Re: HP announces new Integrity Blade Servers - OpenVMS?

Main, Kerry wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: December 15, 2005 4:02 PM
To: Info-VAX@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: HP announces new Integrity Blade Servers - OpenVMS?

Re Blade servers.

Don't blade servers require special drivers on Windows so it can use the
special high speed interconnect between machines ?

If that is the case, then VMS would also need to use special drivers to
allow clustering via that (new to VMS) interface. And that means some
VMS version in the future.

Note that at the time HP announced this (a number of weeks ago), HP made
a point that IA64 units could be mixed with 8086 based units in the same
blade cabinet. So when people upgrade from IA64 to 8086, they can retain
their blade infrastructure.

And while, from a disaster recovery point of view, blades aren't useful,
they are useful for 7/24 operation since a cluster of VMS instances does
allow you to make software upgrades on one node while other nodes keep
on servicing users. (and then reboot each node to use the new software).



Re: blades .. From a purely speculative view :-)

- Think of a rack full of blades (e.g. 100) and how many system disk it
takes.  [hint, at least 1 local disk for each blade with Windows and
Linux and most other UNIX's. Some OS's require local disks (esp for
clusters) as they do not yet support full booting over SAN] Think about
the effort to keep all of these systems in sync [hint tools need to
autocopy stuff all over the place. Each disk is a separate OS upgrade]

With OpenVMS cluster this would be one system disk on the SAN for the
entire rack (well, two if you wanted higher availability with rolling
upgrades). Of course by one, I mean one HW partition on SAN. With
OpenVMS, common files are updated once and change is immediately
available to all systems because it's the same file.

- Think about how a rack of blades would access common storage with
Windows/Linux. [hint - network access]

With OpenVMS cluster on blades, each blade would do direct IO via shared
file system and DLM.

- think about how you would balance the batch jobs with rack full of
blades. [hint - tough to do with Windows and Linux as there base batch
capabilities on one system is limited, never mind balancing batch
workloads across multiple systems]

With OpenVMS cluster, submitting jobs to generic queue would then result
in job being executed on blade with most available cycles. 

Thinking about the above, perhaps HPTC, movies on demand, digital
theatres etc might be something to think about ..

I guess my only question is, which of the above cannot be done on the platforms VMS currently runs on?


--
David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      Fax: 724-529-0596
DFE Ultralights, Inc.              E-Mail: davef@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA  15486
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Update on Fridays Blade Short take
    ... HP has gotten a larger room as a result of customer ... This is one of my favorites because it is the first OpenVMS Short take ... There is a VMS Blade session being offered for FREE by HP through ... its support of c-Class Integrity HP Blade System environments. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Update on Fridays Blade Short take
    ... Thank you very much for everyone that has signed up for Friday's Blade ... HP has gotten a larger room as a result of customer ... This is one of my favorites because it is the first OpenVMS Short take ... its support of c-Class Integrity HP Blade System environments. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • CD written on Alpha wont mount on Integrity DVD ROM
    ... We're migrating data from a VAX to a recently installed Integrity Blade. ... Blades are new territory, and using HP SIM, using it, installing VMS is an entertainment in itself. ... After connecting the DVD ROM, getting VMS installed, and logging in, I put my CD into the DVD ROM and tried to mount... ... When performing the same command on the YAMAHA CRW2100S it completes with no SHORTBITMAP error. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: x86-64-based Superdomes on the way (says HP)
    ... Remember that superdomes are now glorified blade enclosures with the ... If HP-UX customers can move their oracle apps to Linux on x86, ... environment and did not want VMS 8.* version as had been promised? ... Whitman jut said that IA64 customers want a stable environment. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • HP Strategy meeting
    ... I wonder if HP could develop 8086 based blade servers with the same type ... VMS would be able to use those right away, and it would take a very long ... It would give VMS an undeniable advantage over Windows and Linux on ...
    (comp.os.vms)