[Info-vax] RMS record metadata, was: Re: Re; Spiralog, RMS Journaling (was

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-06-24 10:56:25 +0000, lawrencedo99 at gmail.com said:

> On Friday, June 24, 2016 at 1:46:14 AM UTC+12, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> Here's the OpenVMS mount point documentation, in the main manuals:
>> 
>> http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/83final/5763/5763pro_021.html
>> http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/83final/5763/5763pro_022.html#mount_point
> 
> Any support for “mount --bind”? Hot-pluggable devices?

OpenVMS has not integrated the MOUNT command or the mount system 
service with mount points or links.

OpenVMS lacks a volume manager.

OpenVMS support for storage device management and storage device 
swapping is limited at best.

The configuration and related commands are manual, file-based and the 
associated commands and syntax and configuration required (for 
configuring USB devices, for instance) tends toward arcane and manual.

Then there's that MOUNT — which is useful for other purposes in the I/O 
system — is currently tied to disk and tape storage, and to specific 
disk formats.   That design and that limit is not a surprise, but more 
than a little of the underlying flexibility around ACP handling (yes, 
ACPs are undocumented) was lost to developers here.  But I digress.

I've mentioned before that operator communications, easier and more 
effective automation of management, startup and shutdown processing, 
and other related areas, are ripe for improvements.   Just mounting 
storage volumes — before considering mount points and related — is 
certainly simple, but it's more work than it should be when dealing 
with the inevitable error handling and recovery processing, among other 
details.    This all ties back into the limitations around 
provisioning, app stacking, replicating servers and server migration 
from OpenVMS to OpenVMS.  Coincidentally, I'm creating and documenting 
a design for a related problem right now

Mount points are one of the areas that are under- or un-integrated with 
the rest of the system.  But there's more than a few of those, and more 
than a few areas where progress is somewhere between warranted and 
necessary.


-- 
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