Strategies for Migrating from Alpha and VAX Systems to HP Integrity Servers on OpenVMS

Without question, everyone agrees that the best way to migrate to HP’s Integrity servers from Alpha and VAX is to re-compile, re-link, and re-qualify. If your sources, build procedures, and qualification procedures are current, this is the fastest, surest, and safest path to transition.

Others are challenged by one or more of these conditions. The obstacle may be technical, in terms of old or missing sources, inter-relations between components, or lack of staff time to make volumes of small changes. Business issues, including leases on existing systems, operational commitments, and business initiatives, also present obstacles. All of these can induce difficulties in what should be an otherwise straightforward process.

The presentation explores how unique OpenVMS features provide leverage enabling unique strategies to achieve low-risk, low-effort transitions to the Integrity platform while transparently maintaining commitments to the enterprise. These OpenVMS facilities, including the Alpha Image Translator, the Translated Image Environment, logical names, mixed-architecture OpenVMS clusters, and Host-based volume shadowing enable us to allow a transition from Alpha and VAX to HP Integrity on an incremental basis, reducing risk and increasing flexibility.