[geeks] Clariion array

[Dave Fischer]

jp at celestrion.net writes:

>On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Dave Fischer wrote:

>> Maybe that's why there are two host interfaces? :-)

>I think the two host interfaces are there because it's smart enough to
>aggregate bandwidth across both, if the host system is smart enough to
>do the same.

This one seems to be able to assign drives or RAID'ed groups of
drives to either interface, but not both. So you can assign half
to interface A and half to B, and sort of load-balance that way.

This is an *early* Clariion.

>> Maybe it is toast. Can't say for sure untill I find a diff controller.

>Well, if you're not smelling that awful roasted-electronics smell, it's
>probably fine.  At worst, you popped a fuse.

Excellent.

>> And IRIX has the worst installation procedure of any piece of software
>> ever written by man.

>You know, I'd been saying that since I first installed IRIX 8 years ago.
>Then I met IBM Content Manager.  OMFG.

>   1) The installation documentation is flat-out WRONG.  We filed three
>      defects on this with IBM.  These weren't tiny defects, either.
>      These were defects in the prerequisites' dependencies and so forth.
>   2) IBM disn't have it documented as working on AIX 5.2 until we
>      showed them what we did to have it installed.  Never mind that the
>      software supposedly supports AIX 5.2.
>   3) None of it is automated past copying files to disk.  Configuration
>      takes place by-hand, editing config files.
>   4) There isn't an installer for the whole thing.  There are separate
>      installers for most of the components (some install via the system
>      package manager).  None of the components' installers know about
>      each other, so you have no indicator to having missed a
>      prerequsite.
>   5) The parts that are automated are automatically broken.  IBM CM uses
>      HTTPS to talk between parts of the software that run on a single
>      machine.  The installer initializes the HTTPS certificate to be
>      self-signed and expire in 30 days.  If you restart the software
>      more than 30 days after installation, it won't come up again until
>      you manually instruct the IBM SSL software to generate new certs
>      and keys and then manually change all the references in numerous
>      XML files to point to the new certificates.
>   6) When properly documented, it took me 3 -days- to install the
>      software.  It might be because it ships on 105 CDs, and you only
>      end up needing about 30 of them.  It took our contractor (who'd
>      been working with CM for a several months) 5 -weeks- to get a
>      successful installation documented.

>In view of that, inst is almost orgasmic.

There was a quote somewhere along the lines of: "Code like the person
who's going to have to maintain your program knows where you live."
Something similar would be useful here. "Fix it, or we'll give the
customers your home address."

------ David Fischer ------- dave at cca.org ------- http://www.cca.org ------
------ When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a snail. ------