Fasco Charon Implementation

An OpenVMS Virtualization Case Summary: Fasco Regal-Beloit

By Tim Peer

eNVy Systems, Inc.

Not long ago, a consultant working with the MANMAN site Fasco/Regal-Beloit (FRB) contacted me regarding a recommendation that they migrate from VAX to Alpha.

The Problem. FRB was urgently preparing to add an additional 90 users on the VAX4705 MANMAN system. They asked their project consultant at the time to complete a resource and capacity assessment of their existing system. It was described as having processing constraints which locked the system from user transactions for up to six hours daily for batch and exclusive jobs. Transaction response times were sketchy due to frequent database locks; the system was administered in constant “crisis” mode. FRB clearly had run out of capacity on the VAX 4705 system, and yet they anticipated they would soon add an additional 90 users to an already taxed system.

The consultant performed the usual database, memory, CPU and IO checks and concluded that the system should be upgraded to Alpha. FRB anticipated a six-figure price tag for the migration based on the consultant’s findings and recommendations.

An Alternate Proposal. I proposed an alternative migration option to Alpha which I believed would exceed scalability requirements, achieve high performance, and offer a less involved migration path. Having worked with MANMAN OpenVMS and Codasyl DBMS sites for over 20 years, I realized that Codasyl DBMS IO was most likely causing the bottle-neck. I proposed FRB migrate from the VAX4705 to Stromasys CHARON-VAX hardware virtualization, essentially running OpenVMS/MANMAN on a PC server.

Charon Implementation Specifics at FRB. I implemented a non-volatile Windows cache mapped to drive a 24GB partition (“R :”). On Windows drive R:\ I configured three Charon Virtual disks. One of these disks is described as “DKA400:“on the Guest OS. From the Windows Host perspective, files on DKA400 disk are cached in Windows Host RAM using write-through mode (IO is written directly to disk, and subsequent reads are performed out of physical memory). Guest OS database backup (.DBB) files, open temporary files, user scratch work and sort work areas, and Codasyl DBMS After Image Journal files are created on DKA400:. Comparing run-times, FRB’s database backups which took > 1.5 hours now complete in about 6 minutes. Exclusive processing windows are now measured in minutes a day.

A few words about Charon Virtualization. Charon VAX & Alpha platform virtualization has been described as middleware which executes on Microsoft Windows on PC Servers. Charon supports all operating systems which run on the VAX and Alpha platform including OpenVMS, Tru64, Itanium/IA64 and Windows NT.

As with other virtualization technologies, the Microsoft Windows environment can be described as the Host OS, and Charon as middleware running on the Host OS. The guest OS, usually OpenVMS and Tru64, run on Charon. Host computer hardware devices are visible to the Guest OS in most cases as emulated devices. Charon supports direct access to physical SCSI devices such as tape drives, disk drives, CDROM and other Host computer devices. Tape devices can be emulated on Charon such that the Guest OS can load/mount a file on the Host OS as a tape drive, and when complete, Unload/Dismount the tape device.

Charon scales nicely such that classic system performance bottlenecks are usually eliminated when implementing the Guest OS on Charon. Performance on the Guest is manageable using familiar classic tools available on the Guest OS and newer tools available on the Host Windows OS.

The “hardware” configuration used by the Guest OS can change when needed, add additional storage, load balance TELNET/DECNET with multiple NICs, Cluster interfaces, Tape Drives (physical and virtual), or add/allocated additional memory and CPUs. Physical and virtual “Guest disks”, TTA devices, and NIC cards can usually be configured in a few minutes and are virtualized devices to the Guest OS. All that is required is to define the hardware that needs to be recognized by Charon in a configuration file, and reboot the Guest OS.

Tape devices. Tape devices can be configured as physical devices attached to the Windows Host, e.g. DLT, 4MMDAT, 8MM or even 9-track devices, or as virtual devices on the Guest OS. Each virtual tape device is associated with a disk file in a directory on the Host OS. Create, load and mount the tape drives as necessary, perform backup/TAR operations to the “virtual” device, unload and dismount. Enterprise backup software can then be used to backup the corresponding Host computer disk file. Guest OS file system (IMAGE) backups are typically completed in just a few minutes by shutting down the Guest OS and Charon, copying the directory containing Charon virtual disks to an offline location or tape, and rebooting the Guest OS.

Disk devices. Stromasys provides utilities to create OpenVMS/Tru64 disks of sizes ranging from very small to over 64GB in size. Disk devices can include physical Host computer disks with a configuration capability which permits customizing disk geometry attributes such as tracks per cylinder, etc.

Network Interface Devices. Best practice for Charon implements 2 NIC physical interfaces on the Host computer. One NIC is dedicated for the Charon (NDIS5) driver, and the other NIC is configured for TCPIP.

User Experience. The Charon Guest OS performs identical to the classic OS environment. Users login to the Guest OS via a Telnet IP address configured on the Guest OS and connect using a terminal emulator, FTP, or desired login program.

For OpenVMS/MANMAN, Codasyl DBMS and Rdb users, excessive I/O is usually the culprit when evaluating performance of long-running transactions. I/O latency between the Host OS and the Guest OS is dedicated on an allocated Host CPU. Transfers between the Guest OS and the Host OS are relative to the speed of the storage devices on the Host OS. IO latency is very manageable using non-volatile Windows Caching software. IO latency is measured in nanosecond versus microseconds on even the fastest JBOD/RAID devices.

Why CharonVAX/Alpha Virtualization:

· Charon is Scalable

· Charon is a low cost alternative to sourcing replacement used hardware and Platform Migrations.

· Guest OS devices are presented as Windows Disk Files (.vdisk) and can be placed on SAN devices on any Windows-supported storage system.

· Device & Controller emulation.

· Add as many Virtual disk drives as free space is available on the Host OS.

· Charon supports OpenVMS Tape and disk devices as a physical SCSI tape device and as a virtual tape (disk file)

· Charon supports Clustering

· Exceptional value when extending/scaling up capacity on the Guest OS for production and when it is time to retire and provide as-needed access to the Guest OS.

· Ideal for SOX data retention, FDA and other regulatory environments.

Month-end close updates and reports complete in about 6 hours, compared to VAX 4705 run-times of > 32 hours. The daily production batches complete in less than 2 hours, where these same jobs previously took > 6 hours. MRP completes in just a few minutes.

In Summary. What began as a casual conversation about a platform migration to Alpha resulted in huge savings to the client and a very stable/high performance Hardware-Virtualized OpenVMS MANMAN system. Performance expectations were more than satisfied using Charon Virtualization, and at a considerable savings to other alternatives.

About eNVy Systems. ENVy Systems established in 1989 has provided proven solutions to MANMAN & OpenVMS clients in Australia, Canada, UK, US and Mexico. Our services include MANMAN and OpenVMS help desk to supplement/replace your OpenVMS/MANMAN support desk function. We now provide our MANMAN SQL Data Warehouse and ecommerce, Storefront, PDF technologies with most Service engagements. Contact us and inquire about discounts of visit us at our Charon Products on-line store (http://store.envysys.com) for a pricing information. offered on Charon Virtualization for OpenVMS and our help-desk services for OpenVMS, Codasyl DBMS and MANMAN support.

Tim Peer is an Engineer with eNVy Systems, Inc. Located in San Jose, CA, a leader in Data Warehousing technology for Codasyl DBMS /MANMAN, Database Repair, System Support of OpenVMS & MANMAN Systems. Certified Partner/Reseller of CharonVAX/Alpha/Itanium hardware virtualization. If you are interested in a free trial / quote on Charon Virtualization for OpenVMS and Tru64, please visit our store front at http://store.envysys.com .

Contact Tim at peert@envysys.com | (408) 363-8896 | http://envysys.com