[Info-vax] Should VSI offer a HP style Test Drive cluster to the public ?

[Kerry Main]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of Bill
> Gunshannon via Info-vax
> Sent: July 10, 2018 7:07 AM
> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
> Cc: Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Should VSI offer a HP style Test Drive cluster to
the
> public ?
> 
> On 07/09/2018 09:40 PM, Kerry Main wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of Bill
> >> Gunshannon via Info-vax
> >> Sent: July 8, 2018 3:03 PM
> >> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
> >> Cc: Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Should VSI offer a HP style Test Drive
> >> cluster to the public ?
> >>
> >> On 07/08/2018 10:06 AM, Kerry Main wrote:
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of Bill
> >>>> Gunshannon via Info-vax
> >>>> Sent: July 8, 2018 9:54 AM
> >>>> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
> >>>> Cc: Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com>
> >>>> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Should VSI offer a HP style Test Drive
> >>>> cluster to
> >>> the
> >>>> public ?
> >>>>
> >>>> On 07/07/2018 09:52 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> >>>>> On 7/7/2018 8:41 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> And then we come back to the license question.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> No, we don't.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'd envision this something set up by, or sponsored, by VSI.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Nor am I thinking of it as something solely for students.  I see
> >>>>> this as a "test drive" on the user's own computer.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> We are obviously talking about multiple different things again.  In
> >>>> any
> >>> event, I
> >>>> was talking about VMS in Education as that was what others had
> >> mentioned.
> >>>>
> >>>> Another reason why a remote system is unusable for academic
> >>>> purposes is reliability.  What do you do when an assignment is due
> >>>> in the morning and the system is unreachable?  There was a reason
> >>>> why I ran a datacenter with more than a two dozen systems to
> >>>> support a single
> >> academic department.
> >>>>
> >>>> bill
> >>>
> >>> Server HA requirements are usually addressed with clustering.
> >>>
> >>> Anytime you centralize a service, there are always trade-offs that
> >>> need to be mitigated.
> >>>
> >>> HA becomes much higher when you centralize as the impact of a
> >>> service not being available can, and usually does, have a bigger
> >>> impact on the
> >> business.
> >>>
> >>
> >> We weren't talking about clustering.  If I am a student at the
> >> University of Scranton what good is a cluster consisting of machines
> >> in Atlanta, NYC, LA, Dallas, etc.  If I can't reach them?  My
assignment is
> still due in the morning.
> >>
> >> bill
> >
> > In your reply, you referred to having a dozen systems in ONE data
centre.
> >
> > The modern trend today is DC consolidation to a much smaller number of
> sites with higher HA features as running multiple small and very
distributed
> DC sites is no longer cost effective.
> >
> 
> wow...   All those buzzwords in just one sentence.  You must be
> in marketing or sales.
> 

In a parallel life, I do data center consolidation for large corporations.
All server platforms, networks, storage, DB's and App's, 3rd party misc. and
supporting services are in scope. 

Its real ugly down and dirty work that is rife with politics and mixed
agenda's.

Its very real. Just one sample: 
<https://www.canada.ca/en/shared-services/corporate/data-centre-consolidatio
n.html>

And in the US:
<https://www.cio.gov/fed-it-topics/sustainability-transparency/data-center-c
onsolidation/>
<https://www.itdashboard.gov/drupal/dcoi-closures>
< http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/McClure-Final.pdf> 

Still think data center consolidation is a buzz word?

> Not all datacenters conform to your concept of a datacenter.  Mine was
> designed and operated for a specific purpose.  To support an academic CS
> Department.  There were a number of systems both real and virtual.
> 
> bill

So define your view of a data center for me. 

In my world, a data center can be any server room which houses or supports
IT equipment that hosts company/govt/university data. VM or physical is
immaterial to the definition. All in scope workloads need to be migrated
when one closes a datacenter. Typically these datacenters are classed as:
- non-tiered (server room closets)
- small (usually tier1)
- medium (usually tier 2)
- large (usually Tier 2,3. Not many tier 4 sites are targeted for closure)

Btw, I did a data center / IT futures strategy for UNCC (University of North
Carolina) a number of years ago when I was at HP. The UNCC chancellor wanted
to reign in all of the rogue college IT depts who each wanted to do their
own thing, so I do understand the politics of University IT.


Regards,

Kerry Main
Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com