The problem with using an LPAR as your personal instance is that you're still sharing resources with another system (however slight), you can't physically power cycle if you need/want to, and it's still not local.
You can argue all you want that SSH, xterm, etc from your Linux box to your AIX system is *just as good*, but it still isn't local.
All that said, by the time I ended my career as an admin and moved on to other things, my primary desktop *was* Linux that I used to connect to the AIX and Linux systems under my control.
And please, please, please... don't say "boxen". Especially as an AIX admin - we have standards to uphold.
There's not a lot of benefit to having an AIX box on your desk (though I did), other than it being the same as the systems you're administering.
(The following is my personal opinion - fanboys of other operating systems need not respond; I'm sure your OS of choice is just peachy too)
Yes, AIX is more stable and I prefer the management tools and interfaces to other Unix-like operating systems. As such, having it on my desktop was preferable to a Linux system because I was more familiar with the tools and they were the same as the machines I was administering all day long.
If I was running Linux systems for a living, I'd have a Linux box on my desk for the same reasons.
There are some advantages to writing/testing your code/scripts/etc on your local machine before pushing it out to a development/production system. While in theory ksh/bash/csh/etc should be the same on every system, we all know there are quirks to the implementations that cause issues.
So yes, there are some benefits to AIX on the desktop as an administrator.
Finally, there are some shops (a few military contractors I'm familiar with) that use AIX on the desktop for their engineers because the specialized applications they use only support AIX - usually graphic design hooked into large AIX systems on the backend for modeling/redering cycles.
Get on an airplane sometime. I travel frequently (50k miles a year, on average) and see Kindles and the competing Sony product all the time.
On a recent flight, I could see 4 electronic book readers from my seat alone (passenger next to me, passenger across the isle, and two in the row in front of me). Travelers like them because it's easier to bring along a few books on a Kindle than it is to stuff them into their carry-on. Heaven knows I've got enough junk in my bag without trying to bring along a few books too. A Kindle (if I were an avid reader) would fit the bill perfectly.
I agree that there are reasons you *wouldn't* want them to move (such as your example here), but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing for it to be *possible*, depending on the other clusters/implementations/applications in the data center.
And given that there's more to processing payroll than printing out a check for each employee (calculation of taxes in every state in the US, every country in the world, etc), updating various accounting systems, etc... there's a lot of work to be done besides "take 8 1/2 minutes for a single employee".
I'm not a VMWare guy, so I'm not sure of the pros and cons there. But I'd imagine it would make sense to have different clusters that serve different groups, functions, etc. Possibly for technical reasons, possibly for political...
What I do know in my experience of teaching SAN, Network, and System Admins, is they *do* have multiple ESX clusters and see the value in moving physical boxes between them in an automated manner as resource needs change.
Umm... what about servers that only need to serve at various times? Payroll servers (see my other posts in this thread), reporting servers that collect data and generate reports on a scheduled frequency (weekly? monthly?), servers that support users/functions that only happen at certain times (inventory server in a retail store?), the list goes on and on.
You have a fairly narrow view of what a server is... 24x7 availability is not a requirement to be a server.
No, but lots of services (not just Web services) have peak times... the problem is, with traditional architecture, you have to size/plan for peak load - and much of that capacity sits idle waiting for the peak.
With various solutions out there (discussed in other posts already), you can power down unneeded capacity (or repurpose it) during the down times, and bring it online when necessary.
No, you're not going to do this with your big ERP application or whatever... but for web farms, compute clusters, app clusters, etc... it makes a lot of sense.
Actually, the other tool in this case is Cisco's VFrame Data Center. The problem with DPM (and other VMware tools) is that they won't let you move a physical box between ESX clusters. If you have multiple ESX clusters, the physical machine stays with it - powered up or not. With VFrame, the system can be powered down, removed from the cluster, and added to another if/when necessary... including any necessary network configuration (VLAN memberships, etc) and SAN configuration (zoning changes, LUN masking).
Not that I'm complaining about VMWare's solution to this problem - they're actually quite complimentary.
There are a number of tools and products out there to assist this.
Consider a large (65k+ employees) company that has a several hundred server implementation that they use to process payroll every two weeks. They use a management tool to power them up on Friday, process payroll over the weekend, and shut them down on Monday. The power and cooling cost impact of these several hundred servers *not* running most of the month (6 or so days a month instead of 31) is huge.
Another (and also in use by the same company) strategy is to virtualize the OS instances, spin those up and down as necessary, and then use something like VMWare's VMotion to maximize usage of the physical boxes - and again use another tool to power down unneeded compute capacity.
Welcome to the virtual world...
Lots of prerequisites, but when it works, it's pretty freakin' sweet...
How so? If customers have a need for Solaris, would IBM rather see them go buy some Sparc gear from Sun, or a few extra processors for their System z complex?
I feel your pain. I really wish Shaniqua (I wish I was making that up - they're always looking for Shaniqua) would stop giving out my cell phone number on the debts she plans to skip.
Yes, the appropriate response when finding that type of material is to call law enforcement immediately. There are numerous statutes, both in the Family Code and Penal Code which require it. Which particular agency you call is up for some debate...
Certainly within Texas, there's what's known as the "mandatory reporter" law. For certain offenses, child abuse and child pornography among them, all persons are considered mandatory reporters. If you are aware of the offense, you are required by law to report it. Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
For other types of crimes (typically non-violent or not involving children), the mandatory reporting requirement applies only to particular agencies or classes of individuals. But in the case of child abuse or child pornography, every single person in the state is a "mandatory reporter".
Many other states have similar laws. I am familiar with Texas and California, as I have family and friends who work (or have worked) in the child protective agencies of those states.
Wrong. There's a concept in law whereby you can legally discover something without a warrant, if you were acting lawfully at the time.
Illegal search and seizure is a restriction placed on law enforcement. A licensed investigator is not. They are not bound by restrictions on law enforcement, nor are they bound by client/attorney privilege (unless they're working under the direction of an attorney).
If you're repairing a computer, and had a reasonable reason to look at the files, finding child porn and then reporting it is absolutely appropriate (and required by law).
You might have a case on some type of trespass law if you didn't have reason to look at the files, but it's not a violation of unlawful search.
If you're looking for a stolen document, it's perfectly permissible to find a stolen piano - it's in plain view. If you're looking for a stolen piano, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do if you find a stolen document.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't been gone *that* long.
The problem with using an LPAR as your personal instance is that you're still sharing resources with another system (however slight), you can't physically power cycle if you need/want to, and it's still not local.
You can argue all you want that SSH, xterm, etc from your Linux box to your AIX system is *just as good*, but it still isn't local.
All that said, by the time I ended my career as an admin and moved on to other things, my primary desktop *was* Linux that I used to connect to the AIX and Linux systems under my control.
And please, please, please... don't say "boxen". Especially as an AIX admin - we have standards to uphold.
I used to be an AIX administrator.
There's not a lot of benefit to having an AIX box on your desk (though I did), other than it being the same as the systems you're administering.
(The following is my personal opinion - fanboys of other operating systems need not respond; I'm sure your OS of choice is just peachy too)
Yes, AIX is more stable and I prefer the management tools and interfaces to other Unix-like operating systems. As such, having it on my desktop was preferable to a Linux system because I was more familiar with the tools and they were the same as the machines I was administering all day long.
If I was running Linux systems for a living, I'd have a Linux box on my desk for the same reasons.
There are some advantages to writing/testing your code/scripts/etc on your local machine before pushing it out to a development/production system. While in theory ksh/bash/csh/etc should be the same on every system, we all know there are quirks to the implementations that cause issues.
So yes, there are some benefits to AIX on the desktop as an administrator.
Finally, there are some shops (a few military contractors I'm familiar with) that use AIX on the desktop for their engineers because the specialized applications they use only support AIX - usually graphic design hooked into large AIX systems on the backend for modeling/redering cycles.
Get on an airplane sometime. I travel frequently (50k miles a year, on average) and see Kindles and the competing Sony product all the time.
On a recent flight, I could see 4 electronic book readers from my seat alone (passenger next to me, passenger across the isle, and two in the row in front of me). Travelers like them because it's easier to bring along a few books on a Kindle than it is to stuff them into their carry-on. Heaven knows I've got enough junk in my bag without trying to bring along a few books too. A Kindle (if I were an avid reader) would fit the bill perfectly.
I agree that there are reasons you *wouldn't* want them to move (such as your example here), but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing for it to be *possible*, depending on the other clusters/implementations/applications in the data center.
No problem answering it - but I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you elaborate?
Given that I'm familiar with the actual implementation, it's more like 6 on, 25 off.
There's plenty of time baked in to start things up and shut them down.
Maintenance is done when necessary through an ad-hoc start-up event.
And given that there's more to processing payroll than printing out a check for each employee (calculation of taxes in every state in the US, every country in the world, etc), updating various accounting systems, etc... there's a lot of work to be done besides "take 8 1/2 minutes for a single employee".
I'm not a VMWare guy, so I'm not sure of the pros and cons there. But I'd imagine it would make sense to have different clusters that serve different groups, functions, etc. Possibly for technical reasons, possibly for political...
What I do know in my experience of teaching SAN, Network, and System Admins, is they *do* have multiple ESX clusters and see the value in moving physical boxes between them in an automated manner as resource needs change.
Umm... what about servers that only need to serve at various times? Payroll servers (see my other posts in this thread), reporting servers that collect data and generate reports on a scheduled frequency (weekly? monthly?), servers that support users/functions that only happen at certain times (inventory server in a retail store?), the list goes on and on.
You have a fairly narrow view of what a server is... 24x7 availability is not a requirement to be a server.
No, but lots of services (not just Web services) have peak times... the problem is, with traditional architecture, you have to size/plan for peak load - and much of that capacity sits idle waiting for the peak.
With various solutions out there (discussed in other posts already), you can power down unneeded capacity (or repurpose it) during the down times, and bring it online when necessary.
No, you're not going to do this with your big ERP application or whatever... but for web farms, compute clusters, app clusters, etc... it makes a lot of sense.
Actually, the other tool in this case is Cisco's VFrame Data Center. The problem with DPM (and other VMware tools) is that they won't let you move a physical box between ESX clusters. If you have multiple ESX clusters, the physical machine stays with it - powered up or not. With VFrame, the system can be powered down, removed from the cluster, and added to another if/when necessary... including any necessary network configuration (VLAN memberships, etc) and SAN configuration (zoning changes, LUN masking).
Not that I'm complaining about VMWare's solution to this problem - they're actually quite complimentary.
There are a number of tools and products out there to assist this.
Consider a large (65k+ employees) company that has a several hundred server implementation that they use to process payroll every two weeks. They use a management tool to power them up on Friday, process payroll over the weekend, and shut them down on Monday. The power and cooling cost impact of these several hundred servers *not* running most of the month (6 or so days a month instead of 31) is huge.
Another (and also in use by the same company) strategy is to virtualize the OS instances, spin those up and down as necessary, and then use something like VMWare's VMotion to maximize usage of the physical boxes - and again use another tool to power down unneeded compute capacity.
Welcome to the virtual world...
Lots of prerequisites, but when it works, it's pretty freakin' sweet...
How so? If customers have a need for Solaris, would IBM rather see them go buy some Sparc gear from Sun, or a few extra processors for their System z complex?
It's about ignoring something very big and important, and instead focusing your attention elsewhere.
Falling off a building isn't so bad, except for that sudden stop at the end.
This new hologram technology is great, except that it isn't great for 3D images.
See my sig...
Would that make them Cray-fish?
Massachusetts Volunteer Firefighters Association
...
I hope those bastards burn in hell
I suspect they've got a fighting chance at avoiding that particular fate...
I feel your pain. I really wish Shaniqua (I wish I was making that up - they're always looking for Shaniqua) would stop giving out my cell phone number on the debts she plans to skip.
Yes, the appropriate response when finding that type of material is to call law enforcement immediately. There are numerous statutes, both in the Family Code and Penal Code which require it. Which particular agency you call is up for some debate...
Go look up "plain view doctrine" and get back to me. It was just an example.
Citation: http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/FA/content/htm/fa.005.00.000261.00.htm
Texas Family Code, Chapter 261, Subchapter B, Section 101.
Certainly within Texas, there's what's known as the "mandatory reporter" law. For certain offenses, child abuse and child pornography among them, all persons are considered mandatory reporters. If you are aware of the offense, you are required by law to report it. Failure to do so is a criminal offense.
For other types of crimes (typically non-violent or not involving children), the mandatory reporting requirement applies only to particular agencies or classes of individuals. But in the case of child abuse or child pornography, every single person in the state is a "mandatory reporter".
Many other states have similar laws. I am familiar with Texas and California, as I have family and friends who work (or have worked) in the child protective agencies of those states.
Wrong. There's a concept in law whereby you can legally discover something without a warrant, if you were acting lawfully at the time.
Illegal search and seizure is a restriction placed on law enforcement. A licensed investigator is not. They are not bound by restrictions on law enforcement, nor are they bound by client/attorney privilege (unless they're working under the direction of an attorney).
If you're repairing a computer, and had a reasonable reason to look at the files, finding child porn and then reporting it is absolutely appropriate (and required by law).
You might have a case on some type of trespass law if you didn't have reason to look at the files, but it's not a violation of unlawful search.
If you're looking for a stolen document, it's perfectly permissible to find a stolen piano - it's in plain view. If you're looking for a stolen piano, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do if you find a stolen document.
Nah. But if you want to invade North Dakota and Montana, feel free.
Perhaps they already have. Who'd have noticed?
As if Oracle licensing wasn't complicated enough already...