[Info-vax] VSI and Process Software announcement

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-09-24 15:49:14 +0000, Kerry Main said:

>> Having a new server boot to USB stick — DVD drives are failure-prone, 
>> and are becoming less common, and don't and won't exist in some 
>> environments — or from local network boot services such as InfoServer 
>> or otherwise, and having the OpenVMS installation environment support 
>> DHCP networking and mDNS would be really nice, for instance.  (Yes, 
>> there are boot-time security implications, of course.)
> 
> If you are talking about new OpenVMS installs on SMB sites, then yes, 
> you are correct. I would also mention that every relatively modern 
> server I have seen has a local DVD, but that could change in the future.

There's likely a DVD drive in every one you've seen because of past 
expectations and — particularly in the case of OpenVMS — the operating 
system can't (yet) deal what I'm discussing and what I'm suggesting 
here.

> A more established OpenVMS site with config standards would either:
> 1. - conversational boot from a different root on the local common 
> cluster system disk. Then make minor system specific changes and reboot 
> or-

No, thanks.    Remote management and remote profiling works far better 
than that approach.

> 2. - local boot via DVD, then restore a backup to the target disk with 
> a previously built gold system image with all local customizations 
> embedded. Then, do conversational boot, make system specific changes 
> and reboot. The gold image might even be a LD container for quicker 
> fixes in the gold image.

Again, no.   I really don't want to take several steps backward here.

The approach you describe is what (some) folks are doing now, and — for 
not the first time — not an approach that's reasonable or maintainable 
or even (hopefully) necessary going forward.

For where this is headed, I'd rather have the server get its 
configuration and criteria from a central server automatically, and not 
involve people at all — the less I have to touch the server or the rack 
or the data center, the better.   The ability to remotely manage and 
provision systems is already commonplace on other systems — the low-end 
gear I deal with from Apple provides this and rather more — though this 
is certainly not something that most OpenVMS folks have dealt with.  
Yet.   But either OpenVMS gets dragged forward, or it gets dragged out 
back.

> Multinet supports IPV6 (including IPsec) and DHCP4, so both are likely 
> part of the new VSI stack. See points 1 and 2 for new installs.

Multinet does not support what I was referring to.   If Multinet were 
integrated into the distro and custom configured, a custom install can 
be tweaked to deal with this.   But so can TCP/IP Services.   As I keep 
writing here, I do not want to write or extend an operating system, 
implement a network stack, a web server, a remote server configuration 
tool and remote management and profile management and the rest of what 
I expect from the platform.   Because while various folks here can 
certainly create and maintain and deploy all of that, other folks can 
go get most or all that on some other platforms, and these and other 
features are only going to become much more common on other platforms 
going forward.    That's where I'd like to see OpenVMS.   Not stuck in 
the present and the past.

> Note - With DHCP enabled on the various server LAN interfaces in the 
> gold / LD image (usually with long TTL values), the number of steps 
> required for each OS config is reduced. In larger sites, each OS may 
> have 4 or more different LAN interfaces and each would have a different 
> subnet address (e.g. PROD, CLUS, BACKUP, MGMT)

If gold masters still work for you, go for it.   But — again — what I'm 
referring to here is a step or two past that approach — not that I'd 
even prefer to use all-inclusive master images.

> Larger sites will also be adopting IPAM (IP address mgmt.) solutions, 
> but that is a different discussion. As example:
> http://www.solarwinds.com/ip-address-manager/

That's part of software defined networking, which is another hole in OpenVMS.

All of what I'm describing here is already available and already 
working, BTW.  There's nothing revolutionary here.  It's available in 
the not-OpenVMS servers that I routinely manage and use.





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