Not only was it used in production, from the first-hand anecdotal accounts I've heard, the VAX/VMSclusters were near-z/OS level of reliability. For a brief time, it was used both in mission-critical environments as well as in academic institutions (basically two of the three large markets that existed during that era).
Every 10 years, the same thing gets re-invented. Take network block devices/clustered sharing. VMS had high-availability and each node you joined could use it's local disk as an aggregate resource. In the 90s you had AndrewFS and CODA (CMU's golden age IMO). Then Linux had the whole DRDB era which gained traction about 10 years ago right around the time Hadoop was gaining traction. OpenStack has Cinder. 10 years from now we'll have something else.
Anyways, great points and good post. VAXstations are available on ebay for pretty cheap, but I'd personally go with a hobbyist OpenVMS Alpha license running on ES40. I threw a setup together a few years back and it was neat. Thanks for the data-sheet, my father will get a huge kick out of it.
There are presently OpenVMS servers and clusters in production in a number of locations, and new configurations are being installed — primarily for existing applications, obviously.
The most recent OpenVMS release shipped in June 2015, and the next release is due to ship in March 2016.
There's a port to x86-64 underway, as well.
For those looking for hardware for hobbyist use, used Integrity Itanium servers are usually cheaper than used working Alpha and VAX gear, and newer — working VAX and Alpha gear has become more expensive in recent years. Various VAX and Alpha emulators are available, either as open source or available to hobbyists at no cost.
Every 10 years, the same thing gets re-invented. Take network block devices/clustered sharing. VMS had high-availability and each node you joined could use it's local disk as an aggregate resource. In the 90s you had AndrewFS and CODA (CMU's golden age IMO). Then Linux had the whole DRDB era which gained traction about 10 years ago right around the time Hadoop was gaining traction. OpenStack has Cinder. 10 years from now we'll have something else.
Anyways, great points and good post. VAXstations are available on ebay for pretty cheap, but I'd personally go with a hobbyist OpenVMS Alpha license running on ES40. I threw a setup together a few years back and it was neat. Thanks for the data-sheet, my father will get a huge kick out of it.