EmuVM is an acronym created from the words “Emulation” and “Virtual Machine”. EmuVM has developed a software product to emulate Alpha AXP hardware. We called the product AlphaVM, standing for Alpha Virtual Machine. AlphaVM running on a modern computer system can be used as a safe and non-expensive replacement of end-of-life Alpha hardware.
Many businesses are stuck with old Alpha systems which they cannot replace with modern computers, because the software designed for Alpha cannot run “as is” on an Intel based server. Typical examples include data centers and industrial software that controls a production processes and document flows, which are most critical applications. The software replacement in this case is too risky and expensive. At the same time the ownership costs of the old hardware is constantly increasing.
The AlphaVM product solves this problem by means of emulation based on the virtual machine technology. This emulator can run on any computer, even a laptop. Thus all your software does not need any modifications or re-engineering during the hardware replacement.
Advantages of the virtual machine solution:
- Replacement of legacy Alpha systems preserving all existing software. This means that the application software works as is. No re-engineering or modifications are required. Only relatively small migration effort is needed to switch to new systems and to test that it works.
- Reduction the Alpha systems ownership costs including:
- floor space,
- air conditioning requirements,
- electricity consumption,
- hardware maintenance;
- Performance improvement at low cost – the emulator can run faster than some old systems;
- Enhanced flexibility by means of virtualization:
- running several virtual old systems on one new system,
- easy to add or remove emulated systems,
- possibility of using blade servers,
- VMware compatibility;
- Low migration risks. Re-engineering would have large risks associated with development of software. Emulation does not have those. The migrated solution can be easily tested before it is set in production environment.
Our company has accumulated a lot of experience in the area of hardware emulation. Our unique algorithms allow us to permanently achieve a new maximum level of Alpha emulator performance.
In the future we plan to create emulators for more Alpha systems and more peripherals. We also plan to emulate other, non-Alpha, architectures.
Finally, we can develop, tune or configure the AlphaVM emulator according to your specific requirements.