[Info-vax] VMware

[Ian Miller]

On Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 3:22:51 AM UTC, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 12/9/2019 7:42 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > On 12/9/2019 5:33 PM, clair.grant at vmssoftware.com wrote:
> >> The big thing for the people I talk with is that VMS is different.
> >> The HW cost is certainly a big factor but even more important is that
> >> these people already run dozens, if not hundreds, of VMware guests.
> >
> > Or thousands.
> >
> > Or maybe even tens of thousands if they are big.
> >
> >> They want VMS to be in there, too, possibly in many guests. The
> >> message is always the same, don't be different if you want to stay
> >> around.
> >
> > Being different means extra cost.
> >
> > Arne
> >
> >
> 
> I've mostly been a firm believer in the two rules of dealing with customers:
> 
> 1) The customer is always right
> 2) When the customer is wrong, refer to rule #1
> 
> So giving customers what they want is smart business.
> 
> But, I have to ask, how do they run all those instances.  It seems to me 
> that it would be an operations nightmare.  I'm guessing they use SANs so 
> backup would not be such an issue.  But other operations?
> 
> Guess I'm still lost in the 1980s ....
> 
> -- 
> David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
> DFE Ultralights, Inc.
> 170 Grimplin Road
> Vanderbilt, PA  15486

Hi David, to run lots of VM systems requires massive automation otherwise they have to employ lots of sysadmins and that costs to much. With the automation you can create a VM with linux+oracle etc at the press of a button in a very short time. All the VMs are monitored automatically, some fixes for problems are applied automatically and so on. Running 10,000 systems in a data center with a few people is possible. 

It is a strange new industrial big scale world. I mostly still handcraft VMS clusters from the finest ingredients so am a niche craftsman sitting in a corner while the young folk play with the shiny new industrial automated sysadmin toys.