| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 9475.1 | No outside communication | QUARRY::reeves | Jon Reeves, UNIX compiler group | Fri Apr 11 1997 12:37 | 6 |
| I assume this system will not be connected to any networks -- because
network protocols change (there's a chance IPV4 will be obsolete in 15 years)
and network-resident crackers are always finding new security holes.
You'll want to be sure it's running at least PTmin, as that's the first
Y2K compliant release.
|
| 9475.2 | | TLE::REAGAN | All of this chaos makes perfect sense | Fri Apr 11 1997 13:32 | 16 |
| There have been cases where older version of the software didn't like
newer firmware. So I suppose 10 years from now you might swap out a
board with newer firmware and not be able to boot the machine.
Jon hit about another problem in .1 that people have only begun to realize.
Namely "bit rot". This time, it is the Y2K problem. Who knows what it
will be next.
People have assumed over the years that if you take a piece of working
hardware/software today and stick it in a lab and never add new
hardware and never add new software, that the current config will
run forever. We now see with the Y2K situation that as time goes
by, latent bugs in software bubble up to the top like frost heaves
in New England.
-John
|
| 9475.3 | | LEXS01::GINGER | Ron Ginger | Mon Apr 14 1997 11:11 | 8 |
| In general I agree that it is unlikely a system will still be
supportable in 15 years, but there are a lot of applications where this
works. I replaced a PDP-11 a couple years ago that had been in place
and running the same application for over 10 years. I was also told
that the people mover train in Morgantown WV was still running on the
PDP-11 system that I helped configure in 1971.
Not everyone needs to run the latest whiz-bang app.
|
| 9475.4 | So, no gurantee, right?? | ALFAM7::STREPPEL | | Mon Apr 14 1997 13:36 | 5 |
| So the end of the story is: Although our intent is to be compatible
with new firmware we cannot or at least do not want to give
this guarantee, correct??
Hartmut
|
| 9475.5 | Wrong forum? | WTFN::SCALES | Despair is appropriate and inevitable. | Mon Apr 14 1997 14:47 | 12 |
| Hartmut,
I suspect that this conference is generally only read by a handful of technical
folks from Engineering. We are not in any position to offer or confirm business
guarantees.
Thus, if you want something like this for your customer, I think you need to
contact project management and/or engineering management -- only they would be
able to extend a commitment for this kind of support...
Webb
|
| 9475.6 | TANSTAAFL | BBPBV1::WALLACE | john wallace @ bbp. +44 860 675093 | Tue Apr 15 1997 11:36 | 7 |
| And typically for this kind of support, $$$ are involved. E.g. to pay
for hardware, a warehouse, and a person to manage it...
COTS prices implies COTS level of service.
regards
john
|
| 9475.7 | Prior Version Support? | DSNENG::SPRATTE | EweKnicks - Woolly Software | Tue Apr 15 1997 19:21 | 4 |
| DIGITAL offers "Prior Version Support", or something like that, for at least
OpenVMS. There are customers running VMS V4.7 and paying us a lot of money
to keep it running. This type of support involves providing the bits to
run old software on new hardware, e.g., running VMS V4.7 on a VAX 7000.
|