Charon-PAR is a hardware virtualization layer running under Linux on industry-standard servers. It emulates a range of historic PA-RISC hardware systems and allows existing users of such systems to move to modern Intel-based server hardware.
This is accomplished on industry-standard Intel x64 servers running one of two supported Linux distributions: Red Hat 7.x and CentOS 7.x or under VMware running one of the two supported Linux distributions as a guest operating system.
With the Charon-PAR solution, you can securely transfer your PA-RISC systems to a state-of-the-art environment. Stromasys’ solution enables third-party applications and user-developed software to run without modification.
HP recognizes Charon-PAR software as a valid platform to run MPE and HP-UX, and Charon-PAR passes the original MPE hardware qualification tests.
Charon-PAR Configurations
The Charon-PAR product family is a range of fully compatible virtualized PA-RISC systems running on industry-standard Intel x64 (Core i7 and Xeon) servers. Virtualization technology takes advantage of technological advantages since PA-RISC systems were built, translating PA-RISC instructions on-the-fly into optimized sequences of Intel CPU instructions. Charon-PAR servers run 100% unmodified copies of MPE/iX 7.5 and allow you to restore your applications and third-party software onto modern, reliable, high-performance hardware, providing a “best of both worlds” solution. Charon-PAR family performance ranges through A400 and A500 series equivalence at the low-end, to mid-range multi-processor N4000 series equivalence at the high-end.
Charon-PAR provides several virtual hardware families that support the following guest operating systems:
- Charon-PAR/PA3: supports the following guest operating system: MPE/iX 7.5.
- Charon-PAR/PA9-64 and Charon-PAR/PA9-32: PA9-64 emulates 64-bit models, PA9-32 emulates 32-bit models.
- The currently implemented 64-bit models support the following HP-UX versions as guest operating systems:
- HP-UX 11v1 (11.11), 11v2 (11.23), and – rp34xx and rp44xx only – 11v3 (11.31)
- In addition, emulated systems configured with 360 and 440 MHz CPUs can also run HP-UX 11.00 (e.g., rp2400-1-360, rp2400-1-440, rp7400-1-440)
- The currently implemented 32-bit models support the following HP-UX version as guest operating system:
- Model 720: HP-UX 9.05, 9.07, 10.20, and 11.00
- Model B132L: HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, and 11v1 (11.11)