use my RA3000 with DigitalServer 7305 Cluster and RH 7.1

[Steffen Pelzetter]

Hello,

we have two Alpha- Based Digital Server 7305. I want to use them with RH 7.1.
My idear is to have a linux cluster with the RAID ARRAY 3000.
As I've installed the linux on one of the systems and tried to load the driver for the qlogic SCSI Card connected to the RAID Array it was not working.

So my questions are:

1. Is there an alpha based linux driver for the RA3000, is there a how-to?
2. What cluster software is recommended for RedHat 7.1, is there an alpha version existsing?
3. Any kind of information and suggestions are really welcome.

What do you think, is that project realizable?
Should I use an other distribution, or switch to VMS?

[Florian Heigl (new acc) · Accepted solution]

Using VMS will be more reasonable, approx. a dozen times more reasonable.

You don't need a driver for the RA3000, only for the qlogic adapter. Did You see the controller appear in dmesg?
I don't know a real cluster solution like MC/SG for Linux Alpha, but You can of course use other means like Linux Virtual Server.

[Steffen Pelzetter]

What are the costs for OpenVMS?
I think it is not Open Source like the name suggest.
Where can I get information about that system.
Is there a windows filesserver (samba) and a mysql database available?

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

The name probably is a bit older than what it suggests, IIRC it stems from the fact it was open to other CPU architektures so both VAX/MIPS and Alpha and someday to be Itanium.

For non-commercial uses there's a hobbyists license, which will include a media kit and costs close to nothing compared to real[tm] production license.

So it depends on the purpose.
VMS is the choice if this is about learning how real great clustering looks and for seamless integration with Your hardware.
Linux/(or better supp'd, even if Alpha is now Tier2 only: FreeBSD 5.3) if this is about a production system that is to yield moderate to high availability at low cost.