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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/1/2018 2:41 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 1/1/2018 10:45 AM, Kerry Main wrote:
>>> With OpenVMS, it is very common to run many Apps on one OpenVMS instance.
> 
> Kids today call this "server stacking" and they view it as something esoteric
> and sophisticated.  To be able to make the point that your operating system
> keeps services isolated so well that you can stack many of them is a big
> point that they will understand if it's presented to them in that form.
> 
>> It certainly was 30 years ago.
>> But I am not so sure today.
> 
> 30 years ago it was common on all operating systems.  But three things have
> happened.  First of all, a lot of people have become used to Windows servers
> that are totally incapable of keeping services independently isolated (and
> services not designed to be kept isolated).  Secondly, virtual machines have
> become cheap commodity items and CPU cycles have become cheap, making it
> much easier to keep one OS instance per service.  Thirdly, the security
> threat has greatly increased due to improved network connectivity.
> 
> So in general it is less common than it once was.  You still see it on a lot
> of VMS systems because they tend to be run by people from 30 years ago.  But
> the kids don't know about it, they view it as esoteric and complicated, and
> they need to be told how easy and convenient it is.

Even on VMS it is my impression that a lot of systems only run one
thing: RDB or Oracle DB or that COBOL application (sure - usually
more than one program but still part of the same application)
or that Fortran application or that XXXX.

Arne