Charon (Software)

Charon ( in own writing: CHARON ) is the brand name for a set of software products that serve as emulators for different CPU architectures. Emulates is mainly the DEC PDP -11 hardware, VAX and AlphaServer who works among others with the operating systems Tru64 UNIX or OpenVMS. The Charon software products are manufactured by the Swiss software company Stromasys SA, based in Plan- les- Ouates.

Products and Technology

DEC computers, despite their sometimes considerable age still widely in use. On these applications are operated in some businesses, which are designated as mission critical. Examples include applications in central banks and stock exchanges or air traffic control systems. The operation of these systems to the usual hardware becomes more difficult by the aging of the hardware and the changing provider landscape. A complete porting to new hardware, operating system and programming language including libraries and interfaces, however, is very expensive and risky. Migrating to an emulated environment is therefore a compromise in which modern hardware or virtualized standard x86 servers can be used, without having to leave functioning operating system and application environment that.

The emulators, which are sold under the names CHARON- AXP and CHARON -VAX, are a combination of a virtual machine and Hardware Abstraction Layer. You use the Microsoft Windows platform as a host system and can both PDP -11 and VAX, and Alpha servers to virtualize. First, while a corresponding the old system configuration is created on the Windows level. CHARON behaves later as a physical server. Then, the operating system and associated applications that were running on the real hardware, migrate to virtual machine. In this way, no change to the source code nor an operating system upgrade is necessary.

The IT research company Gartner described the CHARON products in 2010 as the clear leader in the emulation of Alpha and VAX systems. The CHARON- manufacturer Stromasys was next to Transitive (since its acquisition by IBM 2008: IBM PowerVM ) leader in the mainframe emulation total.

Product Name

All product names of the company are borrowed from Greek mythology. Charon was the ferryman who was to bring the dead across the river to Hades in ancient Greece. The emulator of the company Stromasys virtualizes the old DEC hardware, while OpenVMS continues to work unchanged. In a figurative sense " saves" CHARON the data in this way about the decline of hardware and makes it more usable for the future.

Manufacturer

Following the acquisition of Digital Equipment Corporation ( DEC) by Compaq in 1998, which was acquired by Hewlett -Packard in turn in 2002, bought the former manager Robert Boers DEC European Migration and Porting center. This resulted in the company Software Resources International. Initially, the company offered service for migration projects. After the company had for some time carried out migration, porting and VMS system development projects, one recognized the need for emulators for the VAX architecture. At first VAX emulator to develop other emulators for PDP -11, VAX and AlphaServer followed. In 2008, the company renamed in Stromasys SA, a public limited company under Swiss law. Currently, the company employs approximately 50 employees. Founded in 1998, continues to be led by Robert Boers as CEO and president.