From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Mar 19 16:26:19 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA07581 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:26:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from adam.adonai.net (adam.adonai.net [207.8.83.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA07460 for ; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:24:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from leec@adam.adonai.net) Received: from localhost (leec@localhost) by adam.adonai.net (8.8.7/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA19932 for ; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:24:52 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:24:52 -0600 (CST) From: "Lee Crites (AEI)" To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: SCO (was Re: hi terry) In-Reply-To: <199803191739.LAA04649@crocodile.vail> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Hal Snyder wrote: =>Whoa boy, we better run for cover now. There is SCO unix and there is UnixWare. My understanding is these are two different products. If they aren't, I don't really care. I am only talking about the UnixWare product here. There *are* some things which UnixWare has which we (FreeBSD) could take a lesson from. Tandem is using this as the base os for it's new non-stop clusters product because of its support for clustering. A "cluster" (in case you haven't had to keep up with this) is a group of computers linked together via a network. In Tandem's case, this network is ServerNet. I have seen this product demo'd, and have even helped design some of the demos. It is a really nice feature. In a nutshell, with clusters (as Tandem's NSK is using it, anyway) you can have a virtually unlimited number of boxes connected via the network, each of which can have multiple cpu's. You can start processes on one cpu on one box and migrate that process anywhere you like/need. The potential of this is staggering. The mail server is bogging down because of some other work going on the system? No problem, move the processes around. Okay, it's not that simple -- but I've seen it done and it's not that hard, either. Tandem is, of course, adding a lot of "custom" enhancements to the base product so it will support the fault-tolerance features which are part and parcel of the Tandem non-stop unix world. I can tell you, though, even though I don't like the news, and I don't like the meaning of the news, SCO *is* positioning itself quite well. This clustering technology is being supported by a rather impressive list of industry leaders with deep pockets. In addition, SCO already has the ability to run (some?!?) Windoze products. =>Here we run a mix of FreeBSD, SCO, and NT. FreeBSD systems run =>uptimes in hundreds of days. Of necessity, we've equipped the =>SCO systems with hardware to reboot them when they wedge - =>uptime averages 72 hours on the more active servers. I can understand the stability problems with SCO. It's not as stable as we are by any means, but it is getting better. A big part of it's "instability" has recently been decided upon. After a long battle, SCO was finally released from having to keep it's backward compatibility with xenix. The next version will be significantly more stable than the current one is, even if that is the only improvement made. =>NT isn't used for production servers, just desktop systems for =>the less technical users and guys/gals in suits. Cute. They threatened to make me use NT. The threat didn't last very long, though (thank goodness). I told them it seemed rather like a very large slap in the face to make a unix internals programmer work on an NT box. Sort of like making a Cadillac engineer drive a Yugo. Having said all of this, let me conclude with my feelings on FreeBSD in relation to all of this. I believe we can maintain a good and stable system which will have it's place in the industry. I'm quite happy with my fbsd systems. And the people here which I have given copies of fbsd to are also happy with it. (one of which upgraded from sco, in fact) But the industry is changing quite rapidly. I believe we need to step back and see where it is going and make some strategic decisions about where we want to see FreeBSD go. We have stability and security pretty well taken care of. I'm seeing some positive comments about smp in 3.0. But we might want to see about clustering and some fault-tolerant extensions. If we are proactive about this, we might just be able to catch the wave and take advantage of the new directions. Lee =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lee Crites www.adonai.net/~leec Tandem/Compaq (Austin) Adonai Services Company phone: 512-432-7112 phone: 512-789-7853 leec@austx.tandem.com leec@adonai.net =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message