RE: Servers Spreading Like Rabbits... -- MIDRANGE-L

>...jobs on an integrated server... And ... And ...

Let me add two more: ALL Jobs on a integrated server crash when the server
crashes. ALL jobs on an integrated server must be stoped for server
upgrades.

>...You can easily backup...with zero downtime...

You're kidding right? What's your "easy" solution for backuping up a 24x7
box? I don't mean a 23:55x7 box where I can wait for a SWA checkpoint, I
mean 24x7. Last I knew that took a HA solution and an LPAR or another
machine to replicate into -- hardly simple (oh and it is another machine).

>There are no issues of having incompatible operating system upgrades;

No, instead I have to a 24 hour system backup, a 24 hour upgrade and allow
time for a 36 hour backlevel restore in case it doesn't work, all over a
long weekend where I'd like to be home. (PS. 24+24+36 > 72 hours we have --
hope we don't need to back level.) With a 4-server cluster I can upgrade one
on Monday, one on Tuesday, one on ...

>You only need to train an operator to learn one set of system commands.

1000 servers all running W2K is still one set of system commands.

I lonve the 400, don't get me wrong, but GOOD server hardware running
correctly configured W2K in a fault-tolerant setup is just as stable. When
was the last time all 4 servers in a 4-server cluster went south at the same
time? And IF IT DID, I wouldn't have a file server, I'd still have a web
server and a SQL server and a VPN Server...

-Walden

------------
Walden H Leverich III
President
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
(208) 692-3308 eFax
WaldenL@TechSoftInc.com
http://www.TechSoftInc.com 

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com] 
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 1:35 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Servers Spreading Like Rabbits...


> From: PaulMmn
>
> If you consider that the AS/400 does the same thing-- only we call
> 'em "Subsystems," and they all run cooperatively on the same box, the
> NT/2000 world is no different than the AS/400.

I know (or at least I hope) you were sorta kidding when you said this, but
you have to know I can't let a statement like this slide.  A server farm is
in no way like an AS/400, except that it can do multiple tasks.

Server farms consist of independent machines, each with its own resources.
To share anything among these machines, they must be connected via a
communications link.  With an AS/400, all the subsystems share a common
memory and database pool.  Even a gigabyte Ethernet is nowhere near as fast
as internal memory paths of an integrated server.

Jobs on an integrated server share the same resources, and can communicate
with one another at shared memory speed (orders of magnitude faster than
even the fastest I/O link).  They can share atomic locks (that is, locks
that don't require some sort of two-phased commitment) and thus easily
synchronize with one another.

All jobs on an integrated server share internal bus access to a common
database that is, again, orders of magnitude faster than anything you can do
with separate boxes over a comms line.  Two jobs updating a file locally on
an AS/400 run far faster than two different machines updating a file on a
third SQL server.  The difference goes up as you add more livestock to your
server farm.

You can easily back up all the resources for a single AS/400 onto a single
backup medium, with zero downtime.  There are no issues of having
incompatible operating system upgrades; all jobs are upgraded at the same
time.  You only need to train an operator to learn one set of system
commands.

This is just the surface.  I know I'm simply beating the same old drum, but
there's simply no way you're going to say that a server farm is the same as
an integrated server, especially an AS/400, without hearing from me.

Joe

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