Re: cluster install (was Re: Welcome to tech-cluster)

[mlh%goathill.org@localhost (MLH)]

John P. Campbell wrote:

> I'm very interested in following this list to see what people are
> doing.  I write cluster management software for a living and am always
> looking to see how things can be improved.  We currently only support
> Linux, but I'm hoping we can get some customers to press us into the
> *BSD markets as well as that is what I am mostly familiar with.

Any chance you might take the time to delineate typical problems
that you see and how you typically solve them without jeopardizing
your business plan?

One of the problems that we face is that our organization has an
extremely long-term, data-centric world view. We are still working
on resolving 20 year-old datasets and we really can't allow ourselves
to be held hostage to a particular platform or especially a particular
vendor. Our current apparent dependence on Solaris is causing us
enough headaches.  We also have to work within our grant funding
guidelines, which means that what we do or contract to do becomes
public in some fashion or other.