Unix on a VAXCluster ??

[H. Lynn Tilley]

In article <1616 at uoregon.UUCP> jqj at drizzle.UUCP (JQ Johnson) writes:
>Chris Torek has started a rumor:  "Ultrix 3.0 will support clusters".  Now,
>what does this really mean?  What would we WANT it to mean?  Some ideas:
>
>1/ use of CI bus for Ultrix networking, including NFS
>2/ private (mounted by 1 cpu only) Ultrix-format volumes on an HSC
>   (shared access through NFS, of course)
> My guess is that the rumor means (1) or perhaps (1+2).

>From what I have heard, Ultrix now has NFS and TCP/IP bundled with it (or will
have shortly).  But to be able to run all the real nice things that a DEC
cluster has; fault tolerance computing , shared disk and controllers, ability
of the machines to place your job (intact) from a machine that is crashing onto
a machine that is still running and a few of the other nice things are only 
supported on VMS machines.  The problem, as DEC tells it, with implementing 
many of the cluster features on ultrix machines is that UNIX does not support 
the immediate interupts that VMS does.  Also, you have to run DECnet which 
excludes everyone else from sharing in any of these features.  The way that 
they may be trying to get Ultrix into the cluster sites is to run Ultrix on top
of VMS.  I may be wrong but I am certain I will be told if I am :).

While we are at this I would like to gather some information.  Around here we
have some Dec/Vax equipment (pdp11/44, 11/23, microvaxs, 11/780's etc) but all
of them are running BSD4.XX and not Ultrix.  I would be interested in gathering
some statitics on whether or not this is a typical arrangement.  If you would 
e-mail me site specific information such as machine types, operating system
(BSD or Ultrix), some reasons for the choice (if you know), etc. I would
appreciate it.  If anybody is interested I will post the results on the net.
Thanks in advance.

-- 
    |   Henry L. Tilley                 UUCP: {cbosgd|uunet}!ukma!ukecc!lynn
    |   University of Kentucky          CSNET: lynn at engr.uky.edu       
    V   Engineering Computer Center     BITNET: lynn%ukecc.uucp at ukma  
    O   voice: (606) 257-1752           ARPANET: lynn at a.ecc.engr.uky.edu