Re: Eisner
- From: "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:19:13 -0500
DeCoy wrote:
"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in a differentI pay extra, seven dollars per month, IIRC for access to newsgroups.
thread:
(In reply to):
##> B. Richard, you state "The design of the system as a whole appears to have
##> been poorly thought out." Please (with perfect 20-20 hindsight if you wish)
##> describe a better design - taking into account the obvious constraints
I should start by saying that my knowledge of Eisner and the people
behind it is not extensive. Until Eisner failed and became a topic here
on c.o.v., I had never heard of it.
Obvious constraints? Since I have never been a user of Eisner I'm not
certain just what might be "obvious".
Definition: a "system" consists of the people, hardware, and software
necessary to accomplish a specified task.
Add "purpose" and "money", and that fits. (I know you said "accomplish
a specified task" - but the task is part of the system in this case).
This failure of Eisner, as I understand it, has a hardware component, a
failed disk drive, and a people component, a custodian who is suddenly
too busy with unrelated matters to attend to problems with the system.
Fair enough
Failure one: a disk drive needs replacement.
Disk subsystem has a problem. Other possible problems unknonw.
Failure two: the custodian of the system is not available to deal with
the problem.
Apparently, and apparently unwilling to accept active assistance,
nor any on-site help.
Failure three: there is no one else with the necessary access, skills, etc.
Skills and hardware appear to be available.
Failure four: Eisner provided a service to a community of users. AFAIK
said users contributed little or nothing to the maintenance and upkeep
of Eisner. (Note that my ENTIRE knowledge of this affair is what I have
read here.) It is necessarily less than complete.
Many users contributed money, others contributed hardware.
The custodian contributed hardware transportation, physical
labor, system management, space, power, cooling, and bandwidth.
ISTR that a couple of people have volunteered to take over the
maintenance of Eisner. Before this will happen, the current custodian
must agree to hand over: the hardware, software, backup tapes, software
licenses, passwords, operating procedures, documentation, etc. I have
not heard of any progress on this front!
All correct, AFAIK - other than Bob Tinkelman's email forwarding support.
(one paragraph removed here)
How many users does/did Eisner have? If 500 users will pay $10 per
month for access that gives you a budget of $60,000/year. I have no
idea if this will be sufficient or not.
Well, first, you would have to get somebody(s) to "bankroll" a startup.
Brief (overly-blunt) History: DECUS supported and hosted EISNER.
When Encompass came along, the EISNER system was "donated" to
the volunteers, kicked out of the facility, and de-affiliated from Encompass.
ESTIMATES FROM MEMORY:
Approx. 400 "active" accounts (login during the last year)
Approx. 150 users logged in at least once per month.
Approx. 50 users logged in at least once per week.
Average daily unique logins approx. 35
Note that the "searchable archives" and libraries provided value for the
occasional user - who might only log in occasionally to find something.
TOTAL SWAG:
How many would pay $10 per month or $100 per year?
Twenty or less.
It has long been argued whether Eisner, or comp.os.vms, (or openvms.org
or deathrow or ...) provides more value (or better signal/noise). So,
what's your estimate of how many users would pay $10 per month
for access to comp.os.vms or openvms.org or (pick your resource).
What happened when Mark Berryman's company quit supporting
info-vax? A well-planned transition to Ken Robinson. What happens
if Ken can't do it any more? How much are we willing to pay Ken?
[To the point - what if Ken suddenly decided to remove the
service, and wouldn't/couldn't talk to anybody who offered to
take over?]
====================================
Now, this overly-long posting still doesn't answer the question:
##>"The design of the system as a whole appears to have
##> been poorly thought out."
OK, I'm "chairman" of Eisner - for what that's worth. I'm quite
willing to listen to a well-thought-out system design. If there is
one that would be practical, I might even try to implement it.
I think I pointed out in a previous message, that there were both hardware failure (disk subsystem) and people failure (didn't fix hardware or arrange to have it fixed)!
Swapping out a StorageWorks disk is a thirty second, give or take a few seconds, task! Apparently nobody did the job. Was this because nobody had a spare? Because nobody had physical access? Because nobody knew?
Because nobody cared?
If the disk is part of a RAID set, the RAID controller is supposed to rebuild the contents of the disk. It's my understanding that a RAID-5 set was in use. Plugging in a new disk should have made things right in an hour or two.
A RAID set under an HSZ or HSJ controller can have a "Hot Spare" disk that will automagically replace a failed disk drive. The failed drive sits there displaying a Yellow LED to indicate that it has a problem. System manager either replaces the disk himself if he has a spare or calls field service if he has no spare. It's not "rocket science" if I can do it and I HAVE done just that on many occasions, then just about anyone should be able. For those with weak fingers, there is an extractor tool that will squeeze the disk latches when you put it in place and pull.
I do not know why a simple hardware failure was the occasion for all this discussion. It should have been repairable in seconds plus the time to get a human and a replacement disk on-site.
Are you the Dale E. Coy I knew on CompuServe's VAX Forum many long years ago?
--
Richard B. Gilbert
a/k/a Dragon
.
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