VMS Software: Frequently Asked Questions

VMS Software, Inc. (VSI) is the sole provider of the OpenVMS operating system and layered products. In 2014, VMS Software, Inc. licensed exclusive rights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) to develop new versions of the operating system. Since this time VMS Software, Inc. has enhanced the operating system to run on the latest HPE Integrity servers, ported the operating system to the x86-64 processor architecture, and is currently working on extending the environment by porting layered products from Alpha and Integrity to x86 and updating the products that are already available on OpenVMS to more recent versions. VMS Software, Inc. additionally provides a growing portfolio of open source software for OpenVMS along with a wide range of services to help customers to get the most from their OpenVMS environments. With VMS Software, Inc. continually improving and modernizing the operating system, OpenVMS customers can be confident that their investment in OpenVMS will continue to meet their business needs.

In 2013, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company realized that it needed a partner to meet OpenVMS customer demands for future enhancements, modernization, and maintenance and support of the operating system. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company chose VMS Software, Inc. to take on this task. VMS Software, Inc. is a unique mixture of highly experienced OpenVMS engineers complemented by a group of young and enthusiastic engineering talent. The VMS Software team are proud to work with OpenVMS and to provide our customers with a highly robust, reliable, and secure operating system platform to address their business-critical computing needs.

No, this is a co-exclusive agreement between Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company and VMS Software, Inc. VMS Software, Inc. will be the only OpenVMS developer and provider going forward.

Visit our OpenVMS page, view features of OpenVMS, supported platforms, and versions of OpenVMS currently available. To learn more about products that run on OpenVMS, visit our Product List. You can also get information on OpenVMS concepts and commands in the OpenVMS wiki and via the links available here.

VMS Software, Inc. supports OpenVMS V8.4-x on HPE Alpha and Integrity servers. OpenVMS V9.0 and later support the x86-64 architecture with virtual machines hypervisors, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox, KVM-QEMU, and VMware Player/Workstation/ESXi. For more information about the currently supported platforms, refer to Quickspecs & SPDs. For more information on the products currently being ported or developed, see the current roadmap.

A list of VMS Software developed layered products for Alpha, Integrity, and x86 systems can be found here.

ECO kits and updates are available from the SFTP server managed by VMS Software, Inc. and from the Services Portal. Access to both resources is provided individually based on the contract type.

Yes. The latest roadmap is available on the Current Roadmap page.

See the list of OpenVMS Freeware products distributed from our official website and the wiki. The list of open source software for OpenVMS ported by VMS Software can be found here and links to known community-supported repositories are published on our wiki.

We provide support to the customers who sign a support contract with us, including those that were Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company customers running Alpha and Integrity servers. We offer bronze, silver, gold, and platinum support packages for all price and coverage ranges. See Support and Maintenance for more information. While providing support for legacy architectures, we continue to release new versions of OpenVMS on x86-64. The current roadmap can be found on the corresponding page.

The same as HP OpenVMS 8.4 on current Itanium and x86-based systems. It is licensed per socket except for certain layered products that are licensed per concurrent user. Alpha systems are available in VSI license and support bundles. See our complete list of products.

Contact Sales at sales@vmssoftware.com.

We offer evaluation licenses. To get one, please fill out this form on the website.

For non-commercial uses, the Community license is available for free. It is intended for non-commercial use on Alpha and Integrity hardware and emulators and x86-compatible hypervisors and hardware; you can apply for it here and here.

Yes we do. See Operation Management for more information.

Yes, VMS Software, Inc. offers both self-paced and instructor-led training. See the training portal for information.

Please visit our Contact page for all contact details.

All media interested in establishing interviews should contact:

VMS Software, Inc.
6 Liberty Sq
PMB # 294
Boston, MA 02109
T: (978) 451-0110
E: content@vmssoftware.com

Yes! Please visit our official job board.

Send your suggestions to info@vmssoftware.com.