Faster operating system start

[Julie Johnston]

We need to start our machine and applications software
in the least amount of time possible as a customer
requirement. Right now a start from power-up takes
about 5-minutes and we need to reduce it to
around 2-minutes or less. We are interested in any
techniques/ideas/information anyone can provide
in terms of the following:
	* faster boot of operating system
	* faster invocation of applications software
	* faster copy of executable into memory by kernel
	* faster setup of executable for execution by kernel
	* making things faster in general
An idea we used in the past for other operating systems
was to copy the memory image of executable or kernel to a file and
put that back into memory and jump to it.
We are aware of raw disk devices which are supposed to
make file system access quicker but we don't know how to
setup and use them.
We are using DEC Ultrix-11 on the LSI-11/73. Any concepts
that apply to other architectures are welcome. Changing
the operating system and hardware is not an option.
Any information anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.
We will post any useful information we receive.
Please reply via mail to:
uunet!melpar!julie

thanks
Julie