[Info-vax] Security, support and VMS, was: Re: A new VMS?

[Tad Winters]

On 5/5/2021 5:38 AM, Arne Vajhøj via Info-vax wrote:
> On 5/5/2021 12:06 AM, Tad Winters wrote:
>> On 5/4/2021 9:53 AM, Bill Gunshannon via Info-vax wrote:
>>> On 5/4/21 9:25 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>> In article <ifcu1jFphjgU1 at mid.individual.net>, Bill Gunshannon
>>>> <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> What "functionality" does VMS have that Unix and Windows don't?
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember, we are talking "functionality", not just doing something
>>>>> in a different manner.
>>>>
>>>> Trivially, any Turing machine can emulate another, so they all have the
>>>> same functionality.  As for usefulness, top of the list for VMS are
>>>> logical names, clustering, fine-grained security concept, HBVS, and
>>>> file
>>>> versions.
>>>
>>> All of them exist in some form in Unix except file versions and I have
>>> never known anyone other than VMS users who saw value in them. Sorry.
>>
>> Where I work, and they don't have VMS, someone says we're going to
>> perform a DR test by "virtually" pulling the power on one site.  The
>> response is, "Wait, the active nodes of the cluster are at that site.  I
>> need to fail them over to the other side before you pull the power."
>>
>> "Active?"  The "other side?"  How is that a cluster?  Where's the DR in
>> that?
>
> I cannot follow your post.
>
> Clusters exist in loadsharing (active/active) and failover
> (active/passive) flavors.
>
> Non-persisting nodes are practically always loadsharing.
>
> Persisting nodes can be loadsharing or failover depending on
> specific needs and software/hardware capability.
>
> But even in a loadsharing config you may chose not to loadshare
> between data centers. The feasibility of that depends
> on the distance between them. If it is like 3 miles
> then no problem, but if it like 3000 miles then it just
> won't perform due to the latency.

Less than 15 miles and not one, out of thousands of virtual machines is
configured to be active/active, let alone anything which is
active/active/active.  What was the limit on VAX clusters about 30 years
ago?  Was it 525 miles maximum between any two sites?