ArticlesFor many enterprises, business-critical applications still depend on aging VAX hardware. Healthcare providers. Financial institutions. Government agencies. Manufacturing giants. This dependency is nothing new.
However, legacy hardware is risky and expensive, threatening business continuity. Imagine the productivity loss and disruption caused by a sudden VAX failure.
This situation is all too common, making modernization a necessity.
But how do you begin the modernization? Which strategy aligns with your business objectives? What approach minimizes operational disruption?
Are you not sure how to replace your VAX hardware and make your current environment future-ready? This article is your ultimate guide. You will discover proven modernization approaches as well as real-world case studies – all equipped to make you an informed decision.
Outdated VAX hardware is quietly undermining your business. Check out if you can relate to these challenges:
Can your business afford unexpected shutdowns? Outdated VAX servers fail more frequently with age. When they do, critical applications stop completely. Data suggests that organizations experience an average of 87 hours of system downtime annually.
The results translate to productivity loss, missed deadlines, and unhappy customers.
VAX maintenance expenses increase exponentially year over year. What once cost thousands now demands millions. Vendors stopped production years ago. Third-party suppliers have dwindling inventories. Each replacement part costs more than the last as inventories diminish.
Moreover, repairs take longer, and costs multiply over time. Maintaining legacy VAX systems diverts every dollar from innovation.
Who will address your next VAX failure? Professionals with VAX knowledge are retiring. New technicians aren’t learning obsolete technologies. As a result, finding qualified support becomes nearly impossible.
VAX hardware consumes excessive resources, demanding disproportionate space, power, and cooling compared to modern alternatives. They create physical infrastructure challenges that increase operational costs while decreasing facility efficiency. To put it simply, data center capacity is being wasted on outdated technology.
Manufacturers no longer provide security updates for VAX systems. Known vulnerabilities remain unpatched. Compliance requirements are becoming increasingly difficult to meet. Modern cyber threats target these exact weaknesses.
All of these challenges aren’t just another problem. They are driving decision makers to look for VAX solutions that can eliminate the unavoidable challenges linked to legacy hardware.
| Option 1 STATUS QUO (NO CHANGE) | Option 2 REWRITE | Option 3 STROMASYS CHARON® SOLUTION (Hardware Emulation) | |
| BUSINESS RISK | X Aging hardware, increased down time | X Business continuity is at risk | ✔ Minimum disruption |
| COST OF CHANGE | X No additional, but high running expenses | X Could be very high | ✔ Value for money |
| IMPLEMENTATION TIME | ✔ None | X Lengthy process, from planning, execution, testing and roll out | ✔ Minimal |
| MAINTENANCE COSTS | X Aging hardware, expensive support | ✔ New hardware | ✔ New hardware |
| PERFORMANCE | X Aging hardware, outdated memory size, capacity, processing speed, etc. | ✔ New hardware | ✔ New hardware |
| USER TRAINING | ✔ None | X New application training required, increased business risk | ✔ None necessary, application intact |
| ENERGY COST | X Aging hardware, inefficient energy usage | ✔ New hardware | ✔ New hardware |
Keeping your aging VAX systems running feels comfortable. It’s what your team knows. But this illusion shatters quickly when reality hits.
VAX components stopped being produced years ago. Your maintenance strategy now depends entirely on secondhand markets: eBay, used-part resellers, and forgotten warehouse inventories.
Your technical team searches desperately for parts that might not exist anymore. This can lead to production halts.
A few hours of downtime can directly result in lost revenue. A trust that has been lost and an opportunity that has slipped away.
How long will you let your business run on borrowed time? What’s the real cost of that next unexpected failure? What about those mission-critical applications?
Another traditional VAX modernization approach is complete migration, which involves rewriting, re-architecting, or replatforming the legacy applications. These strategies range from slightly modifying the code to completely changing the application. On paper, these solutions seem innovative, but the reality is much more complex.
The three major challenges with full migration are:
Migration often takes months, sometimes years. It requires resources for rewriting or re-engineering applications. This process becomes expensive quickly, especially for organizations with multiple systems to modernize.
Migrating away from VAX systems often means employee retraining. Training takes time and comes with productivity loss until your teams adapt to the unfamiliar platform.
There’s a real risk of losing mission-critical data during migration, especially with legacy systems that may not align neatly with modern infrastructures.
Perhaps the most frustrating part? Migrating existing business applications feels like throwing away years of successful operational intelligence.
Neither of these solutions seems ideal, especially for organizations that still rely heavily on their legacy applications to drive core processes.
Fortunately, there’s a third option. And it’s both cost-effective and future-proof.
This solution enables organizations to emulate their legacy hardware on modern, industry-standard servers.
Applications running on these servers remain unaware of the hardware changes, operating as though they are running on the original hardware itself. A standout solution in this category is the Charon VAX Emulator.
Here’s what makes this option a smart alternative:
The implementation process for hardware emulation is fast. Organizations often transition over a weekend, with no interruption to critical operations.
By moving to modern hardware, you eliminate the need for aging VAX hardware. Forget breakdowns. Forget long downtimes.
Unlike full migrations, hardware emulation avoids the need for expensive application rewrites or retraining employees on new systems. Your team continues to use the same familiar software with no learning curve required.
Some organizations use hardware emulation as a stopgap solution while exploring other modernization strategies. Others adopt it as a long-term strategy, ensuring their legacy applications continue to deliver value for years to come.
With Charon emulation, you keep what works. Your legacy applications continue to operate in their full capacity, unmodified and unhampered by failing hardware.
Let’s explore its use cases across various industries:
Solution: Implemented Charon-VAX on HP Proliant server with Windows Server
Results:
Critical operations (design, manufacturing, and sales) dependent on aging VAX 7840
Systems were at full capacity with no room for growth
Application rewriting would cost millions
Needed modern storage solutions
Solution: Migrated to Charon-VAX on AMD-based HP Proliant DL385 servers and the implementation was completed over a single weekend.
Results:
If you’re facing high costs with your on-premises VAX hardware but don’t want to alter your mission-critical applications, Charon-VAX presents itself as an ideal solution.
Don’t restrict yourself to popular VAX solutions, Stromasys Charon is here with its cost-effective alternative.
With Charon, you’re not just choosing a VAX solution – you’re investing in your business’s growth.
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