Re: [OT] VSI and VMS, was: Re: Could you write a BSD like os in ADA?

[Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com>]

On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2016-08-28, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-28, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>> On 2016-08-24, Bob Broderbund <bbroderbund@broderbund.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> A company called VSI has some kind of arrangement with HP and is porting VMS
>>>> to x86. Eventually you will supposedly be able to run it natively.
>>>>
>>>
>>> VSI are planning to run VMS within a hypervisor on x86-64 as well as
>>> allowing it to run on the bare metal x86-64 machine.
>>
>> I can't think of a whole lot of OS that run on Intel natively that won't run
>> in a VM. Can you? ;-)
>>
>
> According to the VSI engineers one advantage of the VM approach is that
> it brings along a known environment when it comes to writing device
> drivers.

Right but that only gets you so far. Eventually you have to support whatever
everybody else supports or you won't sell much.

>
>> I understand they want to get it running in a VM for development
>> purposes. Having it run _only_ in a VM doesn't sound like it would be a
>> great idea for sales...
>>
>
> While I strongly agree that VMS needs to run on bare metal x86-64,
> apparently running OS instances within a VM is way more popular than
> you might think when it comes to a typical large data centre environment
> so having VMS supported within a VM environment is apparently a
> positive selling point...

I am aware a lot of Intel work is run in VMs. But there is more than one so
saying "it runs in a VM" or "get it running in a VM" is somewhat open-ended.
Heck, even IBM supports running a bunch of Windows boxes in their latest
mainframe extension contraption. I am suggesting getting VMS running on real
hardware is essential even if they get it running in a simpler environment
at first. And I am sure they are aware of that. I don't think any serious
customer is going to be willing to buy something that _only_ runs in a VM
even if it's a VM they already deploy a lot of their production work
in. Maybe I am wrong but it seems suspicious and not like a real OS if it
can't run on a real box _and_ in whatever VM they want to run it in.

Bob