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Know how Trend Windows & Doors changed their aging VAX/VMS server to a virtualized one, thus increasing life and reducing costs.
Trend Windows and Doors had the option of either rewriting the company’s OS for millions, or saving money by buying another VAX system, but running into several ill effects as a result.
Trend’s transformation was done by Oriel Technologies with UBS’ help. After a small execution time and easily solvable connectivity problems, the process was finally completed.
All of Trend Windows & Doors’ critical operating systems, including product design, manufacturing, and sales, relied on an aging VAX 7840 VMS server released in the mid-1970s. It had reached capacity, and since the cost of rewriting all the company’s operational systems would have run into millions of dollars, Trend was considering the purchase of a second, aging VAX system in order to increase capacity. While this would have been a less costly solution and would have allowed them to retain their software applications, they were worried that the second system might experience teething problems or fail to deliver the desired improvement in processing capacity. This could potentially impact the company’s manufacturing operations and sales. There was also concern about the extra space that an additional VAX system would take up at Trend’s headquarters in Sydney, and the associated costs. Trend also needed to invest in a more modern storage solution, which would not have been compatible with the old VAX system.
Trend’s IT supplier, Oriel Technologies, approached UBS to evaluate CHARON-VAX as a virtual environment that would allow all current applications to run unchanged on a modern server, increase processing speeds, and provide capacity for future expansion. The challenge was to move Trend’s applications to another platform without changing the underlying code, user interface, access to Rdb on Windows, and a number of LAT-connected devices used within the manufacturing process. Charon is the only virtualization solution that exactly replicates the existing VAX rather than imitate it on a different platform.
HP agreed to lend Oriel Technologies their testing room for a month in order to assess the robustness of the Charon solution, which was installed on a new HP server. The exhaustive testing process allowed Trend to confidently go ahead with CHARON-VAX
Geoff Lang of UBS, who has facilitated more than 120 CHARON-VAX migrations in Australia, has never yet encountered any major problems during this process. The CHARON-VAX implementation was carried out by Oriel with support from UBS over a single weekend, with minimal downtime. Minor connectivity issues that arose due to the aging hardware were dealt with easily, and the project was completed on time and within budget, with minimal impact on the business and the end users. The migration to a new AMD-based HP Proliant DL385 server also made it easy to add storage and other modern functions that were incompatible with the old VAX hardware.
IT Manager Ray Schroder agrees that the migration of the Trend Windows legacy software to a new, high-speed replacement system was very successful. The outcome is a fully functioning OpenVMS application on a segmented network, which performs just like before. Trend Windows now uses their Virtual VAX/VMS server with its critical business application every day. The current CHARON-VAX system is expected to remain in place for another 10 years. If a performance boost is needed in the future, Charon can simply be upgraded, requiring only a few minutes of downtime. The system also streamlines the nightly backup operation, now accomplished in minutes instead of hours. As an added bonus, the transfer of the operating software from the aging VAX server to the new HP server also resulted in a major cost reduction, since the server is now located in Telstra’s Sydney hosting facility rather than Trend’s headquarters. This not only ensures greater operating security for Trend but also frees up a significant amount of space and reduces the company’s carbon footprint.
