OpenVMS Compatibility Between VAX and AXP

This document is a technical manual from Digital Equipment Corporation (May 1993) designed to assist users in assessing the impact of adding OpenVMS AXP (Alpha) systems to existing OpenVMS VAX computing environments.

The document provides a comprehensive overview of:

• System Environment Similarities and Differences: It compares the end-user, system management, and programming environments of OpenVMS VAX and OpenVMS AXP, highlighting key architectural differences such as page sizes and VAX instruction dependencies.
• Interoperability: It details how VAX and AXP systems can coexist and interoperate within networks and VMScluster environments, including supported protocols, interconnects, and configuration requirements.
• Migration Strategy: The manual outlines resources for migrating applications to AXP, including migration services (such as AXP Migration Centers), available migration tools, training, and documentation.
• Application Portability: It provides guidance on assessing application portability, identifying architectural dependencies, managing compiler differences, and using tools like DECmigrate and the VAX Environment Software Translator (VEST) to convert existing VAX applications for the AXP architecture.