[Bioclusters] Operating system choice.

[Matt Temple]

> 
> a) The OS needs to be compatible with Platform LSF and Veritas NetBackup client.
> 
> b) I need proper arguments to demonstrate to Upper Management why we should NOT use Red Hat.
I am a RedHat user for many reasons that are irrelevent to you!   But, 
I'm guessing that this will change in the near future (for us).  First, 
you do have an option in Fedora if you so choose.   It supports YUM and 
APT-RPM in ways that are claimed to work well.   I cannot speak to that 
and I'd say that before having an opinion, it would be good to evaluate 
this release.  Complications of getting all the right packages assembled 
is the most common complaint people seem to have about the RedHat way.

That being said, even though I'm no Debian evangelist (ok, I'm no 
evangelist of any kind, except maybe open source, when possible) doesn't
Upper Management have an obligation to demonstrate why Debian is a BAD 
choice?

FWIW, I'll speak to the backup issue.   We don't run Veritas, we run 
Legato Networker.   Networker doesn't officially support Debian... but
using alien to convert the RPM and making a few changes in the init 
script, we've run Networker clients on Debian machines without a hiccup.
In fact, they've run on a Reiser file system which is not officially 
supported, either.   I'm not pitching Networker here -- I'm just 
pitching what I think is the likelihood thatVeritas will work, too.

For the rest, how very different is this model from Oscar?  Rocks?
(I'm not intimate with the details, there.)
> 
> Therefore, 
> 
> Does anyone have experience with LSF/NetBackup on Debian or FreeBSD?
> 
> Could someone help me put together a "sales pitch" for either Debian or FreeBSD? Otherwise, the OS choice will be a business choice and not a technical/systems administration choice. Hence I'll be "stuck" with it...
> 
> Here are some details or the environment:
> 
> -I have 5+ years experience running Solaris, Debian, FreeBSD and Red Hat machines.
> -This compute farm will be running on x86 architecture, the Intel Xeon CPU.
> -Gigabit ethernet will be used for interconnect, nothing fancy here.
> -Master node will be connected to a SAN and will be backed-up by Veritas NetBackup.
> -Compute nodes will boot via PXE/Etherboot (undecided yet) and mount their kernel via NFS. A local drive will be there for swap.
> -The applications running on this compute farm are in-house algorithms which don't use MPI nor PVM.
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> David
> 
> --
> David Robillard
> UNIX systems administrator
> david.robillard@galileogenomics.com
> +1 514 270 3991 x285
> Galileo Genomics
> _______________________________________________
> Bioclusters maillist  -  Bioclusters@bioinformatics.org
> https://bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/bioclusters


-- 
=============================================================
Matthew Temple                Tel:    617/632-2597
Director, Research Computing  Fax:    617/582-7820
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute  mht@research.dfci.harvard.edu
44 Binney Street,  ML105      http://research.dfci.harvard.edu
Boston, MA 02115              Choice is the Choice!