Isn't that kinda the whole idea behind the SGI Origin 3000? You have all sorts of bricks (Disk, CPU, I/O, etc) that you stick together to get a customized server. Granted it is not as elegant as Legos and the bricks are quite large, but fundmentally I think it is the same idea.
Expense is relative. Look at the TCO for a Sun box and a Wintel, I bet you come out ahead with Sun. Yes, Sun does carry a price tag, but you pay for quality.
Last I checked, Solaris was free to use on systems up to 8 processors. You can download the ISOs straight from Sun, today if you like.
The argument that low-end Sun hardware is not competitive with Wintel hardware is B.S. now that the V880 is available. 8 CPU, 32GB RAM, 12 FC-AL disks for $130k without a discount.
I've been looking for reasonably priced external hot-swap enclosures and they generally start at $700 for an 8 drive setup. Sure you can buy those Enlight 4 drive SCA boxes, but it will still set you back $200-250.
An SCA backplane is a printed circuit board with SCA connectors on it, how expensive can it be to make one?
Does Win4Lin still have the annoying 64MB of RAM limit? Win4Lin works great for IE and Lotus Notes but chokes when opening Visio or other demanding apps.
The Barracuda ST12450W (2HP) was the first Fast/Wide SCSI drive that Seagate produced, built like a tank and had dual parallel heads that allowed simultaneous reads. My drive is going on 6 years old now and it still keeps up with the latest and greatest SCSI drives. They certainly don't build them like they used to.
This is true of all IBM boxen from the PeeCees to the RS6ks and the Mainframes. IBM's Enclosure Design group needs to be shot and dragged through the streets. Never before have I ever seen such inconsistent and shoddy racks and cases. The new Z series mainframes are unsightly, they have angled vents, round pillar like things with clear plastic; very cumbersome to line up a number of them in a row in a data centre. The S690 RS6k has two enclosures, one for I/O and one for CPUs and whatnot. One case is about a foot higher and longer than the other. Both take up more than two floor tiles, it is really a fscking mess. They need to take a hint from Sun or Compaq.
Would we have had this if the software package was from Sun? Well, Sun might have blamed IBM, IBM might have blamed Sun and we'd be left with something which doesn't work. We've been lucky in that IBM want this to work to secure future business, and that is the carrot you can use to 'bribe' vendors to fix bugs.
That's a nice little theory you got there, but in the case of IBM and other large corporations you face in-fighting between all the little business units. I work for a Fortune 100 company and like most we have an ELA (Enterprise Licensing Agreement) with IBM where for a set price, we get product licensing, product "discounts", enhanced support and whatnot.
My clients decided to take advantage of this "deal" and went with an all IBM solution, (hardware/system software). They got an RS/6000 H70 running AIX (obviously) with a 3995 C64 Optical Library running TSM/HSM. As it turns out, we had quite a bit of problems with the performance of the optical library with TSM/HSM. Following your logic, one call to IBM should have taken care of it. What ensued was finger pointing between RS6k Hardware Support, AIX Software Support, TSM/HSM Support, and the Optical Library Hardware Support. Each claimed it was the other group's problem, and that they didn't have experience with the other pieces. We even had our account rep sit down with us to sort this all out, but even he was unable to get anything done. To this day, I'm stuck with an Optical Library that is unreliable with substandard performance. IBM as a whole was not able to get its act together, and as a result my clients got the short end of the stick.
I'll second that opinion. We use TSM 3.7 on a Sun E4500 with a STK L700 and an HDS 9960. We have an ELA with IBM so we get it for "free", problem is IBM support sucks rocks. IBM, like most "big" companies, is really made up of a bunch of subgroups ie Tivoli, Lotus, Storage, Mainframe, AIX, Netfinity, etc. So when you have a problem, they all point at each other and the net result is the customer is screwed. I have an RS/6000 with ADSM/HSM and an IBM 3995-C64 optical library, and it is barely usable because it is so *damn* slow and unstable. The only platform where TSM works well, is the Mainframe I hear.
Platinum support contracts for the big boys (E6500s) almost cost as much as the damn machine. Granted they have a 2 hour engineer-on-site-with-part response time, but I'm running into issues lately where they don't have a new part (such as an 18GB drive) and I have to wait longer for it be to flown in. Let's not forget the whole E-Cache fiasco, where Sun tried to squirm out of proactively swapping the bad hardware, even with the expensive support contracts.
Sun has a ways to go in improving their Support service. Don't even get me started on IBM RS6k support!
If you take a look at most UNIX apps, what platform do they run on? Chances are its Solaris, HPUX, and possibly Linux. AIX oddly enough is not listed, or if it is support is for an older version or of limited functionality. So your options are an RDBMS (Oracle or DB2) or some IBM/Tivoli App (TSM/ADSM/Websphere).
I think you will find that not many develop for AIX as it is a pain in the ass. I've compiled a number of largish Open Source projects (KDE 1.x, Perl 5, GCC, etc) and they were a bitch to get working. Yes, just because I had a hard time doesn't necessarily support my argument, but I like to think so, =).
With the Linux compatability thing in AIX 5L, I feel companies that once overlooked AIX will reconsider it.
No, I'm a UNIX bigot. I use Solaris, HPUX, Linux, and OpenBSD on a regular basis and they share a fairly large subset of commands. Sure they have their own proprietary stuff (usually in areas that interact with the hardware), but for the most part you could drop a Solaris admin in front of HPUX and he could be reasonably comfortable. AIX, borrowing from the IBM's other operating systems I presume, likes to implement IBM terms and the whole lets-make-a-command-for-every-piddly-function-with -lots-of-weird-switches. Don't even try to argue the "Just use SMIT" argument, some of us find the use of GUIs or even quasi GUIs a weakness, especially in times of crisis. What happens when SMIT doesn't work or is unavailable? Or even worse, your ODM got blown away and you don't have backups? Good luck.
Ever use the man pages on AIX? Oh wait, they are not installed by default, you have to find the supplementary CD and install many different filesets to get them all. Even better, IBM has chosen not to write their man pages in a (g|n|t)roff format but opted to use HTML. Furthermore, the man pages are terse, and rarely give any meaningful examples.
I could go on, but what's the point. AIX is not a UNIX, no matter how many certifications they can buy proving that they are indeed a UNIX(tm). I find it humourous that IBM has had to integrate Linux compatibility into AIX in order to make AIX viable for the enterprise.
To IBM's credit, the RS/6000's are of top notch quality, even better than what comes from Sun. Contrary to what you may think, I'd wager that a 24 Processor S85 could smoke a Sun Fire 6800, notably running Oracle.
While IBM hardware is great, their software sucks. AIX is not UNIX, contrary to what AIX bigots like to claim. To me, they took the worst parts of SYSV and BSD, threw them into the melting pot and added a whole bunch of IBM'isms to make one heaping mess. Key examples are the ODM and their printing subsystem. Don't forget the stanzas (paragraphs if you will) that the remaining plain text configuration files use.
Having used both Solaris and AIX quite a bit, the best of both worlds would be AIX Hardware and Sun Solaris.
There used to be "Third Saturday" or "Super Saturday" held at the Infomart a year or so ago. It was much nicer than 1st Saturday as you had quite a bit more vendors selling components and not quite so much junk. It was held in the basement area so you didn't have to worry about the elements. Every time I went to 1st Saturday, it would rain, *hard*. The best thing however, were the User Group meetings held in different parts of the Infomart, a technology mecca in a new 19th century era style building. This all changed when the Infomart fell under new management, presumably they found a buyer for the Basement area and Super Saturday castrated. You can still find a computer swap meet on the Third Saturday of the month under the Woodall Rogers freeway in Downtown near the West End, but it is just not the same.
A fully loaded RS/6000 B50 can be had for half the cost of the nearest Sun box, an E220R. You are right in that IBM cannot compete with Sun's 1U offereings, such as the Netra X1 ($995).
I've worked with Solaris and AIX, and while the RS6Ks are much better technologically, AIX is of no match to Solaris. Once you get used to a SYSV system, such as Solaris, you can move around to HPUX, SCO (god forbid) and Linux with ease. As for AIX, everything is so outlandish and archaic. Don't even get me started on the ODM, or the idea to use "stanzas" in config files. Let's not forget the mentality to create a command for every piddly function, some of which could be accomplished by editing a file. mknfsexp is a prime example.
If only Solaris 2.51 PPC had been successful, we could have had the best of both worlds. Sun doing the software, IBM doing the hardware.
I picked up one of those at my University's Surplus Auctions a while back for like $25. It even came with 20MB of RAM, but the absolute worse thing was the (lack of) colors available. It was *black* or *white*, no shades of gray (unless you count the horrid dithering). About the only useful app on the damn thing was xterm, =).
People looking to save some money on transportation from DFW (or Love Field) might want to look into DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit). As there is no direct route from the airports to Mesquite, you will have to switch buses a few times, but the whole trip will cost less that $5.00.
This option is reserved for people with an adventurous spirit as the whole DART system is confusing and the possibility exists that you may get lost. DART does have a Customer Assistance Line, and they can help you plot a course. Their number is (214) 979-1111.
From http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/, in case it gets/.'ed.
Now that CPS2shock has reached its goal in making it possible to play CPS-2 games in emulators we've taken a few days to think about the future of CPS2shock.
The Future Intent of CPS2shock
CPS2shock will no longer release any information that can be used to break CPS-2 encryption until such times as Capcom no longer release new titles on the system.
CPS2shock will work of dumping older CPS-2 games and releasing them for your enjoyment to play in emulators.
____________________________________
This decision is based on the the following;
CPS-2 games are still in production.
Emulation is at a point now where it can have a direct influence on future plans of the game manufactures. Knowing the encryption method COULD kill CPS-2 & any future planned game releases. Need I say more.
To help stop bootlegging of new CPS-2 releases.
Due to the fact that CPS-1 and CPS-2 hardware is so similar knowing how the encryption system works would leave new CPS-2 games wide open to bootlegging.
To control the release of games.
CPS2shock does not want to see newer games emulated until they are well past their sell by date. CPS2shock will not allow CPS-2 emulation to go down the same road as NeoGeo did if we have anything to do with it.
____________________________________
If you still can't see the logic behind our decision when I make you aware of the following.
We had the logic, knowledge and intelligence to find a way to allow emulation of CPS-2 games. The same logic, knowledge and intelligence was used to reach this decision.
If you still don't like it there is nothing stopping you from breaking the encryption yourself, just don't expect us to help you. Instead of bitching about it use that energy to start you on your way.
If you don't understand what all this means don't worry CPS2shock will be dumping more CPS-2 games so you can play them in your favourite emulators.
Ummm, you must be mistaken. The E250/450 line can have multiple redundant power *supplies* but you can only have one power *cord* going in.
The E220R/420R line does indeed have two redundant power supplies with 2 power cords.
Unfortunately, Sun has their head up their ass in regards to eliminating power-related SPOF. My E6500's have one power cord each as well. When some electrician fucks up, my system goes down.
Slashdot Mirror
Fledgling? Solaris is more stable and scalable than Linux will ever be. Go back under your bridge, troll.
Isn't that kinda the whole idea behind the SGI Origin 3000? You have all sorts of bricks (Disk, CPU, I/O, etc) that you stick together to get a customized server. Granted it is not as elegant as Legos and the bricks are quite large, but fundmentally I think it is the same idea.
Expense is relative. Look at the TCO for a Sun box and a Wintel, I bet you come out ahead with Sun. Yes, Sun does carry a price tag, but you pay for quality.
Last I checked, Solaris was free to use on systems up to 8 processors. You can download the ISOs straight from Sun, today if you like.
The argument that low-end Sun hardware is not competitive with Wintel hardware is B.S. now that the V880 is available. 8 CPU, 32GB RAM, 12 FC-AL disks for $130k without a discount.
Go back under you bridge, troll.
I've been looking for reasonably priced external hot-swap enclosures and they generally start at $700 for an 8 drive setup. Sure you can buy those Enlight 4 drive SCA boxes, but it will still set you back $200-250.
An SCA backplane is a printed circuit board with SCA connectors on it, how expensive can it be to make one?
Does Win4Lin still have the annoying 64MB of RAM limit? Win4Lin works great for IE and Lotus Notes but chokes when opening Visio or other demanding apps.
The Barracuda ST12450W (2HP) was the first Fast/Wide SCSI drive that Seagate produced, built like a tank and had dual parallel heads that allowed simultaneous reads. My drive is going on 6 years old now and it still keeps up with the latest and greatest SCSI drives. They certainly don't build them like they used to.
This is true of all IBM boxen from the PeeCees to the RS6ks and the Mainframes. IBM's Enclosure Design group needs to be shot and dragged through the streets. Never before have I ever seen such inconsistent and shoddy racks and cases. The new Z series mainframes are unsightly, they have angled vents, round pillar like things with clear plastic; very cumbersome to line up a number of them in a row in a data centre. The S690 RS6k has two enclosures, one for I/O and one for CPUs and whatnot. One case is about a foot higher and longer than the other. Both take up more than two floor tiles, it is really a fscking mess. They need to take a hint from Sun or Compaq.
How about playing Hanson or Aqua really really loud? I'm sure that would scare off almost anyone, =).
You've obviously never posted a stupid question to misc@openbsd.org and received the wrath of Theo.
There is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid people who don't/can't RTFM.
Would we have had this if the software package was from Sun? Well, Sun might have blamed IBM, IBM might have blamed Sun and we'd be left with something which doesn't work. We've been lucky in that IBM want this to work to secure future business, and that is the carrot you can use to 'bribe' vendors to fix bugs.
That's a nice little theory you got there, but in the case of IBM and other large corporations you face in-fighting between all the little business units. I work for a Fortune 100 company and like most we have an ELA (Enterprise Licensing Agreement) with IBM where for a set price, we get product licensing, product "discounts", enhanced support and whatnot.
My clients decided to take advantage of this "deal" and went with an all IBM solution, (hardware/system software). They got an RS/6000 H70 running AIX (obviously) with a 3995 C64 Optical Library running TSM/HSM. As it turns out, we had quite a bit of problems with the performance of the optical library with TSM/HSM. Following your logic, one call to IBM should have taken care of it. What ensued was finger pointing between RS6k Hardware Support, AIX Software Support, TSM/HSM Support, and the Optical Library Hardware Support. Each claimed it was the other group's problem, and that they didn't have experience with the other pieces. We even had our account rep sit down with us to sort this all out, but even he was unable to get anything done. To this day, I'm stuck with an Optical Library that is unreliable with substandard performance. IBM as a whole was not able to get its act together, and as a result my clients got the short end of the stick.
I'll second that opinion. We use TSM 3.7 on a Sun E4500 with a STK L700 and an HDS 9960. We have an ELA with IBM so we get it for "free", problem is IBM support sucks rocks. IBM, like most "big" companies, is really made up of a bunch of subgroups ie Tivoli, Lotus, Storage, Mainframe, AIX, Netfinity, etc. So when you have a problem, they all point at each other and the net result is the customer is screwed. I have an RS/6000 with ADSM/HSM and an IBM 3995-C64 optical library, and it is barely usable because it is so *damn* slow and unstable. The only platform where TSM works well, is the Mainframe I hear.
Platinum support contracts for the big boys (E6500s) almost cost as much as the damn machine. Granted they have a 2 hour engineer-on-site-with-part response time, but I'm running into issues lately where they don't have a new part (such as an 18GB drive) and I have to wait longer for it be to flown in. Let's not forget the whole E-Cache fiasco, where Sun tried to squirm out of proactively swapping the bad hardware, even with the expensive support contracts.
Sun has a ways to go in improving their Support service. Don't even get me started on IBM RS6k support!
If you take a look at most UNIX apps, what platform do they run on? Chances are its Solaris, HPUX, and possibly Linux. AIX oddly enough is not listed, or if it is support is for an older version or of limited functionality. So your options are an RDBMS (Oracle or DB2) or some IBM/Tivoli App (TSM/ADSM/Websphere).
I think you will find that not many develop for AIX as it is a pain in the ass. I've compiled a number of largish Open Source projects (KDE 1.x, Perl 5, GCC, etc) and they were a bitch to get working. Yes, just because I had a hard time doesn't necessarily support my argument, but I like to think so, =).
With the Linux compatability thing in AIX 5L, I feel companies that once overlooked AIX will reconsider it.
No, I'm a UNIX bigot. I use Solaris, HPUX, Linux, and OpenBSD on a regular basis and they share a fairly large subset of commands. Sure they have their own proprietary stuff (usually in areas that interact with the hardware), but for the most part you could drop a Solaris admin in front of HPUX and he could be reasonably comfortable. AIX, borrowing from the IBM's other operating systems I presume, likes to implement IBM terms and the whole lets-make-a-command-for-every-piddly-function-with -lots-of-weird-switches. Don't even try to argue the "Just use SMIT" argument, some of us find the use of GUIs or even quasi GUIs a weakness, especially in times of crisis. What happens when SMIT doesn't work or is unavailable? Or even worse, your ODM got blown away and you don't have backups? Good luck.
Ever use the man pages on AIX? Oh wait, they are not installed by default, you have to find the supplementary CD and install many different filesets to get them all. Even better, IBM has chosen not to write their man pages in a (g|n|t)roff format but opted to use HTML. Furthermore, the man pages are terse, and rarely give any meaningful examples.
I could go on, but what's the point. AIX is not a UNIX, no matter how many certifications they can buy proving that they are indeed a UNIX(tm). I find it humourous that IBM has had to integrate Linux compatibility into AIX in order to make AIX viable for the enterprise.
To IBM's credit, the RS/6000's are of top notch quality, even better than what comes from Sun. Contrary to what you may think, I'd wager that a 24 Processor S85 could smoke a Sun Fire 6800, notably running Oracle.
While IBM hardware is great, their software sucks. AIX is not UNIX, contrary to what AIX bigots like to claim. To me, they took the worst parts of SYSV and BSD, threw them into the melting pot and added a whole bunch of IBM'isms to make one heaping mess. Key examples are the ODM and their printing subsystem. Don't forget the stanzas (paragraphs if you will) that the remaining plain text configuration files use.
Having used both Solaris and AIX quite a bit, the best of both worlds would be AIX Hardware and Sun Solaris.
There used to be "Third Saturday" or "Super Saturday" held at the Infomart a year or so ago. It was much nicer than 1st Saturday as you had quite a bit more vendors selling components and not quite so much junk. It was held in the basement area so you didn't have to worry about the elements. Every time I went to 1st Saturday, it would rain, *hard*. The best thing however, were the User Group meetings held in different parts of the Infomart, a technology mecca in a new 19th century era style building. This all changed when the Infomart fell under new management, presumably they found a buyer for the Basement area and Super Saturday castrated. You can still find a computer swap meet on the Third Saturday of the month under the Woodall Rogers freeway in Downtown near the West End, but it is just not the same.
A fully loaded RS/6000 B50 can be had for half the cost of the nearest Sun box, an E220R. You are right in that IBM cannot compete with Sun's 1U offereings, such as the Netra X1 ($995).
I've worked with Solaris and AIX, and while the RS6Ks are much better technologically, AIX is of no match to Solaris. Once you get used to a SYSV system, such as Solaris, you can move around to HPUX, SCO (god forbid) and Linux with ease. As for AIX, everything is so outlandish and archaic. Don't even get me started on the ODM, or the idea to use "stanzas" in config files. Let's not forget the mentality to create a command for every piddly function, some of which could be accomplished by editing a file. mknfsexp is a prime example.
If only Solaris 2.51 PPC had been successful, we could have had the best of both worlds. Sun doing the software, IBM doing the hardware.
If you aren't using Gigabit, how in the hell are you getting 20-25MB/sec reads? Last time I checked, Fast Ethernet maxed out at ~10MB/sec.
I picked up one of those at my University's Surplus Auctions a while back for like $25. It even came with 20MB of RAM, but the absolute worse thing was the (lack of) colors available. It was *black* or *white*, no shades of gray (unless you count the horrid dithering). About the only useful app on the damn thing was xterm, =).
Darren answers a lot of your questions in a similar IPF article at the OpenBSD Journal.
People looking to save some money on transportation from
DFW (or Love Field) might want to look into DART
(Dallas Area Rapid Transit). As there is no direct route from
the airports to Mesquite, you will have to switch buses a few
times, but the whole trip will cost less that $5.00.
This option is reserved for people with an adventurous spirit
as the whole DART system is confusing and the possibility
exists that you may get lost. DART does have a Customer
Assistance Line, and they can help you plot a course.
Their number is (214) 979-1111.
If you check it out, you will find that the www site and the ftp site are different boxes.
Different IP Addresses don't necessarily mean different boxen.
From http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/, in case it gets /.'ed.
Now that CPS2shock has reached its goal in making it possible to play CPS-2 games in emulators we've taken a few days to think about the future of CPS2shock.
The Future Intent of CPS2shock
CPS2shock will no longer release any information that can be used to break CPS-2 encryption until such times as Capcom no longer release new titles on the system.
CPS2shock will work of dumping older CPS-2 games and releasing them for your enjoyment to play in emulators.
____________________________________
This decision is based on the the following;
CPS-2 games are still in production.
Emulation is at a point now where it can have a direct influence on future plans of the game manufactures. Knowing the encryption method COULD kill CPS-2 & any future planned game releases. Need I say more.
To help stop bootlegging of new CPS-2 releases.
Due to the fact that CPS-1 and CPS-2 hardware is so similar knowing how the encryption system works would leave new CPS-2 games wide open to bootlegging.
To control the release of games.
CPS2shock does not want to see newer games emulated until they are well past their sell by date. CPS2shock will not allow CPS-2 emulation to go down the same road as NeoGeo did if we have anything to do with it.
____________________________________
If you still can't see the logic behind our decision when I make you aware of the following.
We had the logic, knowledge and intelligence to find a way to allow emulation of CPS-2 games. The same logic, knowledge and intelligence was used to reach this decision.
If you still don't like it there is nothing stopping you from breaking the encryption yourself, just don't expect us to help you. Instead of bitching about it use that energy to start you on your way.
If you don't understand what all this means don't worry CPS2shock will be dumping more CPS-2 games so you can play them in your favourite emulators.
Ummm, you must be mistaken. The E250/450 line can have multiple redundant power *supplies* but you can only have one power *cord* going in.
The E220R/420R line does indeed have two redundant power supplies with 2 power cords.
Unfortunately, Sun has their head up their ass in regards to eliminating power-related SPOF. My E6500's have one power cord each as well. When some electrician fucks up, my system goes down.