> > We're a Software company and have many products and many developers. > > We'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on ways to manage > > many Linux > > guests in a development environment. > > > > Options we've considered: > > 1. Give each development group their own Linux. Possibly a couple of > > members of the group serve as admins and have root authority. > > They would be > > responsible for the care and feeding of their respective > > Linux system. We > > only get involved if requirements extend to VM admin tasks. > > 2. We (IBM syprogs) micromanage each Linux - retaining > > complete control of > > each system - never divulging the root password etc. We do all Linux > > upgrades, vm work, etc... > > Option 1 is likely to be the most palatable and workable. Of course your > organization may vary from the norm, but in general, the following holds: > > 1) Unix folks want/need/believe they need/kick madly if they don't have the > root password to their box. > > 2) There are a lot of functions that you need to have root authority to do > that are time-consuming and awkward to secure with sudo. > > 3) If you try to take over all the system administration, you will spend > more time in political contests about who does what than you will gettting > any software written. Option 2 is a graceful method of coexistance; the > lines of responsibility are clearly drawn, and if someone fouls up, it's > clear who has to fix it. > > 4) If the groups have to work together, they will learn surprising things > from each other. This is Good Stuff for software developers; what the > mainframers know about uptime and reliability is sorely needed in the Unix > world. The Unix guys have loads of cool tools that make life as a software > guy a lot easier -- the mainframe folks often have never seen this stuff > before. Cross-pollinization is powerful stuff -- leads to Linux ports and > mainframe WWW servers and all manner of things...8-) >
Consider the use of Hercules. Everyone can have their own 10 MIPS (or better) S/390 and/or zSeries processor. Ideally, but not essentially, they'd run Linux as their desktop OS. Depending on network bandwidth, everyone can share binaries much as on VM and mount them via NFS. If bandwidth prohibits, they can initialise their local copies as and whenever required from the master versions(s). "Those who know" on this list keep saying the IA32 MIPS are cheap MIPS. Even if their own boxes do no more than compile stuff, it's quite a load it can take off the mainframe. -- Cheers John Summerfield Microsoft's most solid OS: http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/ Note: mail delivered to me is deemed to be intended for me, for my disposition. ============================== If you don't like being told you're wrong, be right!
