When Theoden has Aragorn talk to the mysterious guest in the tent before the march to Gondor, I couldn't help but imagine Elrond (H. Weaving) pull down his hood, revealing sunglasses, and saying, "Mr. Aragorn...."
I replaced an nfs server with an AFS (OpenAFS) cell at my last company (we had a max of about 40 developers). It was quite difficult to set up (I guess I started setting it up in 2001 or so). I had three Sun E250's with 300GB of Raid 5. They were all single processor machines (Ultra 2 - 450) with only about 1GB Ram. Those machines weren't super powerful, and I don't think file access was unusually slow.
There were stability issues in the early releases, but those soon disappeared. While it's true that it runs several processes to monitor things, they are quite useful. (There is even a process to monitor the AFS binaries to update them if you install a newer version!).
Once it was up and running, it seemed to work without too many problems.
Backups are a breeze - you can make snapshots of all the volumes and then back up those snapshots. You can also leave the snapshots up on read only mountpoints so users can retrieve files easily from the day before.
It's very easy to add volumes and drive space, once you get the cell up. I implemented quotas (a very wise idea with user's home directories. Each home directory was a separate volume and I could move a user's home directory from one server to another while they were using it (and they never knew)!
Making backup volumes was a snap, and I had the most used data mirrored on all three.
I had to write a lot of scripts to manage things like adding new users (I had three servers so I wanted to balance home directories across the three servers.) I also had to write several backup scripts, and I tended to run the backup process in a screen session, believe it or not. Surprisingly, there were no problems with the backup process in a screen session.
Perhaps the worst thing was when a server was accidentally shut off as the server would run a recovery process that occasionally took a while.
Overall, I think the biggest problem was that the users weren't used to it and did not like having to install an AFS client on their windows machines, but I wrote tons of documentation to remedy that. Unix users were continually misreading file permissions (standard unix doesn't see the AFS acls, of course) Perhaps my biggest complaint was the fact that there were no file level permissions/acls; permissions/acls were on directories, and applied to the files below.
All in all, I'd do it again if I started working at a brand new startup. I'd be happy to answer questions about it, if anyone is interested.
How many other sysadmins out there are tired of hearing this? Every time I go to a company and even suggest quotas on the file server, the engineering group always says, "Disk space is cheap, or "you can get an 80GB disk for cheap."
Of course, this never takes into account backup media and the whole backup infrastructure (anyone price decent commercial backup software recently?).
I'm surprised it's only five exabytes. The admins of the world should go ahead and put a 400MB Quota on all 6.3 Billion people. That way, we'd be down to 1999's storage levels....
I figured that once they embraced that new "TCP/IP" technology, they would rule the world.
I do agree that MS NT hurt netware. I took a couple of those infamous MSCE tests, and about a third of the questions on both tests (NT workstation and NT server) were on "How to replace Netware with NT in the Enterprise."
I remember when win2k came out with Active directory. Early benchmarks demonstrated that Novell's directory service had a huge performance advantage over Active Directory. Oh well, people weren't interested in performance - they were interested in MS's claims of "ease of use."
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Computers can nerver be as smart as humans because of the simple fact that humans have souls...
I take it you've never worked with sales people....
Unfortunately, I've found that engineers who install linux on their desktop or even on test servers never see the need for patches. It's a curious phenomenon and I think it has something to do with the fact that Linux has such a good reputation; people think "Oh, it's better than windows, so patching won't be necessary.
I suppose that the biggest threat to security on Linux and on unix in general is the third party applications, such as BIND or Sendmail. Thankfully, newer distributions seem to disable named by default and only run sendmail on 127.0.0.1.
Not just firewalls, but explaining wireless networks to people and how to use the basic security SOHO wireless routers/routers provide.
I know WEP isn't all that secure, but I suppose it's better than nothing. Also, explaining the MAC access lists to people would be helpful
On the peripheral side, demonstrating how easy it is to add a PDA, scanner, or printer to a computer might be good. An overview of USB might be useful, too: when to buy a usb hub, the differences between USB 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0.... And as an unrelated point - demonstrating how people set up autoupdate on virus scanners might be useful!
I should think servers are the first, most pressing use. I worked at a company that made Infiniband equipment - the slow pci bus couldn't even begin to move data quickly enough.
Sadly, most consumer motherboards don't even have a single 64bit slot.
Perhaps I'm wrong (I've not seen the Dune Sci-Fi series in a while) but weren't there multiple suns? I don't remember the scene to which you're referring, but one could make a weak justification for two sets of shadows if there were two suns (even if they don't show both suns in that scene)
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When Theoden has Aragorn talk to the mysterious guest in the tent before the march to Gondor, I couldn't help but imagine Elrond (H. Weaving) pull down his hood, revealing sunglasses, and saying, "Mr. Aragorn...."
They've been delighted with Sun for a long time. Ever stand behind an E4500?
This is just the command line version of outlook...
I replaced an nfs server with an AFS (OpenAFS) cell at my last company (we had a max of about 40 developers). It was quite difficult to set up (I guess I started setting it up in 2001 or so). I had three Sun E250's with 300GB of Raid 5. They were all single processor machines (Ultra 2 - 450) with only about 1GB Ram. Those machines weren't super powerful, and I don't think file access was unusually slow.
There were stability issues in the early releases, but those soon disappeared. While it's true that it runs several processes to monitor things, they are quite useful. (There is even a process to monitor the AFS binaries to update them if you install a newer version!).
Once it was up and running, it seemed to work without too many problems.Backups are a breeze - you can make snapshots of all the volumes and then back up those snapshots. You can also leave the snapshots up on read only mountpoints so users can retrieve files easily from the day before.
It's very easy to add volumes and drive space, once you get the cell up. I implemented quotas (a very wise idea with user's home directories. Each home directory was a separate volume and I could move a user's home directory from one server to another while they were using it (and they never knew)!
Making backup volumes was a snap, and I had the most used data mirrored on all three.
I had to write a lot of scripts to manage things like adding new users (I had three servers so I wanted to balance home directories across the three servers.) I also had to write several backup scripts, and I tended to run the backup process in a screen session, believe it or not. Surprisingly, there were no problems with the backup process in a screen session.
Perhaps the worst thing was when a server was accidentally shut off as the server would run a recovery process that occasionally took a while.
Overall, I think the biggest problem was that the users weren't used to it and did not like having to install an AFS client on their windows machines, but I wrote tons of documentation to remedy that. Unix users were continually misreading file permissions (standard unix doesn't see the AFS acls, of course) Perhaps my biggest complaint was the fact that there were no file level permissions/acls; permissions/acls were on directories, and applied to the files below.
All in all, I'd do it again if I started working at a brand new startup. I'd be happy to answer questions about it, if anyone is interested.
How many other sysadmins out there are tired of hearing this? Every time I go to a company and even suggest quotas on the file server, the engineering group always says, "Disk space is cheap, or "you can get an 80GB disk for cheap."
Of course, this never takes into account backup media and the whole backup infrastructure (anyone price decent commercial backup software recently?).
I'm surprised it's only five exabytes. The admins of the world should go ahead and put a 400MB Quota on all 6.3 Billion people. That way, we'd be down to 1999's storage levels....
track the homeless Usenet posters?
Who knows? Maybe they are looking for postings of SCO's stolen kernel code.
I just spent the last day replacing my netware servers with LANtastic!
I figured that once they embraced that new "TCP/IP" technology, they would rule the world.
I do agree that MS NT hurt netware. I took a couple of those infamous MSCE tests, and about a third of the questions on both tests (NT workstation and NT server) were on "How to replace Netware with NT in the Enterprise."
I remember when win2k came out with Active directory. Early benchmarks demonstrated that Novell's directory service had a huge performance advantage over Active Directory. Oh well, people weren't interested in performance - they were interested in MS's claims of "ease of use."
Computers can nerver be as smart as humans because of the simple fact that humans have souls...
I take it you've never worked with sales people....
Unfortunately, I've found that engineers who install linux on their desktop or even on test servers never see the need for patches. It's a curious phenomenon and I think it has something to do with the fact that Linux has such a good reputation; people think "Oh, it's better than windows, so patching won't be necessary.
I suppose that the biggest threat to security on Linux and on unix in general is the third party applications, such as BIND or Sendmail. Thankfully, newer distributions seem to disable named by default and only run sendmail on 127.0.0.1.
Working with Symantec, Microsoft is creating a new virus development platform.
It's believed that .VIRUS will surpass Outlook as a virus delivery mechanism.
Not just firewalls, but explaining wireless networks to people and how to use the basic security SOHO wireless routers/routers provide.
I know WEP isn't all that secure, but I suppose it's better than nothing. Also, explaining the MAC access lists to people would be helpful
On the peripheral side, demonstrating how easy it is to add a PDA, scanner, or printer to a computer might be good. An overview of USB might be useful, too: when to buy a usb hub, the differences between USB 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0.... And as an unrelated point - demonstrating how people set up autoupdate on virus scanners might be useful!
I saw a miniature spice harvester listed, but...
I'll take a truckload of sandtrout, a couple of adult sandworms, and a Heighliner.
Payment will be stock in my new desert gear company, and a couple of windtraps.
I can't believe that they haven't used this patent.
I'm sure this would top office in terms of revenue production.
I should think servers are the first, most pressing use. I worked at a company that made Infiniband equipment - the slow pci bus couldn't even begin to move data quickly enough.
Sadly, most consumer motherboards don't even have a single 64bit slot.
No - It's now called "The Project formerly known as GNU/Ghostscript."
Perhaps I'm wrong (I've not seen the Dune Sci-Fi series in a while) but weren't there multiple suns? I don't remember the scene to which you're referring, but one could make a weak justification for two sets of shadows if there were two suns (even if they don't show both suns in that scene)