Charon (software)
Charon (in own notation: CHARON ) is the brand name of a group of software products, as emulators for different CPU - architectures are used. The main emulation is the DEC hardware PDP-11 , VAX and Alpha Server, which works with the Tru64 UNIX or OpenVMS operating systems , among others . In the meantime, HP3000 and SPARC -based systems are also being emulated. The Charon software products are manufactured by the Swiss software company Stromasys SA , based in Meyrin .
Products and technology
Despite their sometimes considerable age, DEC computers are still widely used. In some companies, applications that are called mission critical are run on them. Examples of this are central applications in banks and stock exchanges or airspace monitoring systems. Due to the aging of the hardware and the change in the provider landscape, the operation of these systems on the usual hardware is becoming more difficult. A complete porting to new hardware, operating system and programming language including libraries and interfaces is very expensive and risky. A migration to an emulated environment is therefore a compromise in which modern hardware or virtualized standard x86 servers can be used without having to leave the functioning operating system and the application environment .
The emulators, which are sold under the names CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX , are a combination of a virtual machine and a hardware abstraction layer . You use the Microsoft Windows platform and Linux as host system and can virtualize PDP-11 and VAX as well as Alpha Server. First, a configuration corresponding to the old system is created on the Windows level. CHARON later behaves like a physical server. Then the operating system and the associated applications that previously ran on the real hardware can be migrated to the virtual machine . In this way, neither changing the source code nor upgrading the operating system is necessary.
The IT market research company Gartner described the CHARON products in 2010 as the clear leader in the emulation of Alpha and VAX systems. In addition to Transitive (since the takeover by IBM in 2008: IBM PowerVM ), the CHARON manufacturer Stromasys is a leader in mainframe emulation.
Product name
All of the company's product names are borrowed from Greek mythology. In ancient Greece, Charon was the ferryman who was supposed to bring the dead across the river to Hades. The Stromasys emulator virtualizes the old DEC hardware, while OpenVMS continues to work unchanged. In a figurative sense, CHARON "saves" the data in this way through the deterioration of the hardware and makes it usable for the future.
Manufacturer
After Compaq took over Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1998, which in turn was taken over by Hewlett-Packard in 2002 , the former manager Robert Boers bought the DEC European Migration and Porting Center . This resulted in the company Software Resources International . At the beginning, the company offered service for migration projects. After the company had carried out migration, porting and VMS system development projects for some time, the need for emulators for the VAX architecture was recognized. The development of further emulators for PDP-11, VAX and Alpha Server followed the first VAX emulator. In 2008 the company was renamed Stromasys SA, a stock corporation under Swiss law. The company currently has around 50 employees. The company, founded in 1998, will continue to be led by Robert Boers as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors .
literature
Web links
- Charon Legacy System Emulation Solutions on the manufacturer's website
Individual evidence
- ↑ HP Support for OpenVMS VAX, OpenVMS Alpha AXP and OpenVMS Layered Product Licenses on the CHARON-VAX and CHARON-AXP ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ SHAB : Commercial Register : Changes , Daily Register No. 16905 of October 9, 2014 (French)
- ^ Andrew Butler, Philip Dawson: Hype Cycle for Virtualization ( Memento March 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) . In: Gartner RAS Core Research: Processor Emulation , Gartner, Stamford 2010.
- ^ Entry of "Stromasys SA" in the commercial register of the Canton of Geneva
