RE: What is Different or Special About VMS?

From: Main, Kerry (kerry.main_at_hp.com)
Date: 04/27/05 

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 14:51:15 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Smith [mailto:a@nonymous.com]
> Sent: April 27, 2005 1:16 PM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: What is Different or Special About VMS?
>
> Craig Dedo wrote:
> > Recently, I have been asked to make a presentation about the VMS
> > operating system to an introductory computer science class
> at an area
> > high school. The time for the presentation, including Q&A,
> will last
> > a little under an hour. Most of the students are at an introductory
> > level in terms of software development expertise.
> >
> > The teacher has asked me to concentrate on what makes VMS different
> > from other operating systems, e.g., Windows or the various
> Unixes. I
> > should answer the question, "Why should a person choose VMS as a
> > development or production platform?"
> >
> > I have done VMS software development for 20 years, so I know a fair
> > amount about the operating system. Most of my recent experience has
> > been in the area of manufacturing systems.
> >
> > Here are some of my own ideas.
> > * DCL is easy to learn, use, and fairly intuitive
> > * Documentation is superb
> > * Security
> > * Robustness
> > * OS-wide Procedure Calling Standard
> > * OS-wide Condition Handling Standard
> > * Mixed language software development is faily easy
> > * Software upgrades are relatively easy & straightforward
> >
> > I would like the readers to respond with their own ideas. Any
> > constructive ideas would be very much appreciated.
>
> You can (in your own words suitable to the audience):
>
> - Cluster individual systems together, each with dozens of
> processors, to
> create one large virtual machine. When your students start
> working in the
> real world they can be comforted to know that even if they
> run out of cpu
> slots in one box they can simply add boxes to create a more
> powerful system.
> - Disaster tolerance second to none. Your cluster can be
> setup to span 500
> miles right out-of-the-box, and can span longer distances if
> required. That
> way when the big meteor hits the company your students then own will
> survive. Even NSK can lose transactions under certain
> circumstances across a
> cluster, so there's no advantage to NSK in that sense.
> - It's been 64-bits for nearly 13 years, not like some
> Johnny-Come-Lately
> operating systems, so it's well debugged.
> - It can operate as a real-time os when the need/application
> calls for it.
> No need to learn another os.
> - They can get VMS running for nearly nothing on a
> laptop/desktop by using
> SimH and a VMS hobbyist license - there's a school project.....
> - It was designed as a cohesive whole - vs. a hodge-podge of
> semi-contradictory concepts.
>

John,

As a follow-up to your comments, check out new article online today
(April 25, 2005)

Just released article on DR: April 25, 2005
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/recovery/story/0,10
801,101249p2,00.html

Check out page 3: (also page 4 for Windows review)
 
"Among operating systems, OpenVMS and Unix seem to be favored more than
others. Alpha/OpenVMS, for example, has built-in clustering technology
that many companies use to mirror data between sites. Many financial
institutions, including Commerzbank, the International Securities
Exchange and Deutsche Borse AG, rely on VMS-based mirroring to protect
their heavy-duty transaction-processing systems.

Deutsche Borse, a German exchange for stocks and derivatives, has
deployed an OpenVMS cluster over two sites situated 5 kilometers apart.
It also uses Fibre Channel switches from San Jose-based Brocade
Communications Systems Inc. and Cisco switches and routers in its
network to ensure high availability.

"DR is not about cold or warm backups, it's about having your data
active and online no matter what," says Michael Gruth, head of systems
and network support at Deutsche Borse. "That requires cluster technology
which is online at both sites." continued>>

Regards
 

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