Need help with OpenVMS vs Other Operating Systems

[Johnny Teunissen]

The company I work for is evaluating whether to move from OpenVMS to some other hardware/OS configuration.

Can someone provide me information or point me to some resources showing the advantages of OpenVMS? Our parent company uses IBM and AIX I believe and I feel that staying with HP and OpenVMS is the direction we should follow, but I need reasons to back up that statement.

Any help is appreciated!!

Johnny

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Johnny,

if you are looking for whitepapers and such have a look at

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

In February there was a favorable cluster whitepaper from Techwise posted as well as a presentation on OpenVMS and the adaptive enterprise strategy from hp. You also might want to get your local ambassador into the boat in such a situation.

Greetings, Martin

[Rob Buxton]

Also look at why you use OpenVMS, what's most important, security, availability etc.

You'll also need to get a handle on why they'll move off VMS to another platform. Application availability? politics?

It's rare it's a straight OS features race.

[Mike Naime]

Well, from a common storage standpoint. In my HP san, only VMS can truly share the same disk drive at the same time with other cluster members. W2K and AIX all have to access the drive one at a time. We call it Fallover clustering instead of Failover. Supposedly some of the newer versions of AIX will allow 2 cluster members to access the same Oracle disk at the same time.

When we have a client that want's our App on an AIX system, I currently have to give the AIX system twice the amount of SAN storage that I would give a VMS system that is running the same App.

Also, a storage config for the VMS system will have less IO throughput problems than an identically configured IBM/AIX cluster. IT has to do with how the OS accesses the storage. AIX wants 6 drive raidsets where VMS is happy with mirrorsets.

[Mobeen_1]

Johnny,
Well the following white paper by Techwise details on the cost of ownership which is of paramount importance. The compative analysis is between OpenVMS, AIX and Sun. Take a look at that, it should be able to give you a lot of information

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/whitepapers/tco_clusters/TCO_WP_Feb04.pdf

Also some factors that would force one to stop migrating off openvms are

1. Availability & Security
2. Extension of support/development for
OpenVMS
3. Availability of OpenVMS on Itanium

Some of the factors above, especially item#2 and item#3 suggest that OpenVMS is no longer going to be off, atleast for another decade or more.

The bottomline is, it really depends on your company and the type of business you are in. For example are costs important to you than availability and so on.

Best of luck

regards
Mobeen

[Willem Grooters]

Johnny,

Often overlooked (and deliberatly (?)forgotten by FUD spreaders): What would be the cost of migration?
The fact is that you will need to redo ALL your own software. Depending on use of non-standard features in the language used, usage of system services (the kernel API) etc, this can be a hugh post. Don't forget taht a lot of this currently used software has proven to be correct. New software needs to be testes thouroughly, in certain environments needs a validation pass.

Willem

[Antoniov.]

Hi Mobeen,
OpenVms is very secure OS and now HP support permit to find any software you need, free software too (i.e Apache, PHP, Perl, MySql, etc.); so your company can keep high level of security and can limit costs.

@Antoniov

[labadie_1]

Before answering, it may be interisting to know which software will run on Vms or other OS ? databases ? Rdb, especially for the very big databases is the best (it is Oracle who says it, not me).

Regards

Gerard

[Ian Miller.]

Rarely are these things decided on a technical basis - its usually politics and perceptions. Make sure you find out about that sort of thing and pitch your case to address the business perceptions. The whitepaper already mentioned is handy. If you talk to your nearest HP VMS Amassador they are always keen to retain VMS systems and can supply information.

[Mobeen_1]

Antoniov,
I guess my statement "to stop migrating off OpenVMS" got you confused.

Basically i am saying that because OpenVMS is secure and got by the far the best system availability in industry, he can highlight these facts :-)

If you see my post, i am exactly saying the stuff that you have mentioned and i wouldn't agree better with you on the facts that you have highlighted.

How ever, on the COST, i quite don't agree with you :-).

Take care

rgds
Mobeen

[Antoniov.]

Hello Johnny,
I'm sure, here, we allbodies believe VMS is the best OS but, as posted by Ian, techninal feature rarely can change political decisions; so I remark about money because managemente may be sensible to this; I agree free software doesn't mean no cost but avaiabilty of free software, supported by HP, points to a reduction of costs, for my perception, without losting VMS best issues.

Sorry for my english, I hope you can understand the concept. Anywy I agree you can contact VMS ambassador.

@Antoniov
;-)

[labadie_1]

Ian said

Rarely are these things decided on a technical basis - its usually politics and perceptions.

Absolutely correct: I have in mind a Vms Rdb site that has moved to another OS and Oracle, it has costed a lot, because the new system needed 2 to 3 times the Cpu power and disks. They will need more people to manage it, and they can't deal with a sudden load increase. So technically, without considering the migration cost, it is an heresy. They pay more to have less...

:-(

[John Eerenberg]

I agree that it is almost always a political decision, not a technical one. HP sales in my little neck of the woods doesn't know what VMS is. Very sad. :-(

Politically, security is an easy target. Promote it.

Clusters, IO, etc. have already been mentioned in this thread.
Where I work, I tell the *nix and management newbies why VMS is so good: security.
It is always an interesting discussion with them and they leave having a lot more respect for VMS.

Management may or may not want the features of VMS. But at least they know . . .

On the otherhand, if management wants more information . . .

Attached is an email stating why unix security can't hold a candle to OpenVMS. (note to the moderator, if this email and the following url are inappropriate, please, please, edit this post!).

Also at the hackers conference defcon9, VMS would not break. In fact, VMS was banned from subsequent conferences: it's security was rock solid the whole time; the only OS to so do. http://www.vmsone.com/~opcom/defcon9.htm

Also, there are websites that have accounts open for anyone to try and break into VMS. And on and on.

Here is the bottom line: OpenVMS is virus proof and hack proof. DoS attacks, viruses, and hackers attempts do not register. My internal customer loves it when we ride through all these storms and the end users don't even know it is happening.

Where I work, the *only* OS's that have ridden through all these storms free from service disruption are OpenVMS (aka VMS), MVS (mainframe), AS400, and Tandem NSK.

The only apples to apples comparison IBM can make is AS400, not AIX. (could MVS be a consideration?)

The HP sales guys almost never have the confidence to make these statements. So my tainted advise is to ignore them. Too many exDECies doing too much stealth marketing.

AIX should not even be mentioned in the same sentence with VMS. VMS is in a whole 'nother category by itself (include MVS, AS400, and Tandem if you like). OpenVMS is truly Open; getting the OS source listings is easy and cheap. Try doing that on MVS, AS400, and NSK.

[John Eerenberg]

Oops. Here is the attachment.

[labadie_1]

John

Interesting: I did not knew that Vms had been banned from the last Defcon conferences for hackers

:-)

[Keith Parris]

While one could interpret it as VMS being banned from Defcon, what did happen was the rules for the Capture-The-Flag game were changed to require a Linux box, presumably to level the playing field.

Of course, one could always run a stripped-down version of Linux and run a VAX emulator like Charon-VAX or simh or TS-10 on top of that, run OpenVMS VAX on top of that emulator, and present only OpenVMS to the outside network.

I agree with the suggestion to get your local OpenVMS Ambassador involved. See http://h71000.www7.hp.com/ambassadors/index.html for more information. If you don't know who your local OpenVMS Ambassador is, send mail to susan.skonetski@hp.com.

[Mike Naime]

John:

Our App runs on either AIX or VMS. Therefor I have both in my Data Center. So I have to say that in my case I am directly comparing AIX and VMS.

Note: The 1280 blew the P690 right out of the water in our Application volume stress tests back in early 2003.

Mike Naime

[Terry_77]

Mike

Would like to know more about your AIX experience. Having to evaluate AIX for Banner registration center. Having difficult time justifying staying on Alpha/VMS platform

[Mike Naime]

Terry:

Contact me offline - mikenaime at hotmail dot com

Mike Naime