Emulator/Simulator for IA64

[Sumant M Kumar]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me if there is any simulator or Emulator we have for IA64 like personal Alpha for Alpha hardware.We can install OpenVMS on personal alpha and it emulates DEC3000 hardware.

Regards,
Sumant

[Volker Halle]

Sumnat,

AFAIK no such thing exists yet.

Emulators are typically built for older and - in some cases - slower hardware, like VAX and Alpha for running OpenVMS.

You can still buy and get support for I64 systems. Why would you want an emulator ?

Volker.

[Heuser-Hofmann]

If you have a DSPP-account you'll find a
"Itanium processor Linux simulator",
but the link directs you to a invalid link.

Eberhard

[Volker Halle]

Sumant,

looks like there was some IA64 simulator in the year 2000 - to help programmers start with Itanium. It seems to be have been released as Opensource in 2007:

http://ski.sourceforge.net/

But I'd doubt, that you will be able to run OpenVMS on such a thing.

Volker.

[Hoff]

FWIW, a Google Search for /Itanium Emulator/ or other such gets you to various articles and discussions on this topic. There are (potentially) some (commercial) options here, but I'd be willing to bet they're more than the US$500 or so that gets you a (decent) (used) Itanium box that can boot and run OpenVMS I64.

[Stanley F Quayle]

PersonalAlpha was a by-product of CHARON-AXP product development. Stromasys (the developer) decided to release PersonalAlpha to the VMS community to raise visibility. In turn, they get a world-wide community of beta testers.

More recently, they've released an ES40 emulator that runs on Linux, with up to 4 processors:

http://www.stromasys.com/downloads/alpha-virtualization/charon-axp-nce/

I agree with Hoff -- you can pick up cheap Itanium boxes very easily. rx2600 Integrity servers were selling on eBay a few months ago for a song.

What problem are you *really* trying to solve?

[Shameless Plug Alert (tm) -- I am a CHARON-AXP reseller]

[Sumant M Kumar]

Morning Stanley,

Actually i am intrested to learn clustering & TCPIP on Alpha/Itanium so for that i asked if there is any emulator available in the market.I tried tcpip on Personal Alpha it seems it does not support n/w.I am unable to connect 2 PA in one n/w and not able to setup clustering.We can only create bridge n/w in PA.I can't do my all testing on customer systems since they all critical.

Regards,
Sumant

[Bill Pedersen]

Sumant:

You should be able to network and therefore do NI Clustering with PersonalAlpha. It does support networking. I do not understand your most recent post.

There is an issue, though. It sounds like you are trying to do "business" with PersonalAlpha which is intended for Hobbyist/Educational work. You can request demonstration systems from Stromasys or a reseller/agent which are real, full versioned systems, they have licensing based on hardware keys which will expire. This would then allow you to demonstrate using production quality emulation versus the restricted emulation of PersonalAlpha. It would allow you an Alpha to Alpha environment.

Bill.

[Sumant M Kumar]

Hi Bill,

Trust me i asked you PA just for non commercial purpose.I never get a chance in any organization to configure cluster and tcpip so i am curious to learn those.
Someone advised me about PA so i put a question here but i dont have much idea how to setup NI & Cluster on PA.

Just another question Bill

Can we get free license for virtual media when i tried to configure my laptop drive as virtual media to install vms on one of our integrity nodes its showing "Feature not Licensed" on ILO(browser).

Regards,
Sumant

[Volker Halle]

Sumant,

for learning how to set up TCPIP and clustering, you don't need an Itanium box. OpenVMS is OpenVMS is OpenVMS and the commands are the SAME between OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS I64.

There is also extensive documentation on all this available from:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/index.html

PersonalAlpha can do clustering and TCPIP without any problems. It will share it's network card with the Windows network card. To set up a cluster between 2 PersonalAlpha systems, you may want to run them on 2 different Windows systems. Or run the new CHARON ES40 NCE version on a Linux system and cluster it with PersonalAlpha.

Volker.

[Bill Pedersen]

I agree with Volker as to don't worry about Integrity/Itanium for now. Just worry about getting comfortable with VMS. You can obtain OpenVMS licenses for learning/hobbyist activities via the www.OpenVMSHobbyist.com site. There is no charge for the licensing, you will need to join DECUServe, which is another good source for information.

This should give you the ability to setup and testing some emulators in an Network Interconnect (NI) cluster - i.e. ethernet clustering.

Bill.

[Hoff]

>I never get a chance in any organization to configure cluster and tcpip so i am curious to learn those.

VAX or Alpha emulation (via the Stromasys PersonalAlpha or CHARON packages, or via simh) or (real, low-cost) VAX or Alpha hardware will get you to that particular goal, as can variously-available (low-cost) Integrity hardware.

>Someone advised me about PA so i put a question here but i dont have much idea how to setup NI & Cluster on PA.

Ask that same someone for what they meant here, as there seem to be some miscommunications lurking.

>Can we get free license for virtual media when i tried to configure my laptop drive as virtual media to install vms on one of our integrity nodes its showing "Feature not Licensed" on ILO(browser).

No; this is an Integrity firmware and hardware question (and not part of the OpenVMS Hobbyist program) and AFAIK HP doesn't offer free licenses for the advanced features for iLO or iLO 2, and b: this sequence is squarely in commercial territory.

If you want to do an OpenVMS-style bare-hardware installation (with a served disk), then another approach uses the host-based InfoServer and not the vMedia tools. The vMedia stuff particularly does bare-media Windows and such, and OpenVMS has had this bare-metal install with InfoServer devices and with the newer host-based InfoServer support that arrived with OpenVMS V8.3.

I'd suggest getting your business organization associated with DSPP of you're reselling software or services or such; with the HP partner program, and continuing with that approach rather than using hobbyist licenses here. Also get your manager involved here, as getting some gear in for training purposes and for testing and prototyping also seems appropriate; that cost will be a trade-off between the acquisition costs and more efficient and stable operations; a better-trained and better-experienced staff.