How to improve performance
We have created special drivers to optimize the communications between
OpenVMS and CHARON-AXP. The benefits this special software offers outweighs
the principle that virtual hardware is totally independent of the operating
system it supports. You decide whether to use it or not, it can be installed
and de-installed as desired.
Every CHARON-AXP installation (version 2 and later) comes with a disk
image that contains specific programs and drivers that can provide additional
performance. The disk is called "Drivers.vdisk" and is located in
the CHARON-AXP installation directory.
Mount the disk like this : $ Mount dka100: tools
It contains 7 directories:
- Bypass (contains the bypass driver)
- Digiboard (contains the driver for the PBXDA serial board)
- Idle (contains the Idle package)
- Performance (contains some tools to measure / compare performance)
- PCSI (contains upgrade for PCSI for older VMS versions)
- SCSI (contains a SCSI patch for VMS 6.2-1h3 that solves large disk
problems)
- TapeUtil (contains a utility to create/load/unload and delete virtual tape
container files)
Idle
Idle is a product for OpenVMS that significantly reduces the CHARON-AXP
host CPU usage whenever a
VMS system running on CHARON-AXP is idle. Idle stalls the emulated
CPU when it detects an OpenVMS idle condition. While Idle is running the
emulated CPU
consumes, on average, less host system CPU time. It is not recommended to
employ
Idle in real-time process control environments. When used it will result in
IO performance degradation.
Installing Idle:
$ Mount dka100: tools
$ Product Install /source=dka100:[idle] *
The following product has been selected:
SRI AXPVMS IDLE V1.2 Layered Product
Do you want to continue? [YES]
Follow the instructions the Idle program will be loaded automatically.
Bypass
Bypass is a special emulated SCSI like disk controller that has never
existed in any DEC system.
It is a controller designed for the CHARON-AXP product to get as less
overhead as possible and get the highest transfer rates. Of course since this
controller never existed VMS does not have a driver for it.
Therefore we developed a VMS driver that handles this controller.
Installing bypass driver:
$ Mount dka100: tools
$ Product install /source=dka100:[bypass] *
The following product has been selected:
SRI AXPVMS CHARON_DISK V1.3 Layered Product
Do you want to continue? [YES]
Follow the instructions and the driver will be installed.
Configuring the bypass in the configuration file:
To enable the bypass add "bypass" to the loading of a SCSI controller:
Load 1 PK bypass
Please note that on bypass enabled controllers only disks will work
and no tapes or other devices.
In addition to the faster throughput that can be achieved with this bypass
enabled, it provides an option to change the device name in VMS by loading a
different controller
PK "SCSI"
PQ "IDE"
PU "MSCP"
PI "DSSI"
PG "FIBER CHANNEL"
PR "Raid Array 230 (Mylex)"
Load 1 PG bypass
Load DGA100
DGA100.image="C:\Disks\disk1.vdisk"
Load DGA200
DGA200.image="\\.\Physicaldrive1"
Load DGA300
DGA300.image="\\.\Scsi4: 0 2 0"
In VMS the device will turn up as a fiber channel disk : $1$DGA100: and can
be used for Mixed fiber channel clustering with real Alpha systems.
Digiboard
The PBXDA serial line controller needs a VMS driver in order to operate.
Installing the PBXDA driver:
$ Mount dka100: tools
$ Product install /source=dka100:[digiboard] *
1 - DIGI AXPVMS DGDRIVER D1.3-0 Layered Product
2 - DIGI AXPVMS DGDRIVER_7 D1.3-0 Layered Product
3 - DIGI AXPVMS DGDRIVER_8 D1.5-0 Layered Product
4 - All products listed above
5 - Exit
Choose one or more items from the menu separated by commas:
For VMS 6.2x choose option 1, VMS 7.x option 2, VMS8.x option 3
Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.
TapeUtil
TapeUtil is a utility that controls the virtual tape drives in the
emulator from within VMS.
Virtual tape drives in the emulator use a file as storage of the tape
contents, since it is not a physical tape drive in which you can physically
load or unload tapes a control program was needed.
This utility is very useful to create multi volume backups or to switch
between tape images in backup scripts
To create/load/unload/delete a virtual tape you issue commands like this:
To create a new blank tape C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape use:
$ TAPE_CREATE "C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape"
To load this C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape as the current tape of MKA600 use:
$ TAPE_LOAD MKA600 "C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape"
To unload any tape in MKA600 use:
$ TAPE_UNLOAD MKA600
To delete tape C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape use :
$ TAPE_DELETE "C:\Tapes\Tape1.vtape"
Installing the TapeUtil:
$ Mount dka100: tools
$ Product install /source=dka100:[tapeutil] *
The following product has been selected:
SRI AXPVMS EMULATOR_TAPEUTIL V1.0 Layered Product
Do you want to continue? [YES]
Follow the instructions the Idle program will be loaded automatically.
Then put the line : @sys$manager:emuctl_symbols.com in the startup or your
login.com
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