[Info-vax] HP Integrity rx2800 i4 (2.53GHz/32.0MB) :: PAKs won't load

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-02-28 14:20:06 +0000, Kerry Main said:

> I agree with Hoff that simplifying OpenVMS mgmt. functions like 
> clustering,multiple data repositories, upgrading security etc. should 
> be considered forfuture next gen versions of OpenVMS.
> Having stated this, to the point raised in the last reply, one needs 
> tounderstand that multi-site clustering with no data loss in a DR 
> scenario isa really tough nut to crack - on ANY OS platform.

Unnecessarily complex, baroque, arcane, variously idiotic and 
idiosyncratic, inconsistent, difficult to maintain, difficult for the 
system and application developers and the to extend, difficult to 
document, and difficult to troubleshoot.  ~Thirty years of designs that 
were good at the time, and various designs that were expedient, and now 
buried under decades of accretions and incidentals — and the ubiquitous 
defense against all substantial OpenVMS enhancements known as 
"compatibility", of course.

The current cluster user interface "design" is utter crap.    Nobody 
would use this "design" today.   Nobody.   Yet here we are.

Modern clustering is increasingly a solved problem, too.   With data 
replication, multiple sites and the rest all available.   Increasingly 
at scales vastly larger than the OpenVMS 96 host limit.    Solutions 
that are at least suitable for the needs of most customers, and with a 
budget that they are willing to pay.   This is the market that VSI is 
playing in now, too.

These competing solutions are not using the designs — and variously, 
the "designs" — that DEC had envisioned.  The world is clearly getting 
by, and with very little use of OpenVMS and clustering.    This is 
where current and potential future customers and ISVs are operating, 
and is what current customers and ISVs are comparing OpenVMS with.

I've had more than a few existing OpenVMS sites look at cluster 
projects and get nuked in the pricing stage, too.   Existing OpenVMS 
sites that looked at clustering prices and/or clustering complexity 
and/or the code changes and decided they'd get by without it.   But I 
digress.

VSI can do vastly better here.   VSI will want to do better here.   
Particularly because user interfaces based on half-baked and 
thrown-together designs with no clear and no overarching model — and 
the current gonzo-scale prices — just aren't going to attract much in 
the way of new customers and new developers and ISVs.   Or in various 
cases, these won't even existing customers and partners.

We are no longer in the era of servers as pets.   OpenVMS and any other 
server needs to operate as livestock.  In herds.  Copying config files 
back to the system disk to do an OS upgrade is a non-starter.  
Isolation of authentication and logging is a non-starter.   Baroque UI 
designs.   Etc.

But again, I'm being polite.



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Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC