Network Solutions
OpenVMS
OpenVMS, running on VAX, Alpha, and Integrity (IA64) platforms, remains one of the most robust and
disaster-tolerant operating systems ever built. Not long after its release, one
considerable performance barrier that OpenVMS system managers found vital to address
was fragmentation.
Still very much an issue
with OpenVMS, file fragmentation—originally developed for efficient use of drive
space—means that files are scattered in pieces (fragments) around a drive. Fragmentation
has a serious impact on performance, as numerous additional I/Os are required to
read and write files. Fragmentation not only slows down system speed, but that of
a cluster, network and even users. It also has a profound effect on system reliability
and hardware life.
Additionally, numerous applications developed for OpenVMS access the same files
every time they run. There is much that can be done to greatly increase access to
such files—specifically, the intelligent utilization of an integral part of OpenVMS
for most of its life: data caching.
Learn more about Diskeeper for OpenVMS »
The Key to Fast OpenVMS Performance
Originally, the only solution to OpenVMS fragmentation was to perform a complete
backup and restore of drives—which could only be done nights and weekends as users
could not be on the system. As a drive was restored, files were saved in a non-fragmented
state.
Diskeeper® for OpenVMS, originally released in 1981,
was the first safe and fully automatic solution to fragmentation on OpenVMS systems,
freeing up system managers from laborious backup and restore tasks. It today remains
far and away the most widely used defragmentation solution for OpenVMS.
Diskeeper operates fully automatically, with no attention from the system manager—just
“Set It and Forget It.”® Reads and writes occur with as few I/Os as possible, maximizing
system speed, restoring complete performance, increasing hardware life and providing
full system reliability.
Additionally, Diskeeper uses minimal system resources, so that there is never a
detrimental performance impact from defragmentation. It operates on live disks,
while users are accessing files, and adjusts the frequency of defragmentation to
the level of fragmentation on a drive.
An additional boost to OpenVMS performance is
I/O Express® data caching. I/O Express
is an intelligent data caching solution which utilizes a portion of memory to cache
the most frequently accessed data. Since access to memory is many times faster than
access to a hard drive, speed is greatly increased.
With both Diskeeper and I/O Express employed, performance on an OpenVMS system is
completely maximized.
Obtain further
information about I/O Express for OpenVMS »
Download our OpenVMS Fragmentation Analysis
Utility or our OpenVMS I/O Wait Monitor »