Friday, May 09, 2008
Part II HIGH AVAILABILITY COMPUTING (July E-News from 2SS.Com)
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Dear [[Salutation:40]],
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‘ E – N E W S from ‘
‘ 2SS.Com ‘
‘ Compiled and Edited by ‘
‘ Mailed on: 07/01/1999 7:02 PM Number 12 ‘
‘ Int’l Standard Serial No. - ISSN: 1523-3537‘
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‘ Thank you for requesting this sample ‘
‘ copy of E-News. We hope we’ll spark your interest ‘
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‘ In this issue (4 Items): ‘
‘ ================ ‘
‘ 1--Part II HIGH AVAILABILITY COMPUTING ‘
‘ 2--QUESTIONS TECH. INVESTMENTS? ‘
‘ 3--PRODUCT WATCH ‘
‘ 4--FOUR STRATEGIC / USEFUL / ‘
‘ INTERESTING LINKS ‘
‘ 5--WHY SUBSCRIBE?, 2SS.Com and YOUR ‘
‘ SUBSCRIPTION. ‘
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‘ --------------Item One----------- ‘
‘ PART II HIGH AVAILABILITY COMPUTING ‘
‘ Right after our last issue E-News received the ‘
‘ following comment… “YOU DIDN'T MENTION ‘
‘ DISK MIRRORING. With support right out of the ‘
‘ box in NT 4.0 and the inexpensive price of disk ‘
‘ drives, this has got to be one of the easiest ways ‘
‘ to maintain high availability. ‘
‘ Note: This certainly does not diminish the need ‘
‘ for tape backups as you discussed.” ‘
‘ The comments were from subscriber MORRIS ‘
‘ SLOCUM (See note below) and, ‘
‘ Morris is absolutely right. We had only a part of ‘
‘ the high availability picture in last month’s ‘
‘ issue. It was all the initial preparation and ‘
‘ installation stuff aimed at recovering from a ‘
‘ problem in a short period of time and, maybe ‘
‘ more interesting, things that don’t require any ‘
‘ hardware or software investment! ‘
‘ But we shouldn’t forget, as Morris suggests, ‘
‘ the decreasing cost of being able to recover ‘
‘ INSTANTLY. This translates to disk mirroring, ‘
‘ duplexing, RAID and the really BIG coming ‘
‘ attraction, clustering. Here is a brief rundown on ‘
‘ each: ‘
‘ MIRRORING (AKA RAID 0) – is the process ‘
‘ build right into Windows NT that allows one disk ‘
‘ to maintain itself as an exact copy of another. ‘
‘ Mirroring typically involves two hard disks and the ‘
‘ implementation of NT’s software to create the ‘
‘ mirror. Once created the mirror image is ‘
‘ maintained continually, and if either drive fails the ‘
‘ other can continue to carry the load. ‘
‘ DUPLEXING (AKA RAID 1) – takes mirroring one ‘
‘ step farther by adding additional hardware ‘
‘ controllers to each hard disk. That way if a ‘
‘ controller fails the mirrored hard disk will NOT ‘
‘ crash, also, by virtue of being attached to it. ‘
‘ RAID 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 53 – Redundant ‘
‘ Array of Independent Disks is a software or ‘
‘ hardware (usually better) way of allowing the ‘
‘ use of several hard disks. In the old days ‘
‘ (e.g. 2 or 3 years ago) these options addressed ‘
‘ the high cost of large hard disks. Today with ‘
‘ prices falling, the simplicity of Duplexing or ‘
‘ RAID 1 makes RAID 2 or higher less attractive, ‘
‘ (in both financial terms, as well as in technical ‘
‘ complexity), except in the most highly fault- ‘
intolerant situations. ‘
‘ For more on technical explanations of RAID ‘
‘ 2 to 53 visit http://www.acnc.com/raid.html ‘
‘ for blow-by-blow details. ‘
‘ CLUSTERING – Forget the decreasing cost of ‘
‘ hard disks. How about the decreasing cost of a ‘
‘ second parallel server devoted to the cause of ‘
‘ duplicating everything that goes onto the ‘
‘ network so that, if server 1 goes down, server 2 ‘
‘ can continue without anyone noticing what ‘
‘ happened. Clustering is coming into its own ‘
‘ with Windows 2000 and will be an important ‘
‘ option for many organizations that can’t afford to ‘
‘ have a problem. ‘
‘ But there’s more. It’s not that limited. Clustering ‘
’ can involve more than just two servers, and hard ‘
‘ disks can be attached to the cluster in a way that ‘
‘ any operating processor can access and use ‘
‘ them. ‘
‘ So 2SS.Com agrees with its long-time friend and ‘
‘ technology wiz, Morris Slocum. Investing in these ‘
‘ technologies can pay off INSTANTLY. ‘
‘ MORRIS SOLCUM is a long-time friend and ‘
’ associate from Atlantic Richfield. I (Ron Ellis) ‘
‘ had the distinct privilege of hiring Morris three ‘
‘ times before he got away to his current assign- ‘
‘ ment as the MIS Director for Emergency ‘
‘ Physician Billing in Oklahoma City, OK. I have ‘
‘ always been amazed by Morris’ ability to gobble- ‘
‘ up and make useful most any technology we ‘
‘ needed to have expertise with. Clearly he ‘
‘ continues to do exactly that! Thanks, Morris. ‘
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‘ --------------Item Two----------- ‘
‘ QUESTIONS ‘
‘ IS ALL THIS INVESTMENT IN ‘
‘ TECHNOLOGY REALLY JUSTIFIED? ‘
‘ Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan ‘
‘ recently weighed in on the subject with the ‘
‘ following comment: “The evidence for ‘
‘ technology-driven acceleration in ‘
‘ productivity is compelling, but not ‘
‘ conclusive.” ‘
‘ Analysts, including those at 2SS.Com, have ‘
‘ concluded that Mr. Greenspan is hailing ‘
‘ the tremendous investment US businesses ‘
‘ have made in technology in a way that argues ‘
‘ for its value. But, even in the midst of ‘
‘ apparent success, a now traditional problem ‘
‘ remains; that is how to quantify it. Or, more ‘
‘ simply, the answer to the question, “Where’s the ‘
‘ Proof?” remains elusive. ‘
‘ Unfortunately, for CEO’s and owners there ‘
‘ is another rule-of-thumb that applies. It goes ‘
‘ something like: ‘
‘ PROOF OR NOT I CAN’T AFFORD TO LET ‘
‘ MY ORGANIZATION GET TOO FAR BEHIND. ‘
‘ And that’s the truth! Have you tried to find a ‘
‘ class, book or consultant lately who knows ‘
‘ WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS or dBase. That’s ‘
’ not to mention the folly of trying to run ‘
‘ now almost-obsolete Windows 95 on a ‘
‘ 386Sx PC with 8 or even 16 MB of RAM. All ‘
‘ that was new just 8 or 9 years ago, and today ‘
‘ it’s ancient history. A technological dis- ‘
‘ advantage if you haven’t found some way to ‘
‘ keep up. ‘
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‘ -----------Item Three---------- ‘
‘ PRODUCT WATCH ‘
‘ WINDOWS 2000 Beta 3 (AKA NT 5.0) ‘
‘ From the ‘it’s-never-as-easy-as-it-should-be’ ‘
‘ department Morris Slocum (see above) offered ‘
‘ one more note: ‘
‘ Our ”…Network Administrator has been trying ‘
‘ to load (Windows) NT 2000 beta 3 at home for ’
‘ the last several nights and has not been totally ‘
‘ successful yet. I think he is ready to do his ‘
‘ second hard disk reformat and start from scratch ‘
‘ again.” ‘
‘ DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (DSL) ‘
‘ Seems to be one of the biggest bargains in town. ‘
‘ Just available in Sacramento since early this year, ‘
‘ it’s about half the cost of ISDN while offering ‘
‘ equivalent or higher speeds. Also, it’s available ‘
‘ all the time as compared to ISDN which ‘
‘ typically is configured to ‘dial-up’ on demand. ‘
‘ 2SS.Com will be installing it in the near ‘
‘ future and should be able to report on its ‘
‘ implementation and use by the next issue of ‘
E-News. ‘
‘ WHERE WAS THAT PICTURE TAKEN? ‘
‘ Kodak Japan, Ltd. is planning to launch a ‘
‘ new digital still camera that incorporates a ‘
‘ global positioning system. Instead of just when ‘
‘ each negative will know when and where ‘
‘ it was taken. ‘
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‘ ------------Item Four----------- ‘
‘ FOUR STRATEGIC / USEFUL / INTERESTING ‘
‘ LINKS ‘
‘ 1. HOOVER'S Corporate Directory at: ‘
http://pathfinder.com/@@j9w6qQQA1SEAmF@o/money/hoovers/corpdirectory/pf_ml.html It offers tons of ‘
‘ data on the country’s top corporations and ‘
‘ the people who run them. ‘
2. INFOSPACE at : http://206.129.166.101 a ‘
’ syndicated on-line directory service that is ‘
‘ replicated by being plugged-in at more than ‘
‘ 50 sites around the Internet. ‘
‘ 3. MEDIAFINDER at: ‘
http://www.mediafinder.com/magazines/mag_browse_topic.html lets you browse a substantial listing of ‘
‘ magazines by Topic. ‘
‘ 4. RESEARCH Home Page at: ‘
‘ http://www.researchmag.com/whatis.htm ‘
‘ where a variety of investment Information is ‘
‘ featured. ‘
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‘ ------------Item Five------------ ‘
‘ 2SS.Com and YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ‘
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