>Does HP have SSH if they upgrade to the latest versions of the OS and TCPIP?
Yes. See:
http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/doc> Which do you think is the better solution?
That depends highly on the customer, and the customer's environment. Some will operate unnecessarily on older releases, and miss out on features and fixes. Others necessarily sit on same. Some customers have a contactual Right To Upgrade established with HP, and others would have to pay full fare for the "new" software releases. You're in the best position to differentiate which applies here.
The customer has a far bigger issue here, as this legacy cluster is increasingly falling off the power and cooling and maintenance and performance product curves. There are options for refurbishing and sparing and keeping the older gear alive, of course. But sooner or later, they're going to get to decide to port off or to port forward.
labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/225
labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/226
When my desktop Mac (or a comparable Windows or Linux or BSD box, or buying one of the US$300 rx2600 boxes off eBay and purchasing the pieces and the HP FOE licenses) is vastly faster than the first big VAXcluster I managed (multiple VAX 8800-class boxes) and when I can hang a couple of terabytes off the box for less than a kilobuck and when I have a run-time of most of an hour on a stock 1500 watt UPS with the Mac, there are obvious problems with (still) running that VAXcluster. No matter how reliable it's been. And a smart CEO tends to notice these details, and will ask.
But sftp? Sure. If you're not tweaking any stuff and if you're not spending anything on the application(s) here, then get the Process Software ssh and sftp add-on. If you're looking to pay a bit more attention to the software and hardware, upgrade to current, or be prepared to port or to migrate. But you better have a plan for rendering this cluster surplus well underway for your customer.
