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Re: Celebrating!!!

 
Terry Yeomans
Frequent Advisor

Re: Celebrating!!!

About time you did some patching then !
I bet the cluster doesn't stay up for another 7 years after a big patch update !
Yours Terry.
Jan van den Ende
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

So now,

time to try and give some answers.

Ian: no plans yet, but: Que sera, Sera.

Willem: as you know, my co-presenter is also SIG-coordinator; let's see how things devellop.

Martin: yes, EVERYTHING was replaced. The oldest piece of hardware now present is aged just over half the cluster uptime.
Has the interconnect changed? From 10Mb ethernet early on quite soon to mutli-mode fiber FDDI to single-mode FDDI (both with 10MB E fallback) to 100MB E with FDDI as fallback
Location from 3 meters separation to 7 KM,
OS from 6,2 to 7.1-2 to 7.2-1 to 7.3-1.
All DBMS's were upgraded (most of them more than once), as were all applics.
External communication changed from X25/DECnetPlus to TCP/IP (the most regretted change of all).
Enough?

Uwe: never met that one, although I seem to remember that we DID have some VAX with node-uptime approaching 2 years (5.5-2)
Hein: in view of your story: Is that possible, or is my memory exaggerating things?

Terry: my answer to Martin should show that for a "mere" patch we don't go down. It's called "rolling upgrade".

The issue of uptime in the future will be a political one: Big reorganisitions are being prepared, the current viewpoint being to throw it all away and start from scratch.
Obviously not everyone concurs. :-)

All. Cluster uptime being a nice statistic, of course the real importance is application uptime AND reachability.
Those statistics vary widely, although for the total running time we never lost ALL applics at the same time.
Most users nowadays have a (ugh) MS desktop, usually via Citrix, with terminal emulation for VMS (and *IX) access. If that breaks down once again, obiously those users loose their VMS apps also. That's why some department insisted on staying on VT's. The call-room and the car-to-callroom-communication also don't use Billyware.
The app with the best statistics is an RMS app (~ 4 M records in the various 'tables') of the VT-using department that was NEVER down... Except for the month Januari 2002.
The app has a large financial aspect, and the supplier succeeded in NOT having the Euro version available until one month late..
Second best is a DBMS app which has been out for a day three times during upgrade conversions.

This wil have to do for the moment

Jan



Don't rust yours pelled jacker to fine doll missed aches.
Sanjiv Sharma_1
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Congratulations Jan!!

Thanks, Sanjiv
Everything is possible
Martin P.J. Zinser
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Hello Jan,

I think I speak also for the rest of us here when I thank you for sharing your story with us. I actually did expect that you changed all the bits and pieces in your environment, but as FUD spreaders tend to belittle such achievements by claiming "its just a static box sitting in a corner" it is very nice to have this on record.

All the best and keep it running!

Martin
Antoniov.
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Jan,
congratulation from me too.
Here some user of my customer still use VT terminal without Windoze; I'm happy no allbodies follows Billyware choices!

@Antoniov
Antonio Maria Vigliotti
Jan van den Ende
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Antoniov,
Well. -- I -- definitely am one of those guys who insist on using a VT!! It's much less tiring for my eyes, for one thing.

But you have to admit Billy G has achieved a lot, and not only financially:
- "Everybody" now knows that from using computers you get RSI.
- "Everybody" is used to 'computers' failing regularly, and then "you just hope you have not lost much"
- "Everybody" knows that a computer or an operating system older than last year "is from the Stone Age", and not fit for today's use.

Execept of course those crazy people who keep telling that that's NOT true if you stay away from M$s*t...

:-(

Enjoy!

Jan
Don't rust yours pelled jacker to fine doll missed aches.
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Jan,
> Uwe: never met that one, although I seem to remember that we DID have some VAX with node-uptime approaching 2 years (5.5-2)

It was a problem in a specific version of OpenVMS that only happened on the MicroVAX-3400 as I recall.

I have now read your story and join the club: "well done". It is a bit over 7.5 years now that I have worked as a full-time system manager, but at the last position I was responsible for a few small clusters scattered over Germany, so I think I have an idea what your job is about.
.
Ian Miller.
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

A couple of other links
http://uptimes.hostingwired.com/stats.php?op=all&os=OpenVMSCluster
http://uptimes.hostingwired.com/stats.php?op=all&os=OpenVMS

and overall there is a VMS Cluster at No.2
http://uptimes.hostingwired.com/stats.php?op=active

but its up time is nowhere near yours.

____________________
Purely Personal Opinion
Jan van den Ende
Honored Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Ian,
I'm not fully sure, but I --think-- they are measuring NODE uptimes, ie, time since last reboot. THERE we obviously don't score that high: Alpha ES series didn't even EXIST 7 years ago! (Neighter did VMS 7.3-1). They even state you are considered bogus if you report boottimes for OSses or hardware that didn't exist.
All that will be in Muenchen: we don't plan a formal party, but wouldn't it be great to organise a "Now at least I know your faces" gettogether (maybe in a Biergarten)?

Jan
Don't rust yours pelled jacker to fine doll missed aches.
Keith Parris
Trusted Contributor

Re: Celebrating!!!

Glad to see your session accepted for Munich. Unfortunately, the post-conference seminars all got cancelled and now I won't get to be there. But have fun without me!

Have you considered submitting this session for HP World 2004 in the USA? See http://www.hpworld.com/conference/hpworld2004/hpw04_speak_01.html Deadline is April 23.