Wang Laboratories

Rebirth of the Wang VS

In 2005 Getronics announced New VS, a product that is said to seamlessly run the VS OS and all VS software. It is based on a hardware abstraction layer for Intel x86 and IBM POWER. The product is a joint commercial effort of Getronics and TransVirtual Systems, developer of the virtualization technology used.

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Wang VS conversions (or "migrations") have historically been fraught with difficulties, risk, and cost.

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The New VS consists of virtualization software running on specially configured hardware platforms. Though built from commodity hardware, the requirements for very specific configurations require that the hardware platform be provided by Getronics. The New VS is capable of interoperating with SCSI-based Wang VS tape and disk drives, which provide a means of restoring VS files from standard backup tapes or copying VS disk drives.

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The New VS reportedly runs VS software with higher CPU and disk I/O performance than the fastest legacy VS, the VS18950, released in 1999.

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