[Info-vax] HDD Storage Firmware (Was: Re: Main cabinet fault indicator on an MSA1000)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-08-29 20:29:57 +0000, Dave Froble said:

> On 8/29/2018 1:42 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> This is not a trivial problem for an operating system vendor to solve, 
>> either.  Far from it.
> 
> No, nor should they waste the effort in doing so.
> 
> People who have such storage systems have spent some significant bucks 
> for them.  So, what's the trivial cost of the weendoze 
> software/system/whatever for maintenance on the storage systems.
> 
> I'd much rather see the efforts spent on things like, oh, maybe better 
> networking, encryption, TLS, certificates, and such unpleasantness.


The license price is a rounding error in what's involved, though a 
necessary detail.

Getting the hardware or the storage over onto a Microsoft Windows 
system of the appropriate I/O configuration without disrupting the 
storage contents or the effort involved of getting Windows installed 
and configured and booted somewhere on scratch storage on the target 
system, now that gets interesting.  With Integrity and Alpha systems, 
it's been common to have to reconfigure the storage devices over onto 
Windows systems.

Getting a FC disk updated on a Windows box was always interesting, as 
there weren't all that many handy with a FC HBA controller.  Or 
parallel SCSI, for that matter.

Preferably to a Windows system with a configuration and installed 
software and tools that won't accidently clobber the storage — more 
than a few OpenVMS disks were clobbered by the "harmless signature" — 
during the upgrade.  Whether that's a user mistake, or a bug in some 
anti-malware tools, or otherwise.

Windows licensing typically ties itself to the hardware, too.

These swap-your-operating-system sequences also often can't be 
reasonably automated or scripted.

Booting a CD- or USB-or PXE-based Linux distro avoids several of the issues.

Updating firmware from UEFI — already present, already network-capable, 
already licensed, already able to connect to the storage — avoids the 
need for external bootable media and the matching storage device or 
connection.

I don't see VSI working in this area over the next decade, it's all 
just something we're all going to have to deal with.  Or that many 
folks are simply going to ignore.

Again, this is not a trivial problem for an operating system vendor to 
solve.  Far from it.




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