Microsoft's complicated approach to reliability

Post #28,329 by ben_tilly 2/14/02 5:47:38 AM Reply	Microsoft's complicated approach to reliability Microsoft is working on something even they call [link\|http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/02/13/brave.new.os.idg/index.html\|Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols]. Ya gotta wonder. Does that indicate that even they can't figure out how to make it work? Cheers, Ben
Post #28,335 by wharris2 2/14/02 8:01:28 AM Reply	Cough choke They could have chosen a better name than "byzantine". From dictionary.com: 1. Of, relating to, or characterized by intrigue; scheming or devious: \ufffda fine hand for Byzantine deals and cozy arrangements\ufffd (New York). 2. Highly complicated; intricate and involved: a bill to simplify the byzantine tax structure. On the other hand, "intrigue, scheming, devious" ... or "highly complicated, intricate and involved"... hmmm, sounds like Microsoft to me. Most of the work of government does not need to be done. - Attributed to Ronald Reagan, under whose administration the government expanded, of course.
Post #28,344 by Yendor 2/14/02 9:20:43 AM Reply	Oh please... Microsoft? Working to create an OS that doesn't care about the OS its peers are running? I'm just simply not buyin' it. -YendorMike "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
Post #28,351 by bconnors 2/14/02 9:57:08 AM Reply	When I see the words "fault tolerant" I think of Tandem Computers. Proprietary OS, proprietary hardware (used to be based on MIPS chips (I think), not Intel CPUs like today), bought out by Compaq in 1997, and running Dell's Order Management System and their Accounts Receivables System since 1989. If a hard drive or CPU crashes, the OS routes functionality to the backup hardware automatically, seamlessly and painlessly. If your software applications have been configured as "nonstop", the backup process takes over and continues running in a different CPU or accessing the backup hard drive without missing a beat. Each Tandem can have 16 CPUs per system, and a maximum of 255 systems as nodes in a network; of course, there's no limit to the number of networks connected together. And they've had this designed into their architecture since they shipped their first computer in 1976. BConnors "Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
Post #28,392 by Mike 2/14/02 3:00:19 PM Reply	Oh yes. I concur. I worked on Tandem platforms (using the Guardian O/S) from 1986 until about 1994, primarily for International Funds Transfer banks. In all the time I worked on Tandem there was no experience of the system being "down". Not ever. That includes development environments with neanderthal developers doing everything they could to bring it to its knees. Perhaps more important than their non-stop ability, was their implementation of transactions (Transaction Monitoring Facility). Even shitty developers couldn't get it wrong....largely due to their mature model of requester/server pairs. In the 90's Tandem started to empasise their "fault-tolerant" qualities more than their "non-stop" - partly because the nightmares experienced by other manufacturers were starting to get cleaned up. The amount of money which runs over Tandem hardware is quite staggering. Anecdote. I fixed a problem for a bank early one morning in Manhattan. They came to me and said that they put the fix in production and that they were now "at 6 million dollars" of communications with CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments System). I looked at my watch and said "hey....that's great and its not even noon yet". The bank's representative smiled at me and said "that's 6 million a second". (Even that figure is probably out of date now). It was highly scalable and rock solid. One of things going against it was that it was expensive and "niche". The availability of Tandem developers tended to swing between extremes. Sometimes there would be none available....other times the market would get (relatively) flooded when (say) a large credit card company decided to cancel a big project. Its easy to think that the Tandem appraoch is/was dying but that's not so. One of the best web/application servers is Bea Weblogic. This drew heavily from the Tuxedo product. Tuxedo drew heavily from Tandem. -Mike -- William Shatner's Trousers --
Post #28,432 by bconnors 2/14/02 10:57:09 PM Reply	I never knew you were a Tandem dude! If you don't mind answering publicly, can you tell me the shop(s) you were at? Some Tandem facts from an employee posting on The Motley Fool's Compaq forum (I added the examples): "For anyone who doesn't know, this is a list of some of the things that Tandem servers do: Telephone and wireless companies More than 135 public telephone companies More than 50 percent of 911 calls in the United States The majority of wireless calls worldwide Wireless Home Location Register (HLR) business Operator service, service control point (SCP) services, and many other services Financial markets (banks) 80 percent of all ATM transactions worldwide 66 percent of all point-of-sale transactions worldwide 75 percent of the world's 100 largest electronic funds transfer networks General branch bank activities Securities exchanges 106 of the world's 120 stock exchanges 95 percent of the world's security transactions Retail Credit and check authorization (Ex: Visa) Refund processing Customer relationship management (CRM) services General activities for large retailers and grocery chains (Ex: Target Stores) Healthcare Patient care, patient tracking, billing (Ex: Mayo Clinic) General activities for large healthcare providers (Ex: Kasier Permanente) E-commerce and service providers NonStop Himalaya servers also support: Internet service providers (ISPs), including the world's largest ISP Application service providers (ASPs) Solutions for business-to-business (B2B), business-to- consumer (B2C), and business-to-employee (B2E) services" BConnors "Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
Post #28,469 by boxley 2/15/02 9:03:15 AM Reply	FAA relies heavily on them also Mike Doogan "Then there's figure skating and ice dancing and snowboarding. The winners are all chosen by judges. That's not sports. That's politics. And curling? If curling is a sport, pork rinds are a health food."
Post #28,524 by Mike 2/15/02 1:45:13 PM Reply	Dyed in the wool :-) Shops I worked when on Tandem: Equity & Law in England. Data Architects. Logica (they merged/bought Data Architects). I worked on large back-office funds transfer solution called "BESS" (Bank Electronic Support System). This basically acts as a big "hub" for a bank's electronic connections to the Federal Reserve, S.W.I.F.T, CHIPS, Telex and so on. They had other products too but most of them stemmed either directly or indirectly from BESS. I wrote mostly software running in Tandem's Pathway environment (requesters, servers, TMF, Enscribe, Guardian C30). Because of the complexity of our product, we were popular with Tandem as beta sites for their new 0Ses. I found a nasty bug in the first D-series release (remember the low-pin/high pin release?). That's my claim to fame. God I need a life :-) I left Tandem platforms in 1994 to code C++ on NT. I'm now writing web apps on Weblogic using J2EE (EJBs, servlets, jsps). I still miss Tandem even today. What about you? Which shops? -- William Shatner's Trousers --
Post #28,534 by bconnors 2/15/02 3:20:58 PM Reply	My joints At the time, the world's largest futures commodity exchange in downtown Chicago; spent over a dozen years there supporting the trading floor and end-of-day reports. Then I went to a company that sold a wireless order management system to utility companies for 2 years, doing Tandem and VB 3. They got bought out by a Canadian competitor, so I went to Texas to work for "Hell" computers for almost 4 years, doing Tandem and VB (and NOT getting the training in other software packages as promised). Now I'm over in Houston at a small custom print shop doing VB and SQL Server 7 stored procedures. Nice place, but I'm not getting any exposure to things besides VB that I know I need to learn. Starting to get calls from Tandem recruiters. I tell them that if they have anything back in Chicago, call me back. BConnors "Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?"
Post #28,618 by static 2/16/02 2:31:11 AM Reply	Unfortunately... ... Tandem stuff could be a nightmare to develop on. I did some communications programming for it once. shudder Whilst the non-stop/fault-tolerant stuff was extremely clever, other aspects of the system needed to come up-to-date and out of the 1960s. Talking down a terminal line was oddly bizarre, for instance. And C was not a good fit to how the OS thought. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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