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From: SEITZ@HARVSC5.HARVARD.EDU
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Message-ID: <8608182020.AA04309@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 18-Aug-86 16:19:55 EDT
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Posted: Mon Aug 18 16:19:55 1986
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A letter describing the problems Harvard's Chemistry Department was having with 
System Industries and their SIMACS product was posted to info-vax on July 17th. 
The situation has greatly improved since then.                                  

(SIMACS is a combination of hardware and software that allows multiple CPU's    
to access a set of shared disks. Harvard Chemistry has two 11/780's connected   
to a System Industries 9920 controller which controls four Fitjitsu 2351        
Eagles.)                                                                        

On July 29th our System Industries Sales Representative presented a two part    
plan addressing our major concerns.                                             

First, in order to satisfy our requirement for full VMS 4.0 functionality,      
System Industries is supplying us with an upgrade to their SI Link product.     
SI Link is an Ethernet-based cluster, providing full VMS clustering capability  
(except shadowing and shared system disks) without requiring a HSC controller,  
RA81 disks, or CI bus interfaces.                                               

Second, to demonstrate System Industries commitment to support SI Link, SI has  
agreed to a software maintenance contract that guarantees new version compat-   
ibility within 90 days of the DEC release. Installation and three months of     
SI Link software maintenance is also being provided.                            

All in all, things are looking up. I can't say much about the SI Link product   
yet because we haven't installed it. But I am optimistic about the quality of   
the product as well as System Industries commitment to support it.              

Your comments and questions about all of this are welcome.                      

     Michael Seitz, System Manager       SEITZ@HARVSC5.bitnet                   
     Harvard Chemistry                                                          
     12 Oxford Street                                                           
     Cambridge, MA 02138