topic Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2 in Operating System - OpenVMS

upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

SAMI AHMAD — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:45:58 GMT

I remember reading somewhere that its possible to convert the application image to the new version without having to recompile.. is it possible and if yes how?
We lost the source of few images and I am looking for ways to be able to upgrade to 8.2

thanks

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

SAMI AHMAD — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:51:09 GMT

i forgot to put in the platform .its AlphaServer GS160 6/1001

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:53:52 GMT

It's possible. We run 6.2 on 7.3.
But not guaranteed ! And bugs may behave differently.

Wim

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Art Wiens — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:18:44 GMT

I believe you're remembering reading about running VAX images on an Alpha without recompiling:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/omsva/omsva.html

You might not have to recompile your application when going from Alpha v7.3 to Alpha v8.2, but you'ld have to try it.

Good luck,
Art

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

SAMI AHMAD — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:33:19 GMT

hi Wim !
can you tell more about what kind of bugs you encountered or problems running 6.2 images on 7.2 ?

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Andy Bustamante — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:53:59 GMT

If you're staying on the same platform, as rule code compliled on an earlier version of VMS will run on a later version. Your best option of course is to test the application.

While you're upgrading, why not go to VMS 8.3?

Andy

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:06:07 GMT

- shareable library mismatch : copy the old ones and use logicals specific for the program(s)

- the calls done by your program are no longer compatble or returning new terurn values that your program isn't testing.

But 99.9% of the programs will run fine. HP will say 99.99999%.

Once we switched from decnet 4 to 5 and had problems of return values that were to be added. No details left ...

Wim

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

SAMI AHMAD — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:27:41 GMT

Thanks for all your replies . yes I am going to upgrade to 8.3 if we do upgrade. Everyone was in the impression here that we cant upgrade because we are missing source code for two images but it seems that even HP supports moving images without recompiling from one VMS version to other on same platform.

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:30:44 GMT

Also read this
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=655880

Most of the problems were bugs but you could be the finder of some too.

Wim

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Hoff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:06:57 GMT

Here's something relevant that I helped write some years ago...

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/binary_compatibility.html

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

Andy Bustamante — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:07:55 GMT

There was a little publicized change moving to 7.3 from 7.2-xxx which changed the way global sections were allocated on the GS series systems. The code ran, but began to see performance/stability issues over time. Since you're on 7.3 this wouldn't be an issue.

I've seen the library mismatch problem on code which was translated from VAX VMS to Alpha VMS after an upgrade. The assumption here is that code was compliled on the Alpha.

Andy

Re: upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

SAMI AHMAD — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:01:35 GMT

thanks