VMS is *NOT* primitive by *ANY* stretch of the imagination! You may not know how to use the advanced features of VMS, but that does not mean they are not there!
UN*X (including Linux!) and WhineBloze are, by comparison, barely a stone's throw from stone-age computing, IMO.
Don't believe me? Try this in UN*X (Linux, *BSD, AIX, etc.) (DOS/Win's mechanisms are similar to VMS and DCL, just greatly more limited): write a short shell script to create 10,000 files or more in any single directory such that the filenames are at least 10 characters long. Then, cd to that directory, enter "echo *" at the shell prompt, and watch the fun!
Upon reviewing these comments, it appears that many misconceptions prevail about VMS, what it is and what it is not.
I can tell you with the authority of 22 years experience that NT is *NOT* and never will be VMS. NT's feeble CMD cannot even dream of approaching DCL.
VMS is not UN*X, nor is UN*X VMS. VMS is acquiring many new capabilities to make the operating environment look very UN*X-like, including giving the appearance that all of the devices MOUNTed to the system are just one big, happy filesystem.
VMS is not "tied to DECnet". Many systems around the world are running quite happily using only TCP/IP, without either DECnet or LAT.
VMS is not dead, although Bobby "GQ" Palmer tried his damnedest to kill it. He couldn't.
VMS is secure. Kevin Mitnick tried his damnedest to hack it without "social engineering". He couldn't, and so testified to Congress.
VMS is "proprietary", but then the same argument can be made for WhineBloze and UN*X. VMS's biggest problem is that has never been ported to the processor that lives in 10's of millions of servers the world over (Intel/x86). It is being ported to Itanic; however, Intel has been birthing IA64 since shortly after the arrival of mass-produced commercial Alpha machines. Remember: Alpha has a ten-year+ history of being what Itanic aspires to be.
VMS is stable. A non-continental European railroad I believe holds the record at 18 years of continuous operation with no reboot. My personal record is just shy of three years.
VMS has the kind of clustering that Oracle, WhineBloze and UN*X can only dream about. Tru64 comes close with TruCluster, but the functionality has not yet reached full parity with VMS, AFAIK.
VMS is reliable. Some of VMS's data protection schemes cause evaluators to incorrectly report that the I/O performance is "lack-luster". However, the VMS paradigm is that data integrity is the more valuable ideal. Current I/O subsystems are providing throughput that matches or equals that achieved by lesser o.s.-es; so, this is really a non-issue.
VMS has survived the attacks of its own "parent" under command of GQ Bobby, the shameful mis-management it suffered under the Compaq regime, and still tries to overcome the artificial limits set on it during the transition to HP.
We, the OpenVMS faithful hold great hope that the response by HP to our pleadings will cause us to see a resurgence of VMS as a stable, secure, reliable, scalable platform.
Whether that platform is built on an Alpha or Itanic foundation makes little fundamental difference.
Slashdot Mirror
VMS is *NOT* primitive by *ANY* stretch of the imagination! You may not know how to use the advanced features of VMS, but that does not mean they are not there!
UN*X (including Linux!) and WhineBloze are, by comparison, barely a stone's throw from stone-age computing, IMO.
Don't believe me? Try this in UN*X (Linux, *BSD, AIX, etc.) (DOS/Win's mechanisms are similar to VMS and DCL, just greatly more limited): write a short shell script to create 10,000 files or more in any single directory such that the filenames are at least 10 characters long. Then, cd to that directory, enter "echo *" at the shell prompt, and watch the fun!
Upon reviewing these comments, it appears that many misconceptions prevail about VMS, what it is and what it is not.
I can tell you with the authority of 22 years experience that NT is *NOT* and never will be VMS. NT's feeble CMD cannot even dream of approaching DCL.
VMS is not UN*X, nor is UN*X VMS. VMS is acquiring many new capabilities to make the operating environment look very UN*X-like, including giving the appearance that all of the devices MOUNTed to the system are just one big, happy filesystem.
VMS is not "tied to DECnet". Many systems around the world are running quite happily using only TCP/IP, without either DECnet or LAT.
VMS is not dead, although Bobby "GQ" Palmer tried his damnedest to kill it. He couldn't.
VMS is secure. Kevin Mitnick tried his damnedest to hack it without "social engineering". He couldn't, and so testified to Congress.
VMS is "proprietary", but then the same argument can be made for WhineBloze and UN*X. VMS's biggest problem is that has never been ported to the processor that lives in 10's of millions of servers the world over (Intel/x86). It is being ported to Itanic; however, Intel has been birthing IA64 since shortly after the arrival of mass-produced commercial Alpha machines. Remember: Alpha has a ten-year+ history of being what Itanic aspires to be.
VMS is stable. A non-continental European railroad I believe holds the record at 18 years of continuous operation with no reboot. My personal record is just shy of three years.
VMS has the kind of clustering that Oracle, WhineBloze and UN*X can only dream about. Tru64 comes close with TruCluster, but the functionality has not yet reached full parity with VMS, AFAIK.
VMS is reliable. Some of VMS's data protection schemes cause evaluators to incorrectly report that the I/O performance is "lack-luster". However, the VMS paradigm is that data integrity is the more valuable ideal. Current I/O subsystems are providing throughput that matches or equals that achieved by lesser o.s.-es; so, this is really a non-issue.
VMS has survived the attacks of its own "parent" under command of GQ Bobby, the shameful mis-management it suffered under the Compaq regime, and still tries to overcome the artificial limits set on it during the transition to HP.
We, the OpenVMS faithful hold great hope that the response by HP to our pleadings will cause us to see a resurgence of VMS as a stable, secure, reliable, scalable platform.
Whether that platform is built on an Alpha or Itanic foundation makes little fundamental difference.
My home page: http://www.djesys.com/
Of course, VMS is not dead. See http://www.openvms.compaq.com/
It appears that your information is in error.
Kevin Mitnick testified before Congress that VMS was the one o.s. he could *NOT* crack without social engineering.
Last year's DEFCON proved that VMS stands alone as the most difficult o.s. to crack.