Why virtualize your VAX or Alpha systems?
The short answer: Reduced operating and maintenance expenses, improved reliability, and significantly increased performance, all with no changes to your applications.
Your VAX and Alpha systems have served you well for years. They have returned your investment in them many times over. But storm clouds are brewing. The disks are logging errors. Downtime is increasing. Maintenance costs are soaring.
You love OpenVMS. It provides a rich, solid environment for your developers and system administrators. It's stable. It's secure. But in these days of shrinking IT budgets, the VAX and Alpha hardware look like boat anchors. And porting applications to other operating systems is risky, time-consuming and expensive.
Your colleagues managing PCs are getting praise for using virtualization to improve performance and slash expenses. Meanwhile, all you seem to get are a lot of hard questions regarding the VAX and Alpha systems. How do you answer?
Are these familiar situations? Perhaps you're experiencing them now. Or dreading the inevitable day when you will.
Vere Technologies can help!
vtVAX and vtAlpha are cost-effective solutions to these problems. Upgrade to state-of-the-art, fast, reliable, economical hardware while maintaining your existing applications. No expensive, time-consuming porting. No risk of introducing new bugs. No need to give up the reliability, stability, and security of OpenVMS.
How Can vtVAX and vtAlpha Help?
vtVAX and vtAlpha use virtualization technology to create VAX or Alpha systems running on an x86 architecture PC. This is similar to the technology that may already be used in your data center to consolidate Windows or Linux servers. But when you virtualize VAX or Alpha systems, there are added benefits.
Significant Performance Improvement
Today's x86 CPUs are much faster than VAX or Alpha CPUs. In many cases the virtual VAX or virtual Alpha systems will run faster -- sometimes much faster -- then the physical hardware they replace. Likewise, modern disks are significantly faster -- and more reliable -- than many of the aging drives on the VAX and Alpha systems. The Gigabit network card on that blade server is lightning fast compared to the 10 Mbit card on your VAX system.
>Preserving Your Investment
Well-written software ages like fine wine. It doesn't wear out, and in many cases it doesn't need to become obsolete. As time goes on the bugs are ironed out, the features are fine-tuned, and the users master it. Treat it well, and it will treat you well.
vtVAX and vtAlpha preserve your investment in both your applications and your employees.
The virtualization layer ensures the new hardware will behave exactly like a VAX or an Alpha system: just move the data and you're up and running! No changes to your software development environment and procedures. No changes to your system administration procedures. No retraining. No disruption.
Your archived data is also safe. All those backup tapes you're required to keep? Connect a SCSI tape drive from the existing system to the virtualization host and you can read and write them, just like on the VAX or Alpha system.
Reduced Expenses
While the VAX and Alpha systems were fully depreciated years ago, they're not free. You stil have maintence and operating expenses. Maintenance contract costs keep rising. Even when you self-maintain, you need spare parts that are getting more and more expensive -- and harder and harder to find. The large systems use lots of power. And generate lots of heat.
With vtVAX and vtAlpha, you replace the old hardware with brand new, not used, equipment. Most server-class systems come with a 3-year hardware warranty. Replacement parts, if needed, are readily available. Power consumption and heat generation are significantly lower, which reduces cooling requirements.
>Business Continuity - more than disaster recovery
Whether you lose a server or a data center, when your mission-critical OpenVMS systems are down, time is money -- often big money. Down-times may be extended while you wait for hard-to-find replacement parts for your legacy hardware. Replacement servers may not be available at any price.
With vtVAX and vtAlpha, you can put these worries behind you. In your primary data center and the failover site, your OpenVMS applications will be running on the same new, fast, inexpensive hardware platform as your Windows or Linux applications. Economy of scale. Peace of mind. The vtVAX and vtAlpha advantage.
Learn More!
This is just an overview of how vtVAX and vtAlpha can help you and your business. Please see our web site or contact up for more details.