vtAlpha Key Features
- vtAlpha replaces the complete range of Alpha workstations and servers, from the AlphaStation 200 to the GS320.
- vtAlpha runs on Bare Metal - no underlying operating system is required, improving stability and decreasing overhead. If desired, vtAlpha may be run in a virtual machine providing x86-64 emulation.
- Performance can be improved by upgrading to a faster host system. The hardware change is transparent to vtAlpha, and no VMS or Tru64 license changes are required.
- The vtAlpha Energy Conservation Application (Eco App) provides a significant reduction in power consumption and heat generation by allowing the physical host processor to return to an idle state when the virtual host processor is idle.
- vtAlpha can create several virtual Alpha systems on a single host system, limited only by the number of CPU cores and physical memory, simplifying host system administration, reducing footprint, and decreasing capital and operating costs. The power consumption for two 4-CPU virtual Alphas running on one server instead of two can range from 33% to 50% less than the same configuration running on two separate servers.
- vtAlpha instances may participate in OpenVMS or Tru64 clusters using the Ethernet or IP (OpenVMS V8.4 and later) cluster interconnects. Fibre Channel is supported as a cluster storage interconnect (vtAlpha V2.4 and later). Tru64 TruCluster support is available in vtAlpha version 2.6.
- Integration with modern data storage solutions, including SCSI, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, RAID arrays, NAS, SAN, Fiber Channel, FC/IC, FCoE and Cloud Storage is supported. vtAlpha provides support for virtual KGPSA Fibre Channel adapters, allowing full use of the OpenVMS Fibre Channel support on your virtual Alpha.
- The Ethernet adapter(s) supports 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps network connections and large numbers of simultaneous users.
- With vtAlpha you can define virtual network switches which can be used to share physical Ethernet interfaces among multiple virtual Alpha systems, provide failover capability between physical interfaces, and provide fast, isolated virtual network circuits between vtAlpha instances on the same host system.
- Each virtualized Alpha model follows the characteristics of the Alpha hardware it is derived from, i.e. it requires the corresponding level of OpenVMS or Tru64 license units and supports the peripherals particular to that Alpha model.
- Two levels of support are available for vtAlpha: Standard and Mission Critical. Both support options include telephone support for the vtAlpha product (Standard-8x5; Mission Critical-24x7) and access to all vtAlpha updates released during the support period.
- The vtServer Remote Support Link feature provides remote access to the host system to facilitate troubleshooting of difficult problems. The connection can be initiated only by the customer and uses standard TCP ports (80, 22, or 443) to minimize the need for special firewall rules.
- vtAlpha provides no-single-point-of-failure configurations in LAN or WAN environments by combining special Disaster Recovery or Disaster Resiliency licenses with the vtLicense Server. Information about the vtLicense Server may be found on the vtAlpha Documentation page of our web site. Disaster Recovery licenses provide 720 hours of run time (30 24-hour days) which can be used as needed to test backup hosts or in the event of a primary host or license failure. Disaster Resiliency licenses, provided as part of the Disaster Resilience service offering, provide unlimited run time during the support period (1 year), allowing for a hot backup for the vtAlpha host system.
- The vtLicense server can also be used in situations where USB ports are not available on the host system or to provide access to a license key from a backup host system, should the primary host fail. The new model of the vtLicense server is rack-mountable and has three internal USB ports that can be used when it is desirable to physically secure the license key devices. The server also has two external USB ports. Dual network interfaces allow for additional redundancy.