porting from Vaax VMS

Fionn101

Hi All,

We have a big horrible vax/vms server taking up vast amounts of our comms room space, which runs only one small database.

What would be the best way to port this over to a windows server? should I get in a DB contractor to port this into a MSsql database or can I use VMware and image it over to our virtualisation server?

thanks in advance
Fionn

Capt'n Midnight

what model ?

what software is the dB running on ?

possibly more of a unix question really even though VMS isn't unix and NT was based on VMS

or programming

www.openvms.org - IIRC there is an i386 port somewhere

layke

Your in luck slick. In my workplace they all work on ye olde VAX daily.
You wouldn't believe the amount of big companies/hospitals who still use it.

Now, the problem with a Vax is that it uses a totally different OS, so you really need to pay someone to transfer the database across. It's not something I would recommend you try yourself and i'm a little hesitant to use open source software that hasn't even hit v1.0 yet. In fact the only thing you can pop directly across are text files.

Tom Dunne

Fionn101 wrote: »

What would be the best way to port this over to a windows server? should I get in a DB contractor to port this into a MSsql database or can I use VMware and image it over to our virtualisation server?

Probably. But it also depends on what database is being used on the Vax. It isn't Ingres, by any chance? Or, heaven forbid, a CODASYL database?

Ah, fond memories.

Stephen

We still have a load of Alphas and Vaxen taking up one end of our computer room. The raid array for one of them is the size of a whole rack full of our modern HP servers

Fionn101

thanks for the replies,

Does anyone know the command for showing what version the database is ?

All I know is how to check process' ,users and kill accordingly (sure what else would I need:rolleyes:)

looks like it's a job for contractor man.....

And as Stephen said, the sheer volume of space that these sytems takes up is ridiculous.This machine has a carbon footprint of a Yeti and only runs a tiny insignificant (by insignificant I mean it doesn't do anything I would use) database for some users somewhere..tsk.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

They're pretty reliable though

Tom Dunne

Fionn101 wrote: »

Does anyone know the command for showing what version the database is ?

Of course that depends on the database.

Fionn101 wrote: »

All I know is how to check process' ,users and kill accordingly (sure what else would I need:rolleyes:)

You could post up a list of processes (I know, there would be loads) and we could have a look, see if anything jumps out. Although, it's been a long time since I was connected to a Vax.

Or you could have a look through them and look for something like 'DB' or 'database'.

Fionn101

meh, show proc doesn't list the database.
I'll have dig out the manual and find out what db is on it.

Thanks all

a_ominous

It's a long time since I've touched a VMS box.

Show /help
will help you list all the options: processes, installed software, etc.

If the DB is from a company still trading, you should be fine. Even a DEC DB probably has some level of support from HP who bought Compaq who bought DEC in the mid- to late-1990s.

Worst case scenario is to extract data in CSV format and have to re-design the DB as you would not have table structure in CSV files. If you can do DB dump, you might get lucky. Most DB migrations I have had dealings with have been from old version to latest-and-greatest of whatever DB, so were relatively simple. Migrating to a different vendor DB is generally non-trivial. You might need some expert advice. I'm not a DB expert, just an experienced user who's had to work with various migrated systems.

AccessQuery

Morning,
I'm a very very old VMS/OpenVMS hand. It's been a while since I entered a "DCL" command, but with regards your problem have a look at you Backup command files. I'd expect that they'll have a reference to your DB, that's if they're being backed up of course.

Failing that have a look at the start-up "COM"/command files in the [System] directory. From memory they're usually called "startup", oddly enough. I'd reckon you'll find reference to the database start-up process there.

If you don't know where the Com files are and you're a priviliged user, at the DCL prompt type dir [*.*]startup*.* and hit return.

I'd reckon your DB is probably Oracle, Informix or maybe Sybase.

On the migration front there are software packages out there that will allow you share your VMS disk devices with MS-Windows and vis-versa. I've used them in the past. They allow full read/write access to the devices in question.

In the very distant past I've done all of the above from DEC-VMS to HP Boxes and from DEC-VMS to windows based systems. It's not difficult just needs to be planned properly.

What version of VMS are you on?