[CentOS] Cemtos 7 : Systemd alternatives ?

[Lamar Owen]

On 07/08/2014 01:19 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> And can you explain the difference between "cloud" and "time-sharing 
> on a mainframe" 
Sure.

"Cloud" is much more dynamic, for better or for worse, than mainframes 
in ye olde days.  Cloud takes advantage on smart clients, and, well, is 
a bit of a nebulous terms covering many things traditional servers do, 
but with more of an emphasis on dynamic load balancing.  Ideally, if no 
one is using a server that server should not be running, as it is 
wasting power.  The challenge is to get servers up with low latency.  
And when I say 'servers' that includes physical iron as well as fully 
virtualized hardware and more fluid virtual containers that just sortof 
act like a server.

It's all about getting the necessary services to the client processes, 
regardless of whether the client is smart or dumb.

And ideal application for cloud-based technology is renderfarms; 
transparent spinup and spindown of render machines, which often contain 
very power-hungry GPUs, saves lots of money.

As much as it is going to rub sysadmins the wrong way (because the very 
comfortable and flexible SA hat is one I wear often it definitely rubs 
me a bit wrong), ideally the admin should spend time on setup and 
implementation more than operation; the operation of this dynamic spinup 
and spindown of resources, once set up by a competent admin, should be 
entirely user-driven and automated.

Ye Olde Mainframes (not the more modern stuff, which *is* more 
cloud-oriented) never did this and required monstrous opex for 
personnel.  Cloud is about reducing opex, pure and simple.  Setup can be 
capex, and thus a separate budget (at least here, once again wearing the 
way too stiff CIO hat).

Robert mentions security, and that is a very very true statement, and is 
where it is incumbent upon the admin who sets it up to be competent.