

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/19/2024 1:02 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/19/2024 11:51 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <uvttut$31g69$1 at dont-email.me>,
>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 4/18/2024 7:05 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>>> In article <uvrpvg$2dbgu$3 at dont-email.me>,
>>>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> On 4/17/2024 11:29 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 17 Apr 2024 22:27:58 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>>>> But VMS could not wait years for a new CPU.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> VMS wasn’t “waiting” for anything. It was customers waiting for VMS.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes. Because VSI ported to a CPU that was ready. Instead of to a CPU
>>>>> that may be ready some day in the future.
>>>>
>>>> ARM is ready right now.
>>>
>>> You can buy an ARM server or rent an ARM VM in a public
>>> cloud if you search for it.
>>>
>>> But very few of the VMS customers will have ARM servers
>>> or ARM VM's today.
>>>
>>> So even though ARM would have been better than Itanium,
>>> because it is possible to buy a new one, then it would
>>> still have been a market disaster as VMS would still be
>>> "that weird OS that requires different HW than the
>>> rest of our stuff".
>>
>> I see you omitted the rest of my post in which I
>> largely agreed with you.  The point was that you are
>> mistaken in asserting earlier that ARM is not ready.
>> It absolutely is.
> 
> No. In this context being ready means that the CPU
> has a position in the market where VMS users will consider
> it an acceptable platform - and it does not. Maybe it will
> in 10 years, maybe in 20 years. But not today.

And just to be clear.

The problem with ARM is not that x86-64 is #1 currently.

The problem with ARM is that a lot - probably most - sites
do not have any ARM at all.

Requiring ARM for VMS would mean introducing a new CPU type. And with
todays multi-multi-core CPU's that would typical mean
either having a lot of wasted resource by only using it for VMS
or having to move other workloads from x86-64 to ARM to accomodate
VMS.

Total no go most places.

Arne