A question of migration.....

[Brian Reiter]

Hi Folks,

Just a request for some info.

Currently we develop 5 of our 6 VMS systems on a VMS 7-1-2 Alpha and run 3 of them on DS15s running VMS 7-3-2. The remaining system is developed on a DS10 under VMS 7-3-2 and runs on a DS15 under VMS 7-3-2. So far so good. Things do seem to work.

However, I've been asked to put together a case for retiring the 7-1-2 system and doing all the development on 1 or more DS10s (freed up during the roll-out of DS15s). This of course will cost money and we need to convince the customer that this is good business (as well as technical) sense.

The question is: is there any information regarding the benefits of developing on and running on VMS 7-3-2 which are hedged in a form which our customer (government based and not necessarily technically aware) will understand?

I can give a lot of technical reasons based on new features etc. but will always end up having to answer the question, if it aint broke why fix it?

Hope you can help



Brian

[Ian Miller.]

You could argue that V7.1-2 is no longer supported and therefore moving to a supported version would reduce risk.

The new features would allow the development of new business functionality.

I have found that VMS V7.3-2 is faster than V7.1 so system performance may be improved.

[Willem Grooters]

Additionally you could mention that 7.3-2 will be the "Landing zone" for 7.x and will enter "Previous Version Support", to be continued "until eternity". Another point might be that upgrade to the next version of VMS is easier. It gives them even more time and more facilities (at least, the developers and system managers) because the enhancements in DCL.



Good attitude, but: do they drive their cars until they fall apart?

[Brian Reiter]

Ian,

Fair point. However the systems in question are best described as soft-real time control systems. They aren't really business critical in the understood sense - but have to work.

What I am trying to do is get all the development onto 7-3-2 fairly soon before I have to consider the move to 8-2. I don't really want to migrate 5 systems to VMS 8-2 in one go.

The migration of the system developed under 7-3-2 to 8-2 (on Itanium) took about a day from initial re-compilation to full system startup. So I'm happy that the effort at that point is minimal.


cheers

Brian

[Brian Reiter]

Willem,

Being able to test the new features on the development machine (DCL or system services) will be a bonus. At the moment engineers need to find spare production units to test on.

A performance increase (going to new hardware and OS) is one selling point. A build which took 2 hours to complete is now done in 10 minutes (60+ exes).

Hmmm food for thought anyway.

[Willem Grooters]

Brian,
You don't have to do two things (7.3-2 -> 8.2 and Alpha -> Itanium) in one go. You can go for 8.2 on Alpha first and when you're happy with that, migrate to Itanium - officialy AXP is to be supprted until 2011 - 2012 but my (and other's) guess it will extent beyond that timeframe ;-)

Willem

[Brian Reiter]

Hi Willem,

I'm already proposing that as a solution. 7-1-2 > 7-3-2 > 8-2 (Alpha) with the jump from 7-1-2 > 7-3-2 being the biggest problem. 7-3-2 to 8-2 (Alpha or Itanium has been easy so far).

cheers

Brian

[comarow]

There are several points to bring out.

Maintenance costs on new systems are much cheaper. Old systems keep going up.

7.3-2 has XFC which is a great file caching program which really helps I/O.

Good luck.

[Camiel]

Keeping track of patches, ECO's etc. is a lot easier when all your systems arfe running the same version.

Camiel.

[Brian Reiter]

True, but our IT department have zero interest in doing that.....

Its down to the individual engineers (OK me) to keep the systems up to date.