Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!columbia!lamont!dale
From: dale@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu (dale chayes)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: RFS is by far better that NFS!
Summary: Network maintenance
Message-ID: <1925@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 89 23:51:23 GMT
References: <218@inpnms.UUCP>
Organization: Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory N.Y.
Lines: 41

In article <218@inpnms.UUCP>, logan@inpnms.UUCP (Jim Logan) writes:

[ Several questions about NFS performance vs RFS deleted ]
   
> doesn't make much sense to have one person responsible for an
> entire network of 386's.  He would have to be responsible for
> changing the mode of files, killing processes, etc.  No one
> around here wants grunt work like this.   


On the issue of network maintenance:

	Before you decide that you want  more than  a small group
of well organized, professional maintainers of networks mucking with
a bunch of (cross)mounted file systems, consider the consequences of
things like:
	
	Every local super user getting to decide what the access modes
	of files should be? (They will never agree!)

	When its the right time to update versions of public executables
	like operating systems, mailers, and compilers.

It takes a different mind-set to maintain a network than it does to 
keep a single independent node running. Especially when you have users
who _expect_ the network to run properly. For instance:
	
	Back in the bad(?) old days, even the most naive user who walked
into the computer room and found racks open and test equipment all over
the place understood that things weren't normal. Today, they just sit 
down at their tube, poke a key and pick up the phone when they don't
get the response they expect. (Even when the news from  yesterday 
told them the system would be down.)




-- 
Dale Chayes Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University
Route 9W, Palisades, N.Y.  10964	dale@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu
voice:	(914) 359-2900 extension 434	fax: (914) 359-6817