Reg: Alphaserver "Image.exe" is not compatible to I64 integrity server.

[Harry M]

Dear Friends,

We have four Alpha node Cluster with Openvms operating System(ver-7.3-2).Recently we added I64 Integrity rx2660 server in to Existing cluster.There was no issues in cluster side.

Problem Description :
when we run Alpha image.exe or any C program that is compiled in Alpha node in new itanium server it throws an error that it is not compatible to I64 Standard. where as when i create new C progrma in Itanium server and compiling in the same node i get the output.And also when i copy the compiled image from Itanium to alpha it throws an same error ...... please let me know should i want to update any patch regarding this Error in itanium server.

with regareds
Harry.....

[Ian Miller.]

An image created on OpenVMS Alpha can not be run on OpenVMS I64 and vis-versa.

So you have to compile and link for I64 and Alpha separately.

Can you post the errors you get when compiling and linking and running the program on OpenVMS I64.

[Hoff]

Harry, what you are seeing is usually expected, documented and normal behavior of modern computing environments, when working across processor architectures.

If the Itanium environment were sufficiently compatible with Alpha to the level of direct cross-platform image execution, it would have been referred to as having executable-level compatibility or emulation for Alpha.

It wasn't, and it's not.

The OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS I64 platforms are sold as having source-level compatible, meaning that the same source code -- with a few select exceptions -- can be compiled for each of the platforms.

There is no tool for OpenVMS akin to that of Mac OS X Rosetta environment; Mac is one of the few environments that integrated image translation capabilities.

The other approach used in these environments is called emulation, and Alpha emulator is seldom used for Itanium. There are VAX emulators in widespread use such as SIMH and the SRI CHARON product family, and there are at least two Alpha emulators around.

Microsoft Windows NT on Alpha and Microsoft Windows NT on x86 have similar requirements around a platform-specific build, as does Windows Server 2008 on Itanium and Windows Server 2008 on Itanium, as does Linux on MIPS and x86 and Alpha and ARM and its many other platforms.

Now as for what to do to support an application with multiple architectures within the same cluster, most sites use logical names and parallel directories to house the architecture-specific files. The Freeware 000TOOLS area has one approach.

http://mvb.saic.com/freeware/freewarev80/000tools/

These can either be within the same directory hierarchy, or with multiple disks.

Some related application-design details are in the Porting Applications from HP OpenVMS Alpha to HP OpenVMS Industry Standard 64 for Integrity Servers; here:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82final/6673/ba442-90001.PDF

This particular area seems to be tends to be lacking in the present manuals, however.

--

The OpenVMS image translation tool mentioned earlier is often referred to as DECmigrate, or as VEST (the VAX to Alpha translator) and TIE (the run-time). In the case of Alpha to Itanium, the tool is AEST (Alpha to I64 image translation). More recently, this tool has been known as the "Migration Assistant". Given you have the source code, I would strongly discourage the use or consideration of this tool.

[Tom O'Toole]

I've been extremely happy with AEST when I've needed to use it.