Computer Science research done on Beowulf class systems

[Alan Cox]

> They place it somewhat above NT but still below "commercial Unices"
> primarily because of (don't get angry at me, I didn't write this stuff,

>   a) A lack of "robust SMP support".

So-so. Compared to a 64cpu ultrasparc (which is after all the benchmark here)

>   b) An "unpolished clustering technology".
>   c) A lack of a "robust 64 bit journalized file system".
>   d) A lack of "advanced options for high availability" (see Greg's
>      remarks above).

Wouldnt argue with those. In fact I'd say someone did their research.

> given as an instructor instead?  Will Don Becker or Alan Cox have an
> LCE?  Or will there (more reasonably) be an open certification process
> that is either dirt cheap or free that doesn't require one to pay for or
> take a course at all if one can pass the exam without it.  Enquiring
> minds want to know...;-)

One thing I hope is we will see multiple sources of such things and perhaps
an official body with some respect (preferably an existing one) that
oversees quality of testing. Its a multisource OS,it should be a multiexaminable
OS too 8)

>   "Clustering is another area in which Linux lags for mainstream
> high-availability services that would benefit from Linux clustering
> haven't matured yet.<<"
> 
> (>>emphasis mine<<).  This is a curious remark, since earlier he
> describes the widespread use of Linux in FTP and Web server farms (are

Thing about stuff like failover cases. Linux has clustering for performance
not reliability.

> problem (as I understand it) is that "database cluster" technlogy itself
> is fairly immature on any platform.  Is this incorrect?  Does NT or

See VMS. VMS is about 10 years ahead of all of us 8)

There is a linux-ha list btw which discusses a lot of work on highly
available linux (there are now several commercial options but not yet
a good free one)

Alan