[Info-vax] OpenVMS servers and clusters as a cloud service

[Kerry Main]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com] On Behalf Of Scott
> Dorsey via Info-vax
> Sent: January 1, 2018 8:07 AM
> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
> Cc: Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] OpenVMS servers and clusters as a cloud
service
> 
> Kerry Main <kemain.nospam at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >My point is that I know Amazon and Google etc. have very high
> numbers of =
> >servers (phys or VM really does not really matter from admin =
> >perspective), but their Sysadmin ratio is not 28,000 servers for a =
> >single admin. Hung services, hung/crashed servers, log monitoring, =
> >backup failures, password mgmt., hardware failures, firewall rules =
> >integration are all examples of Sysadmin activities where tools and =
> >custom automation can certainly help.=20
> 
> No, that's high but not insane.  My wife works in a place where it's
about
> one admin per 5,000 machines.  If something goes wrong with a server,
> they
> save the user partition, wipe the machine, replace the OS image, put
the
> user partition back in about five minutes.  They don't diagnose things
> or repair them in most cases, because the VM technology has made it so
> easy
> to replace them.
> 
> They have a small team that makes standard images, but the day to day
> admin
> work is almost entirely automated.  They have six Linux admins for the
> whole
> multinational corporation, spaced around the world so there are always
> two
> people on duty on any given shift.
> 
> It's a very different philosophy than we came up with.  Hell, I worked
for
> a company where they probably had 300 people on staff supporting one
> machine,
> way back when.
> --scott
> 

I have also done many projects in very large companies with very large
numbers of P/V servers (albeit not the same as Google).

They will also tout very large server to SysAdmin ratio's, and to their
credit, often do have relatively small Windows and small Linux SysAdmin
groups. 

However, when asked about who does the management of storage, backups,
IP mgmt. (IPAM), batch monitoring, HW issue follow-ups, event log issue
follow-up, they will also typically state "oh - we have other OPS and/or
"smart hands" (those that do nothing but replace HW), and/or App groups
that do those activities". 

The marketing people at companies like Google will only tout the Server
SysAdmin numbers, but most consumers of that information are not aware
of the many other support groups that are required to maintain that
large IT server environment. 

Granted, the server Sysadmin numbers are still lower than most places
(and that is a good thing), but the effort that goes into automation
engineering, event filtering, agent monitoring, tools customization and
deployment are huge and requires a significant commitment from upper
mgmt.


Regards,

Kerry Main
Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com