Slowly working on a cluster design, and I think I'm going to start with VAX machines.
One of the nodes is going to be a VAXstation, and that brings up an interesting quandary regarding the quorum disk. Per DEC, the use of a quorum disk is recommended for 2-node clusters to reduce the chance of the cluster failing (i.e. one of the nodes could go down and the second node+quorum disk could still function as a cluster). Given that VAXen cannot cluster storage over SCSI, and VAXstations have only SCSI disk interfaces, it would seem that the quorum drive would offer only minimal protection (if the box that holds the quorum drive goes down, then the drive is inaccessible over the network via MSCP and therefore you have node+quorum disk down and the cluster breaks). Given that this makes the probability that a system crash will bring down the cluster 50% (and this cluster does not require high-availability). I'm thinking about dispensing with the quorum disk, but wanted to check first.
I suppose the answer is to cluster over Alpha with a shared SCSI quorum disk, but it looks like the DEC3000 built-in SCSI HA isn't supported .
malmberg August 04 2022 No more VAX hobbyist licenses.
Community licenses for Alpha/IA64/X86_64 VMS Software Inc.
Commercial VMS software licenses for VAX available from HPE.
ozboomer July 20 2022 Just re-visiting.. No more hobbyist licenses? Is that from vmssoftware.com, no 'community' licenses?
valdirfranco July 01 2022 No more hobbyist license...sad
mister_wavey February 12 2022 I recall that the disks failed on the public access VMS systems that included Fafner
parwezw January 03 2022 Anyone know what happened to FAFNER.DYNDS.ORG?
I had a hobbyist account here but can longer access the site.
gtackett October 27 2021 Make that DECdfs _2.1A_ for Vax
gtackett October 27 2021 I'm looking for DECdfs V2.4A kit for VAX.
Asking here just in case anyone is still listening.
MarkRLV September 17 2021 At one time, didn't this web site have a job board? I would love to use my legacy skills one last time in my career.
malmberg January 18 2021 New Hobbyist PAKs for VAX/VMS are no longer available according to reports. Only commercial licenses are reported to be for sale from HPE
dfilip January 16 2021 Can someone please point me to hobbyist license pak? I'm looking for VAX/VMS 7.1, DECnet Phase IV, and UCX/TCPIP ... have the 7.1 media, need the license paks ... thanks!
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