 syslog
The August issue contains articles on topics ranging from storage
to security to scripting. In this month's feature article,
Ed Schaefer, a frequent Sys Admin contributor and editor
of the Shell Corner column on UnixReview.com, shares a way to verify
that remote server sites are performing scheduled database backups,
while avoiding the use of troublesome "r" commands. In
other articles, Brad Bascom and Jason McCullough show how to connect
Solaris to various vendors' SANs, and Stephen Pierzchala looks
at some compression modules for Apache that can help reduce bandwidth.
Along with this August issue covering storage, we've included
a special supplement that focuses on clustering. This supplement
is sponsored by Hewlett Packard and contains a mix of contributed
articles from freelance authors as well as HP partners.
Rich Ferri has written two articles for the supplement highlighting
open source clustering projects of particular interest. Ferri's
"Secrets of openMosix" describes the openMosix project,
which promises to "transform an unwieldy and perhaps heterogeneous
pile of computers into a single efficient cluster computing resource"
that is also open and scalable. According to Ferri, this transformation
is based on kernel changes that provide a single system image cluster
and a scheduler that moves processes to the nodes based on a "least-loaded"
algorithm.
Ferri has also contributed, with co-author Brian Watson, an introduction
to the OpenSSI project. OpenSSI is an open source clustering project
that addresses three major clustering issues: high availability,
scalability, and manageability. The authors state: "What distinguishes
the OpenSSI project in the Linux space is its ambition and scope
-- it intends to become the definitive project that unites all
the Linux cluster factions." Other articles in the supplement
include "Data-sharing Architectures in the Linux Data Center"
by Matthew O'Keefe, "Industrial Strength Cluster Security
for an Open Source Price" by Neil Gorsuch, and "Integrating
Linux Clusters into The Grid" by Ian Lumb and Chris Smith.
As always, I hope you find these articles useful. If you have
comments or suggestions, please email me at: aankerholz@cmp.com.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Amber Ankerholz
Editor in Chief
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