On Thursday, 04/06/2006 at 05:30 EST, Harold Grovesteen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This operational problem with passive backup configurations just never > goes away. After over 30 years of networking I consider this design to > be a bad practice nearly guaranteed to fail.
:-) I think some installations would never test EPO buttons if their insurance companies and fire marshalls didn't require it. Some people never discover their backup tapes are no good until too late. And some never read the instructions for opening the emergency exit on an airplane. I think it isn't about the technology, but a psychological barrier we have regarding planning for the worst. History. Repetition. [snip] > This post is not meant as a criticism of Mr. Levy's situation which may > have constraints, technical or organizational, that preclude these best > practices from being adopted, but as a general statement of networking > best practice for high availability. Both the host > administrators/systems programmers and router administrators must > acknowledge that the network does not stop or begin at the Ethernet > cable and work together. Networking has its equivalent of "gen jockeys" > who can configure but do not truly understand the technologies with > which they work. Harold, the VSWITCH isn't a router and doesn't participate in layer 3 protocols, but is a virtual layer 2 802.1q VLAN-aware switch. Consequently its strategy for high availability will ultimately be based on IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation rather than failover, and is specifically designed to eliminate the need for guests to be aware of and manage device/port/switch failure. This leaves more resource to solve business problems rather than monitoring and managing the infrastructure. It is one of the values of virtualization - the real world can change, but the virtualization layer maintains the illusion of constancy. But your last point of understanding the technology, it's weaknesses and strengths, or working closely with those *do* understand, is key. My "Take a Networker to Lunch" mantra is based on exactly this point. What did Karl Malden used to say? "Networkers....Never leave home without one." Or something like that. Alan Altmark z/VM Development IBM Endicott ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
