Guidelines for Configuring VAXcluster Systems

This document, "VAXcluster Systems Guidelines for VAXcluster System Configurations" (September 1992), serves as a comprehensive guide for designing and configuring VAXcluster systems. It aims to help users create highly integrated, scalable, and available computing environments by sharing processing power, storage, and other resources among multiple VAX and MicroVAX CPUs under a single VMS security and management domain.

The guidelines cover several key aspects:

1. Understanding the VAXcluster Environment: It introduces VAXcluster components (VMS operating system, DECnet, CPUs, storage subsystems, interconnects) and various configuration types (Ethernet, CI, DSSI, FDDI, and mixed interconnects), highlighting their attributes like availability, CPU range, speed, and distance.
2. Establishing Requirements: It guides users in defining their computing environment (interactive, batch, client/server) and determining application requirements (memory, compute power, I/O throughput), along with overall system requirements such as availability, data redundancy, security, cost, and physical space.
3. Choosing VAX CPUs: It provides selection criteria for VAX CPUs based on application needs (computing style, availability, growth, I/O), discusses fault-tolerant options, and offers detailed performance and I/O characteristics of various VAX models.
4. Selecting VAXcluster Interconnects: It details the characteristics (throughput, CPU overhead) and specific types of interconnects (CI, DSSI, Ethernet, FDDI), including their advantages, supported CPUs, and maximum distances. It also covers the use of mixed and multiple interconnects for enhanced availability and performance.
5. Designing the Storage Subsystem: This section focuses on creating a storage hierarchy (memory, magnetic disks, tapes) by estimating capacity, optimizing for performance (e.g., disk striping), and ensuring high data availability through redundancy features like VMS Volume Shadowing and robust backup strategies.
6. Configuration Rules and Guidelines: It provides general rules applicable to all VAXcluster systems (e.g., maximum nodes, connectivity) and specific rules for configurations using CI, DSSI, Ethernet, and FDDI interconnects.
7. Optimizing System Design: The document outlines strategies for increasing system availability (e.g., hardware redundancy, failover mechanisms, quorum schemes, environmental protection) and discusses best practices for selecting disk servers, satellites, and managing print services. It also lists various software tools for VAXcluster system management and performance optimization.

The document is intended for those with a basic understanding of the VAXcluster environment and emphasizes careful planning, redundancy, and load balancing for an optimal system.