Re: Unsupported three-architecture cluster

Rich Jordan wrote:
First, thanks HP for not properly supporting this as you should have.
Makes the current situation just delightful.
<some snipage>
Customer has a two-node LAN based cluster, Alpha and VAX. No shared
storage, all disks are local to one or the other. The Alpha is the
master node in voting and holds the authoritative SYSUAF, rightslist,
queue, etc shared files. The VAX keeps a local copy to boot
standalone or if coming up first to the point of waiting to form a
cluster.

They are adding an itanium. They are not removing the VAX. I know
its not supported but I also know it has worked in testing. Still LAN
based, still no shared storage.

Given the huge difference in account quota recommendations between the
three architectures, and the significant number of shared accounts
(user, system, tcpip, webserver, etc, most of which are shared between
either two or three nodes) will they be best served by leaving the UAF
account quotas at VAX levels and relying on the SYSGEN PQL settings
for the two newer nodes? That would severely restrict the ability to
customize account settings on the newer systems (not everyone on the
Alpha/itanium needs to run Java or Mozilla).

The main issue to consider is are there any applications that will cause problems on a specific architecture if they are given higher quotas than they currently need.

In some cases, database and backup programs will adapt to take advantage of what ever quotas are available, which means the ones running a VAX may change behavior.

One thing that you probably need to insure is that the sysgen channelcnt parameter is higher than the fillm account quota on any account. Some software will behave badly if it hit channelcnt before

Working set extent is tied to sysgen parameter wsmax. You will get the lesser of the two. For most VMS systems that I have managed, setting wsextent to wsmax has been the norm. Setting wsextent higher than wsmax should not cause problems.

In general, I have really seen no effect in changing wsquota, as long as wsextent and wsmax are sufficiently tuned.

pagefilequota is one that may be greatly different between systems, so the PQL parameters may be of use there.

I have seen the most drastic results from having freelim and freegoal too small on systems running VMS 5.4 and earlier.

You should probably check to see that resources are being used on the systems now. If none of them are being limited by their current quotas, it is likely that they will not change if those quotas are increased.

-John
wb8tyw@xxxxxxxxxxx
Personal Opinion Only
.