If you are running OpenVMS within your organization, you should be aware that changes are happening at the end of 2020, which may affect your OpenVMS server environments.

The changes are happening at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Standard support for OpenVMS V8.4 ends on December 31, 2020.

If you currently have OpenVMS support from HPE, you need to switch that support to VMS Software, Inc. (or a third-party provider) by the end of the year. If you are running a recent HPE version of OpenVMS, you won’t need to upgrade your operating system to a VSI version of OpenVMS, but if you are running an older HPE version, you may need to do so. I’m not going to get into specifics; there are far too many system types and version combinations. You should contact VSI for more detailed information.

Final orders for Itanium i6 servers must be placed by December 31, 2020.

HPE Itanium i6 servers are the only systems currently supported by OpenVMS that you can purchase new. If you need to replace your hardware with new equipment before VSI releases OpenVMS 9.2 with support for the x86-based platform, you must order those new systems before the end of this year.

Your decision-making process should take into account that Synergex has not yet committed to porting OpenVMS Synergy to the x86 platform. That decision has both technical and commercial aspects. We are currently waiting on VSI to make an Early Adopters Kit and various tools like compilers that we require to build Synergy on OpenVMS available to us for testing. As soon as we have more information about this critical decision, we’ll post it here.

Of course, another option is to purchase servers on the used market, where there is a significant supply of both Alpha and Integrity-based servers.

If you are running OpenVMS, I encourage you to talk to your Synergex account rep and let them know your plans. And if you are interested in migrating to OpenVMS on the x86 platform, either on physical hardware or in a virtualized environment, I encourage you to [sg_popup id=”13051″ event=”click”]contact me directly[/sg_popup]. The more customers that register an interest, the better the business case for porting to the new platform.