Large systems (was Re: Hello)
Ian Kluft
ikluft at uts.amdahl.com
Wed Sep 12 08:55:56 AEST 1990
In article <barn.652971765 at convex.com> barn at convex.com (Tim Barney) writes:
>I suggest that any UNIX is a large OS. Networking code seems to add quite
>a bit, and then there's all the "frills" we take for granted nowadays [...]
Yes, Unix is a large OS. But not all Unix systems experience the problems
associated with a large system or network. If a system and network can be
administered by 1-3 people, it's staff probably will not have a grasp of what
it means to run a large system.
However, I don't think we should try to put numbers on what a large system is.
For example, 300 users, 500 terminals, 200 GBytes DASD (as disks are called in
mainframe-land), 64 MB RAM, 32 I/O Channels, 80 workstations, 5 subnets, etc...
That's a big system. It's also an unrealistic threshold because administrators
can experience "large system" challenges before many of those criteria are
reached.
>Now, who wants to discuss these issues concerning LARGE systems (even ignoring
>the absence of a definition for LARGE)? Some one must have wanted to, because
>these newsgroup never get created without some voting. Maybe there's a lot
>of LARGE UNIX system spectators waiting for a game to start?....... :-)
**** Here's the point ***
We don't need a definition of "large". If a system administrator is having
problems because old methods don't scale well to a current or future system,
this is the area to discuss the problem. More generally, I believe that we're
discussing problems with parts of Unix, administration methods, and applica-
tions that don't scale well to today's mainframes, supercomputers, and networks.
That seems to be the broadest definition that fits a discussion of "large
systems and networks", as listed in the voting for this newsgroup.
--
signature follows
Ian Kluft == == ==
UTS Systems Software == == ==
Amdahl Corportation ======= == ==== ==== ======= ======= == ====== ==
Santa Clara, CA ======== ============ ======== ======== ========= ==
== == == == == == == == == ==
ikluft at uts.amdahl.com ======= == == == == == ======= == == ==
======== == == == == == ======== == == ==
Amdahl mainframes == == == == == == == == == == == ==
are the largest Unix ======== == == == ======== ======== == == ==
systems in the world ===== == == == == ======== ===== == == == ==
More information about the Comp.unix.large
mailing list