From: mike@socrates.umd.edu (Mike Santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sysmgr))
Subject: Re: scsi & HP
Organization: University of Maryland University College
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 22:23:36 GMT

wk@cup.hp.com (Wayne Krone) writes:

>mike@socrates.umd.edu (Mike Santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sysmgr)) writes:
>: Oh really?  I am not aware that HP-UX 8.X SCSI driver does any powerfail
>: recovery at all right now anyway!
>
>HP-UX 8.02 (for 8x7 systems) is the first release (started shipping last
>summer) that supports SCSI powerfail.  Powerfail support in SCSI was
>designed in from the start.  It was not supported at first release (8.0)
>because the peripherals weren't ready in time for 8.0 testing.  This was
>discussed at length in this notes group recently.
>

Grrrr.  another case where I have been penalized for having an 8X5 Model
HP9000.  I've discussed this at length with my SE as he discovered it
as well, "the lab" picked the 8X5 (825/835/845) to do the initial port
of HP-UX 8.0 to, then from that base release (and time is moving on here)
started the minor bootstrap work needed to create the versions of 8.0
to run on the other HP9000 PA-RISC families (8X7, 700 series, 850/855, 870-x00,
etc) AND ROLE IN THE [NEW] FEATURES INTO THESE, leaving the base 8.00
for the 8x5 family back in the stone ages.  This has included several
bug fixes for the layered software.  SCSI powerfail then apparently is
just another example, sigh...

Comment?

>: You know, I would really hope that HP decides to put their money where
>: there sales mouth is and correc the current situation.  We here "Open SCSI"
>: and what is in place now is far from it.  I would hope that in HP-UX 9.0
>: that they generalize the the SCSI driver for use with third-party disks.
>: Any comment on this?  If this is the case, then the above statement

>In what way do you want the driver generalized?

EASY: like alot of other UNIX vendors, provide a facility for using
      3rd party hard disk drives.  The marketing/legal/liability people
      can say out the ying-yang that it isn't supported, but provide
      the tools necessary for those of us out here with the experience
      to make it work and without the financial assets of big Fortune 100
      companies to buy $$$ "official" HP disk drives from the Systems
      Marketing people.  Even DEC provides a "generalized" SCSI disk
      and tape driver for their proprietary VMS operating system that
      works with most any SCSI-2 disk or tape drive.

    - Remove hardcoded partitioning info from kernel or create a tool
      that customizes the partition.o [object] file directly (avoiding
      need to provide partition.c source which I understand is a no-no).
      In the latter case perhaps allow partitioning info to be stored
      at front of disk volume.

      Better yet I s'pose just add the wonderful LOGICAL VOLUME MANAGER
      from OSF to HP-UX... well, maybe too radical, answer to this is
      probably "wait for OSF". 

    - I really HOPE and PRAY that HP-UX 9.0 will have some form of
      SCSI support much BETTER than HP-UX 8.0 does, by better I mean
      not so tied to HP specific peripherals, hardcoding important
      driver info into the kernel for specific disk models is a sin.

    - Work with VAR's as another possibility to provide drivers and
      help qualify well-known 3rd party SCSI peripherals for use with
      HP-UX.  Other companies have done this (not naming them but one
      of them is a major competitor of HP and it isn't big-blue).
      If you can't provide a generalize SCSI driver, then HP should
      AT LEAST do this.

Sigh...  thanks for any input on these ideas [in advance].


-- 
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Michael F. Santangelo                 + Inet: mike@uc780.umd.edu
VMS / UNIX Systems                    +       mike@socrates.umd.edu
Academic Computing UMUC               + Bnet: MIKE@UC780