gauging interest in VAX 6000-530

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Sun Oct 24 23:10:28 1999

<> VAX 7000's in a brand new computer room. Said corporation has numerous
<> computer rooms with VAXen, and these systems are heavily used.
<
<Maybe I should have said "Nobody -sane- is going to....".

Try managing that, nice all in one place system. Sanity is restored.

<How fast is a Vax 7000? http://www.digital.com/timeline/1992-3.htm
<describes a little about the VAX 7000, but no hard speed data.

Far to brief for you spec's experts to appreciate.

<Incidentally, the vax 7000 was introduced 7 years ago; have there been any
<upgrades since then?

Yes, disks and network peripherals. Lower cost. and it's scaleable for
multiple cpus and clustering.

<The paradigm today is client on Ethernet, server cluster in the back room.
<Scalable, cheap, reliable.

Scalable, buy a bigger server? Run out of net bandwith? Multiple servers
that are NT based add one more? Been there doing that. HAve they figured
out how to cluster PCs (I know Linux Beuwolf... and right out of a box too).

Gee and I thought adding another VAX to a cluster was a powerful scaleable
solution. That failover capability from the 80s is pass`e too I'd bet.

<One Big Box In The Back Room is what people did in the 40s, 50s and 60s....

And 70s, 80s and even the 90s. The big box in the back room is called a
server now (likely several servers).

<You're right, speed isn't everything; it's the -only- thing! ;-)

Yes, rebooting faster is better when you have to. ;)

<My PCs are damn reliable; are you buying junk? They are -waaaaaaaaaaay- mo
<reliable than the VAX-11/780s, VAX-11/750s and VAX-11/785s that I have

I'd hopes so, those are 20 years old. Will your PCs even run after 20
years? 10 years? How about 5? Then again why not run that super fast
VAX beater 486dx2/66 still?

<used in the past. (I run BSDI unix on a Pentium Pro, as well as NetBSD on
<other machines, and they have -never- crashed.)

Good for you. Run NT for a while and get to appreciate the rest of the
real industry. Do you serve 6 different databases? How about thin windows
clients from them? FTP and web pages are nice can they serve out disk
space for W95 workgroups and legacy dos programs? Whats the backups like?
Do the 40 clientshave a back up schedule to the server(s)? What fun it is
when the user changes their setting and locks up their workgroup? How
system security management for PCs, servers?

Well, thats a sample of the Intranet I run and maintain. Can't say I like
all the MS stuff but I'd realy hate to train users for unix/linux that
barely want to deal with PCs at all. For a small business a common system
based on big iron is really cheaper and easier to maintain.

Allison
Received on Sun Oct 24 1999 - 23:10:28 BST

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