What's New at Migration Specialties?

June 30, 2010: Intel Success Story

Intel has list FreeAXP and Avanti in their Intel® Business Exchange Directory.

June 22, 2010: Intel Success Story

Intel has been following and participating in FreeAXP and Avanti development. They have published a nice success story, Keeping Great Legacies Alive, paying homage to Alpha technology and discussing FreeAXP, Avanti, and their use of Intel technology.

June 11, 2010: Draft Virtual Alpha Pricing Guide

Migration Specialties has published a Draft Pricing Guide for its virtual Alpha solutions.

June 3, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta 283

FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.6.283 is now available. This release provides a 5% - 10% performance improvement and corrects a floating point issue. Downloads have exceeded 1,300. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

May 12, 2010: FreeAXP™ Downloads Exceed 1000

FreeAXP virtual Alpha downloads exceeded 1,000 today. User response and feedback continues to be excellent, with both OpenVMS and Tru64 Unix users taking advantage of the product. The addition of support for a second serial port and second NIC have been well received. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

April 27, 2010: Test Systems and Benchmarks

We have added Test System and Benchmark links to our Development page. The Test System links provide information on the hardware we using in testing. The Benchmark links are programs and procedures we use to measure performance on real VAX and Alpha hardware and our virtual hardware. This information allows our customers to generate meaningful comparison numbers for their host and emulated systems.

April 21, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta 271

FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.6.271 is now available. This release provides a 10% - 20% performance improvement. It also includes support for the Charon idle loop driver. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

April 15, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta 269

FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.6.269 is now available. This release provides a 10% performance increase. It also includes support for VMS 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1. We have added a FreeAXP Guest O/S List and a Prior Kits link to the FreeAXP page. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

April 12, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta Tops 500

We are pleased to report over 500 users have downloaded FreeAXP™ Beta kits. FreeAXP is winning wide acceptance in the OpenVMS and Tru64 user communities, allowing virtual Alpha systems to reside on desktops, notebooks, and netbooks. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

April 10, 2010: AlphaBook

Just for fun (we're strong believers in fun), we booted FreeAXP Beta 261 on a netbook powered by an Intel® Atom™ N270 1.6GHz processor and .98GB available RAM running Windows XP Pro x86, proving it is possible to carry a running OpenVMS or Tru64 system in a pocketbook. Visit the FreeAXP page to download FreeAXP to your netbook.

April 5, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta 261

FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.5.261 was released today. This release features internal improvements, NIC updates for Tru64 Unix, and the addition of a second virtual NIC to support Tru64 clustering. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

March 31, 2010: SimH VAX Supports Availability Manager Development Environment at HP

SimH VAX is in use at HP to support the development and test environment for Availability Manager. Sponsored by Migration Specialties, Barry Keirstien, former Availability Manager Project Leader, has published SimH Supports Availability Manager Development Environment at HP in the March issue of the OpenVMS Technical Journal.

March 29, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta 254

FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.4.254 was released today. This release features internal improvements and the addition of a second virtual serial port. Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links.

March 18, 2010: FreeAXP™ Public Beta

We are excited to report FreeAXP™ Beta 1.0.4.251 has been released to the general public! Visit the FreeAXP page for download, documentation, and forum links. Our thanks to OpenVMS Hobbyist for sponsoring the FreeAXP User Forum.

March 9, 2010: Avanti Beta in the Field

Migration Specialties is pleased to announce our first Avanti beta customer installation. Avanti is a commercial AlphaServer emulator. Avanti was used to replace an existing CHARON-AXP installation. The emulator swap took under four hours on a Sunday. Monday morning users were none the wiser, their Alpha OpenVMS applications continuing to run just as expected.

March 7, 2010: SimH VAX Replaces CHARON-VAX

Migration Specialties has successfully replaced a CHARON-VAX installation with SimH VAX. Replacing the CHARON-VAX installation reduced customer support costs while providing an equivalent emulation platform to support archival VAX VMS applications. The replacement was transparent to the VMS system end-users. The replacement process was completed in under one hour.

March 5, 2010: TechStars for a Day

Migration Specialties was pleased to accept an invitation to attend TechStars for a Day in Boulder, Colorado on March 5. TechStars specializes in identifying and providing seed funding for startups. While Migration Specialties is a well established company, TechStars was intrigued by our products and services and the potential market for our virtual Alpha solution. We were equally intrigued by the opportunity to meet experienced executives and venture capitalists and discuss how to best grow a small, successful, highly technical company. The event was invigorating, attended by a mix of enthusiastic, highly motivated people.

March 1, 2010: Caponier Ltd. Joins the Team

Migration Specialties is pleased to welcome Caponier Ltd. to the team of organizations supporting FreeAXP and Avanti development. John Manger at Caponier, a highly respected Tru64 expert, formerly of HP's European Engineering Services, HP UK's senior Tru64 UNIX Engineer, Tru64 UNIX Security Focus Engineer for Europe (within HP SSRT), and HP UK Education's Senior Tru64 UNIX Trainer, will be utilizing his expertise and experience to ensure top notch Tru64 support on FreeAXP, Avanti, and future products.

December 30, 2010: BAE HP1000 Replacement

Migration Specialties has successfully completed replacement of an HP1000 system for BAE Systems. The HP1000 controls a jet aircraft Thrust Management System (TMS) test stand. BAE continues to sell and maintain the TMS. The HP1000 was becoming unreliable, impacting the availability of the test stand. Over a three day period, Migration Specialties replaced the HP1000 with a Kestrel emulator, retaining all of the test stands specialized I/O cards and software unchanged and bringing the stand back to a high state of availability.

December 29, 2009: FreeAXP™ Beta Release

The beta of FreeAXP™, a free AlphaServer 400 emulator, is slated for release to select testers January 2, 2010. Details are available in the FreeAXP™ Beta Press Release. Ongoing updates to our virtual Alpha development program can be viewed on our Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

November 11, 2009: Partition Issues

So some days everything doesn't go our way. Read about the trials and tribulations involved in resizing a Windows Server 2003 boot partition in Partition Problems.

October 12, 2009: Emulator Boots Tru64 UNIX

Tru64 UNIX now boots and runs on the Alpha emulator. Details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

September 14, 2009: Web Site Make Over

Migration Specialties is please to reveal our revamped web site, with new and existing content presented even more clearly. The site is designed to load fast and be easy to navigate. Your comments and feedback are welcome.

September 9, 2009: Emulator CD Support

The Alpha emulator now supports physical CD's. Details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

August 24, 2009: Emulator SCSI Support

The Alpha emulator now supports physical SCSI connections. Details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

August 17, 2009: Emulator Boot Testing

More good news as OpenVMS boot testing continues on our Alpha emulator. Details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

July 29, 2009: Two New OpenVMS Technical Journal Articles

The current OpenVMS Technical Journal features two articles sponsored by Migration Specialties. A Starlet is Born: New Options for VAX and Alpha Hardware Replacement, by Camiel Vanderhoeven, introduces the underlying architecture of Migration Specialties upcoming VAX & Alpha hardware emulators. Adding Physical CD support to the SIMH VAX, by Mike Duffy, discusses our addition of physical CD support to Bob Supnik's open source SimH VAX emulator.

June 18, 2009: VAX & Alpha Replacement Presentation pdf version

Camiel Vanderhoeven, chief architech of Migration Specialties upcoming Alpha emulation solution, presided over a well attended session at the 2009 HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas. Camiel held forth to an attentive audience on the various options available to support legacy VAX and Alpha applications. A copy of his presentation slides can be found at this link: Legacy VAX and Alpha Systems: Refresh, Replace or Emulate.

June 14, 2009: OpenVMS Boot on Emulator

Migration Specialties has successfully booted OpenVMS on our Alpha emulator. More details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

March 20, 2009: Emulator Integrity Port

Migration Specialties has successfully ported the VAX & Alpha emulator VL and base components to the HP Integrity platform. More details are available on the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator development page.

March 4, 2009: VAX & Alpha Emulator Web Page Posted

Migration Specialties has published a new web page covering the development of our virtual VAX & Alpha hardware emulators. Progress reports on product development will be posted to the page. Click the Virtual VAX & Alpha Emulator link to visit the page.

February 4, 2009: Migration Specialties Announces Virtual VAX & Alpha Development

Migration Specialties issues a Press Release today announcing development of virtual VAX and Alpha solutions. The Alpha product is scheduled for an early 2010 release with the VAX product to follow.

January 29, 2009: Utilizing /RETAIN=ERROR to Make Life Easier pdf version

The /RETAIN=ERROR qualifier is a useful tool to identify problem batch and print jobs. Migration Specialties has contributed an article published in the January, 2009 issue of the OpenVMS Technical Journal titled Utilizing /RETAIN=ERROR to Make Life Easier discussing how to deploy the qualifier to your advantage as part of OpenVMS system maintenance and monitoring.

January 19, 2009: Migration Specialties Featured on Nemonix Engineering Home Page

Nemonix Engineering, a partner in supplying VAX replacement solutions, is featuring Migration Specialties on its home page this month. We appreciate the honor.

September 3, 2008: VAX Replacement Options Paper

Migration Specialties has published VAX Replacement Options, a paper intended to help VAX users assess their options when considering how to support legacy VAX applications. The paper covers VAX hardware emulator and VAX hardware refresh options.