[OT] NT, software reliability, and the lack thereof.

15 Mar 1999

...
   IIRC, the NT
kernel *has* a built-in distributed lock manager.  If not, it
 would be easy to add it.  The NT kernel is actually small, simple, and
 almost elegant. ...  
 If it was as trivial as you indicate, then there would be NT clusters as far
 as the eye could see.  It took Digital several versions of VMS to support
 clusters. 
I'm not saying that clustering is easy.  I'm saying that distributed lock
management is (relatively) easy.  The theory behind it is pretty well
understood.  (Whether it is well understood in Redmond is another matter.)

While distributed lock management is *necessary* for clustering, it's only
one of the lowest levels of the software.  There's a hell of a lot of other
stuff that must be gotten right as well, which is why so few operating systems
have true clustering support.  Microsoft keeps promising that they will have
it someday...

Eric

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[OT] NT, software reliability, and the lack thereof.