<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.24.5"> </HEAD> <BODY> I thought this list was for technical feedback that addresses the issue at hand, however, since one opinion was offered, I will express one of my own. On Fri, 2009-03-27 at 15:11 +0000, Nick Lunt wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> I have to suggest purchasing solaris, hp-ux or AIX for running enterprise clusters. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm... I have had a lot of success on those platforms, too, and you would have to expect that from a tightly integrated OS from the OEM ... including the extra "0" at the end of the price tag. Unfortunately, the extra "0" did not payback as well as planned, because we incurred downtime anyways -- from "unexpected" cluster failures -- with "unreasonable" patch cycles for obscure break-fix measures that also introduced regression issues. Clearly, sophisticated system architectures such as these require careful testing and expertise from its operations personnel to manage its complexity. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> Having been using Linux for over 10 years it is still not ready for production clustering. The lack of decent documentation and the number of cluster software updates that shaft your production systems is a joke. I often wish I'd never learnt Linux and stuck with solaris instead. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, well that depends on what you mean by decent documentation. From my experiences, compared to what was available in November 2005 when I first trialed RHEL 4.2 with GFS 6.1 to what has been released this past July in 4.7, I would have to say its documentation is plentiful. And anything that is "missing" has been clearly filled with access into this list. The written materials aside, I have learned more by tuning in here for other customer site implementations, and then considering the differentials with my own. Our RHEL sales engineers and RHEL premium support have been helpful in our implementations and support of them after going into production. Also in my experiences, RHEL training is a top-shelf service that should not be ignored by those acclimated by turn-key solutions. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> Just my 2 cents worth but if you need to run a production server do not use Linux Cluster GFS unless you like your boss giving you grief. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> I can respect that statement! My bosses have learned by my education and example the need to tolerate the complexities with any cluster architecture ... and it becomes more palatable to them when you are also saving their operations budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars per year -- with an architecture that easily performs same, or better, than the fading commercial OSes. <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0" WIDTH="100%"> <TR> <TD> <HR LENGTH="40%"> Robert Hurst, Sr. Caché Administrator Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center 1135 Tremont Street, REN-7 Boston, Massachusetts 02120-2140 617-754-8754 ∙ Fax: 617-754-8730 ∙ Cell: 401-787-3154 Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML>