[OT] NT, software reliability, and the lack thereof.

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Mon Mar 15 20:15:15 1999

>> IIRC, the NT kernel *has* a built-in distributed lock manager. If not, it
>> would be easy to add it. The NT kernel is actually small, simple, and
>> almost elegant. ...
>
> If it was as trivial as you indicate, then there would be NT clusters as far
> as the eye could see. It took Digital several versions of VMS to support
> clusters.

I'm not saying that clustering is easy. I'm saying that distributed lock
management is (relatively) easy. The theory behind it is pretty well
understood. (Whether it is well understood in Redmond is another matter.)

While distributed lock management is *necessary* for clustering, it's only
one of the lowest levels of the software. There's a hell of a lot of other
stuff that must be gotten right as well, which is why so few operating systems
have true clustering support. Microsoft keeps promising that they will have
it someday...

Eric
Received on Mon Mar 15 1999 - 20:15:15 GMT