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

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-01-01 16:45, Kerry Main wrote:

>>> There are basic things which have to happen for every server instance
>>> and yes, smart tools and custom automation absolutely do help, but
>>> there is a limit on what tools can do without some level of experience
>>> at the controls.  That is why large companies like Google have L1, L2
>>> and L3 escalation support models for each level of their IT dept.
>>>
>>> Do these escalation teams count as part of their "server" SysAdmin
>> ratio's?
>>>
>>> Make no mistake - there is lots to learn about scalability from the
>>> Googles and Amazons of the world, but we also need to keep open
>> minds
>>> and not blindly accept whatever their marketing depts. pump out
>> about
>>> how good they are.
>>
>> OpenVMS has installation, deployment, patch management, remote
>> management, app deployments, recovery and system re-installation,
>> and
>> troubleshooting and related comparative-competitive difficulties at
>> deployments of scale one.
>>
>> As for the scale of deployments, what passes for a very large OpenVMS
>> installation is smaller than what many of us have seen of Microsoft
>> Windows clients in use on one floor of one building in one office park,
>> too.
>>
> 
> Different culture as well - lets not forget that Windows and Linux typically deploy one bus app or one App service per OS instance. That drives much higher server numbers, but usually at the pain of VM servers that run at 10-15% busy most of the day.
> 
> With OpenVMS, it is very common to run many Apps on one OpenVMS instance.

What kind of nonsese is this? Google runs Linux. Do you think Google 
only runs one app per machine??? They do not. Like I said before, 
machine management is all automated, including scheduling jobs on 
machines. And the system knows the load of different applications, and 
can combine many applications on one machine, as long as there are 
resources available.

One application per machine is such a nonsensical and uninformed belief 
that it almost blows my mind. I can't comment on Windows at all, but in 
the Unix/Linux world, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a reason containers have been developed/pushed in Linux. To 
increase isolation between multiple applications running on the same 
machine. However, I do think all the knobs in VMS can be very useful in 
this context. Unix sometimes certainly suffer because of the lack of 
those (hello page quota).

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
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