BRENT@uwovax.UWO.CDN (Brent Sterner) (06/16/87)
I complained about this before. Now we have not one but
2 systems (clustered), and the potential for tape problems
is significant. I'm referring to the possibility of some,
but not all, users using allocate, and the fact that MOUNT
/FOREIGN does no label checking, and that BACKUP requires
that its tames be mounted foreign, and that our users LOVE
BACKUP (TOPS-10 carry-over to some degree).
It has occurred to me that a simple-minded tape "system"
could probably be written. I'm thinking of a DAEMON-like
utility which runs on the cluster and generally "owns" all
unowned tape devices. The configuration would be master and
slaves (1st system to grab the tapes == master). The slaves
could take over if the master died. Users could "request"
tapes through a tapemount utility which sent requests to the
master. Conceptually it looks like we could solve our site's
problems, but the effort (considering our current manpower
availability) is significant. Moreso if DEC is already doing
this. So I pose the following (please send rumours if you
have no better information):
a) Is DEC likely to do this (or probably better) in the next 2
years or so? Is it likely to be a bundled or a layered
product? In other words, is this project a waste of my time?
b) If this is not a waste of time, does anyone have a product
in source form that could be used as a starting point? I
don't use "C", but I suspect it would be the language of
choice for this sort of product.
c) If you could buy a product like this for your DP shop (I
suspect smaller sites with limited users would find this
to be of limited use), and you knew DEC would have nothing
available for 2 years, would you buy it? (I hate to sound
"commercial" but it would help justify the work if our
development costs could be recovered, at least in part.)
On the last point, let me state that we are an educational site.
That means we qualify as a non-profit organization, and have limited
money for expensive 3rd party s/w, and limited people to do the work.
But we've had enough corrupted magtapes that I would *like* to fix
the problem.
Thanks one and all for anything you can contribute. Brent.
PS I'm aware of the "white" paper that has been produced by
the LARGE SYSTEMS SIG. I'm wondering about the current state of
things.
--
Brent Sterner ***********************
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Telephone (519)661-2151 x6036 ***********************
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