[Info-vax] Container files are set to grow in importance on the IT road ahead

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Den 2016-02-03 kl. 21:18, skrev Kerry Main:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
>> Bob Koehler via Info-vax
>> Sent: 03-Feb-16 1:19 PM
>> To: info-vax at info-vax.com
>> Cc: Bob Koehler <koehler at eisner.nospam.decuserve.org>
>> Subject: Re: [New Info-vax] Container files are set to grow in importance
>> on the IT road ahead
>>
>> In article <cbc93d79-178b-4e09-8f3b-
>> 7d2e91cb755e at googlegroups.com>, IanD <iloveopenvms at gmail.com>
>> writes:
>>>
>>> Could VSI perhaps one day distribute VMS + Application 'on a stick' so
>> to s=
>>> peak?
>>
>>     Particularly usefull on OS where the vendor recommends each instance
>>     only support one application.
>>
>>     Not necessarily the right solution for all.
>>
>
> Could be very nice solution for distributing pre-configured OS instances
> such as hobby and/or dev environments i.e. with long list of open source
> and dev prod's + latest patches installed and ready to go.. would only need
> to tweak the OS instance specific info e.g. tcpip, licenses, etc.
>
> Many Cust's create "gold" disks or their customized release specific OS
> images for much faster rollouts. This is also similar to how large VMware
> shops deploy new images. They do not deploy base images of Windows
> or Linux then do patches / custom info. They simply deploy the latest gold
> OS instance image of that particular environment.
>
> Case in point - I spent most of a week downloading, installing / customizing
> dev and open source prod's on a new env .. would have been great to simply
> download a single LD file,...

I think your use of "LD file" is slightly missleading.

LD is a tool that can connect a container file and name it as a
VMS disk device. If the container has a file system known to VMS
on it, it can also be MOUNTed.

Take the three ISO files that you get as downloads when you
register for hobbyists licences:

$ dir/size dist:[084]*.iso

Directory DIST:[084]

ALPHA084.ISO;1      658.69MB
ALPHA084LP1.ISO;1   407.85MB
ALPHA084LP2.ISO;1   379.46MB

Total of 3 files, 1.41GB
$


On my Windows laptop, I can directly use these to "burn" CDs
of the distributions. And the ALPHA084 CD will be directly
bootable on my Alpha. There is nothing different from any
other ISO CD image in that sense, no matter if it has
a VMS file system on it or not.

I can also connect them using LD and mount them as "disks" on
VMS and use them just as any VMS disk volume.

$ ld sho /all
%LD-I-CONNECTED, Connected _$1$LDA10: to DSA100:[DIST.084]ALPHA084.ISO;1
%LD-I-CONNECTED, Connected _$1$LDA11: to DSA100:[DIST.084]ALPHA084LP1.ISO;1
%LD-I-CONNECTED, Connected _$1$LDA12: to DSA100:[DIST.084]ALPHA084LP2.ISO;1
$

$ mount/ove=ide lda11
%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, ALPHA084LP1 mounted on _$1$LDA11:

$ dir lda11:[DCPS_ALPHA027.KIT]

Directory LDA11:[DCPS_ALPHA027.KIT]

HP-AXPVMS-DCPS-V0207--1.PCSI$COMPRESSED;1
HP-AXPVMS-DCPS-V0207--1.PCSI$COMPRESSED_ESW;1
HP-AXPVMS-DCPS-V0207--1.PCSI$COMPRESSED_HPC;1

Total of 3 files.
$

For that to work, the container file have to have a known
VMS file system on it, of course.

So there are no specific "LD files" realy... :-)


Jan-Erik.



  then do a backup to my local disk.  Downloaded OS
> image could be setup with modparams updates, sysuaf quotas updated for
> specific accounts, latest Java installed etc ..
>
> There are always some issues with gold disks, but they do have loads of
> value in larger shops.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kerry Main
> Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com
>
>
>
>
>