CHARON by Stromasys runs also on VMware
CHARON products are supported on VMware platform
Starting from year 2011, Stromasys CHARON-VAX and CHARON-AXP family of products are both being developed and tested with VMware environment in mind. They are officially supported on VMware ESXi version 4.1 update 1. The support for ESXi version 5.0 is coming early in 2012.
Improved availability with double virtualization: CHARON on VMware
Hardware can be the source of unscheduled downtime in the operation of a computer system. Hardware requires space and power, both of which add to operational costs, and hardware close to or after support end-of-life poses an elevated risk of failure. Stromasys and VMware have developed different solutions to tackle these problems. Stromasys modernizes old legacy hardware with industry modern x86-Server. VMware improves utilization and efficiency of x86-Hardware. Both technologies combined offer more or less total availability.
Different roads – same destination
VMware offers software to combine several virtual machines distributed among several physical servers. The operating system, and the applications running on it, are available as a virtual machine and as such is no longer tied to one physical system.
Should hardware problems arise, the virtual machine can be moved to a different VMware host and restarted there. Assuming the use of shared storage such as file servers of SAN storage and vMotion, it is possible to move an active virtual machine from one physical server to another without noticeable downtime. All processes can continue to run during the transition.
Currently, however, VMware only provides solutions for the virtualization of x-86 hardware. A solution for VAX and Alpha hardware is not available at this point.
Nevertheless many companies still depend on operations of DEC VAX systems or AlphaServers, which were built in the 1980s and 1990s. The operating systems OpenVMS and Tru64 have the reputation of being the safest and most stable of their. Hence, many system administrators do not want to abandon these systems. In view of this situation Stromasys developed the virtualization solution CHARON. In view of this situation, Stromasys developed the virtualization solution CHARON. CHARON emulates PDP‐11, VAX systems and AlphaServers without the need to change either binary code or source code. Thus, the operating system versions remain the same and the applications continue to run unchanged, allowing the business process to be kept intact.
Double virtualization, double reliability while halving IT costs
VMware provides virtualization tools for modern servers, called VMware ESX server on which various operating systems can be installed. CHARON runs on Windows and Linux, installed on a VMware´s virtual machine. The construction can be managed the same way as ordinary VMware ESX server. The combination of CHARON and a virtual VMware machine provides additional failure protection. Should the server on which a particular VMware virtual machine has failed, the virtual machines running on it can be transferred to another VMware ESX server using vMotion – this also works for virtual machines on which CHARON is running, including VMS and Tru64 Clusters. It is virtually impossible to reach a higher level of availability.
Double virtualisation has already been successfully implemented by many Stromasys customers. “By using virtual VMware vSphere we were able to minimise our risk of outage,” explains Janos Kreis, system manager at Kraus & Naimer, “while our applications continue to run on VMS.”
Additionally double virtualization – CHARON emulation on VMware – offers additional advantages:
1. Hardware Vendor Independence
2. Consolidation of legacy hardware into modern IT environment
3. Reducing IT‐Costs up to 70 percent without performance loss
1. Hardware Vendor Independence
As CHARON runs on any modern x86-Servers you become independent of old PDP-11-, VAX- and Alpha hardware. However modern servers can fail too. For such cases, modern VMware IT environments provide the ability to transfer any virtual machine to a backup system. With CHARON running on a VMware virtual machine using vMotion, you can transfer a virtual DEC system to any backup server in your network. Additionally, x86-Hardware is a dependable architecture being improved constantly. Thanks to vMotion, hardware can be renewed any time without noticeable downtime. Double virtualization with CHARON and VMware allows the operation of OpenVMS or Tru64, with all associated applications, independent of old DEC hardware.
2. Consolidation of legacy hardware into modern IT environment
Installing CHARON on a VMware ESX server means integrating OpenVMS or Tru64 with all associated applications into a standard, modern IT environment. As VMware ESX server run on standard x86-hardware, it is no longer necessary to maintain the old DEC hardware. This means it is no longer necessary to store various spare parts for the old hardware and pay for expensive support. Double virtualization can be the best way to combine the advantages of OpenVMS and Tru64 with the merits of a modern IT-environment.
3. Reducing IT costs by up to 70 percent
Double virtualization not only allows further reliability improvements for critical OpenVMS and Tru64 applications, but enables significant cost reduction through consolidation of multiple physical servers into one. According to VMware, you can save up to 70 percent of your overall IT costs by consolidating your resources and by providing highly available systems based on VMware infrastructure. The potential savings for VAX and Alpha hardware can be even higher through standardized configuration management, backup and restore process, and disaster recovery. Performance of virtualized VAX systems will enjoy a significant performance improvement, whereas Alpha virtual machine is comparable to old hardware.
Click here for the CHARON listing on the VMware Product Catalog
Click here to read more on the CHARON on VMware Development in the Stromasys Newsletter