Ron and Jenny Hawkins wrote:
>> John,
>>
>>
>
>>>>I can matter matter, 100 PC's need at least 100 network connections and
>>>>100 connections to the SAN.
>
>>
>>
>> Poppycock! Can you say iSCSI?
>>
Yes, we actutlly have one. Our distributed server groups was kicking
and screaming the the whole time.
>>
>
>>>>Normally you would have 2 network
>>>>connections for each server and two connections to the SAN for
redudency
>>>>and performance. However, with z/VM you could share 2, 4, or even
6 LAN
>>>>and SAN connections. The SAN and Networking requirement are much less
>>>>with the mainframe.
>
>>
>>
>> Can you say VMWARE or Egenera?
>>
I have used VMWare and it performance leads a lot to be desired. We
have 4 virtual servers that are test boxes on a 4-way with 4GB RAM and
you can only use any two of them at one time and expect to get a
response today. All these are doing is 3270 screen scraping to web page
tranformation for test and QA.
I have only recently heard of Egenera and have not had time to look at
their blade enviroment. From what I heard they sound very neat, AOL is
supposed to have them.
>>>>Even with blade if you get a max of 14 servers in a blade center, you
>>>>will still need more network connections and SAN connections.
>>>>
>
>>
>>
>> No. Two Network connections per blade! You can choose to use iSCSI
or NAS
>> over the same network connections shared by all fourteen blades, or
the same
>> 14 blades can share SAN connections through two integrated switches.
>>
Yes, a minumum of two network connections per blade center, 100 blades
would means 8 centers, or 16 gigabit ports required at a minumum. On a
6500 a 16 port card is USD15,000. A
>>
>
>>>>No only that, but you would need a few more people to manage 100
>>>>physicall PC's than you would to manage 100 virtual machines. You
still
>>>> need the same number of people to manange the actually OS
environment.
>
>>
>>
>> I have seen enough server farms to know that this is far from true. Most
>> large server farms live in lights out environments right along side the
>> mainframe. The amount of shrink-wrap application software available
on Unix
>> and Wintel platforms means there is more in the way of Admin, and less
>> programmers and analysts. I don't see companies with applications across
>> several 100 servers supporting this with a 1000 programmers and
analysts.
>>
Our enviroment is not lights out. We only have two z900 (1C7 and 1C3)
but we have operators there 24x7, we have no VTS and we still print a
lot and we have a Infoprint 4000 (I think that is the model) still in
the Data Center.
>>
>> I think your info on Unix and Wintel applications is a little out of
date.
>> It is similar to the SUN and HP people that quote IBM's 10 people
per TB for
>> Storage Management on a Mainframe.
>>
We have 4 people in the distributed server group and they manage about
40 servers. They complain they are over worked and there should be at
least two more people in the group and they would perfer to have 4 more
(total of 8 people for 40 servers). No big one either, the largest one
is a pair of 4-ways running in a cluster.
>> Ron
>>
>>
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