Sletten Kenneth W KPWA ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: Jerry Leslie noted:

: > Compaq has obligated itself to support VMS for a minimum of 15
: > years for Department of Defense Defense's "Information
: > Infrastructure Common Operating Environment":

: VAXen were used for many custom data analysis / data reduction
: systems in DOD for a number of years a while back. Some of these
: systems were very complicated, *very* costly, and likely NOT very
: portable (i.e.:  Start over).  Given the service life of some of the
: programs these data systems support, 15 years might not be
: enough for some of them....

Unless they have custom device drivers, or something that ties them
to the VAX architecture, they could BE upgradeD to ALPHAs or Intel IA64s,
once the IA64 become an off-the-shelf CPU. 500 Itanium systems isn't quite
off-the-shelf:

   http://www.theinquirer.net/12120122.htm
   Intel's Itanic only sells 500 systems

   http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-12.12.01-004/
   Heise News-Ticker: Intels Itanium -- ein Ladenhüter

The U.S. Air Force is using ALPHAs running OpenVMS in their JSTARS
planes:

   http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010808S0007
   InformationWeek > OpenVMS > OpenVMS Is Flying High > August  8, 2001

   [snip]

  "Brig. Gen. Jeff Riemer, program executive officer for command and
   control and combat support systems at the U.S. Air Force, made sure
   his planes could swap computer systems if necessary, without ripping
   them apart. But since he took delivery of the first Block 20 J-Star
   earlier this week, he's too busy noting how efficient, powerful, and
   cost effective the systems are. "There's 10 times the acceleration in
   how fast information is relayed to the war fighter," says Riemer.

   In addition, two servers replace 10 in the predecessor, the Block 10,
   which also has a different operating system inside from EMC Corp.'s
   Data General division, when DG was its own systems company. The
   OpenVMS will start three times faster and reboot twice as fast.
   Moreover, the new plane is $20 million cheaper than the Block 10. It's
   part of the military's commitment to use standard computing systems.

   Before, the military built its own systems. "Over a 20-year span, we
   expect to save $800 million," says Riemer.

   To be part of the J-Stars program, Compaq had to build in specialized
   military availability and reliability. Features include climate
   control, power conditioning, and shock resistance. Dr. Dale Burton, VP
   of engineering and logistics for air-to-ground surveillance and battle
   management systems at J-Stars designer Northrop Grumman Integrated
   Systems in Melbourne, Fla., says the greatest benefit of OpenVMS
   inside the plane is the software itself. "We can walk in, yank out
   these 19-inch computers, and replace them with Wildfire [Compaq's
   newest high-end server] in a day," says Burton. "The foot stomp is the
   fact that we don't have to rewrite software during upgrades." He says
   rewriting the weapons system app would take three years and cost
   hundreds of millions of dollars.

   Rich Marcello, general manager and VP of Compaq's high-performance
   systems division, says there are 450,000 OpenVMS systems running
   worldwide-it's a $3 billion business for Compaq, and OpenVMS will be
   ported to Intel's Itanium processor in 2003. Besides military and
   government, Marcello says OpenVMS is doing well in some financial,
   hospital, and telecommunications markets. "We have many commitment
   letters out to support OpenVMS through 2011," says Marcello, "and we
   even have some government pacts past 2015.""

As far as long-lived systems, there's a Honeywell GE/PAC 4010 running
a coking unit at the Tosco Wilmington, California plant that was installed
in 1975, when Shell Oil owned the plant.

AFAIK, the Space Shuttle launch systems are still Modcomps, with a custom
operating system written by IBM.

: > How such obligations would or would not be passed on to
: > Hewlett-Packard is something left to lawyers.
:
: Don't even have to be a lawyer to answer that one:  If DEC and /or
: later Compaq signed unambiguous contracts with DOD agencies to
: support VMS for 15 years and that clock has not run out, whoever
: ends up owning Compaq ends up owning that responsibility.  Any
: attempt by a new owner to tell DOD that those prior valid contracts
: are now "somebody else's" responsibility is essentially guaranteed
: to be met with a *distinctly* unsympathetic response;  i.e.:  The
: "new owner" should expect to get an offer they can't refuse....
:

The DoD would probably be a tougher opponent than the DoJ was to M$.


--Jerry Leslie     (my opinions are strictly my own)

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