[Linux-cluster] Freeze with cluster-2.03.11

[Robert Hurst]

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: 

> I have to suggest purchasing solaris, hp-ux or AIX for running enterprise
> clusters.


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.


> 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.


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.


> 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.


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.


________________________________________________________________________

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.



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