1.1 Writing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a cluster that will succeed

Picture yourself in the early 1980s. You are assigned the task of designing a new computing system. Your guidelines are slim at best. The situation can only be described as: "I don't know what I want, but I will know it when I see it." The only defense against this type of statement is to sit down and write what is called a Request for Proposal.

The Request for Proposal would possibly look like:

I don't know what I want in a computer system, but it should provide at least the following characteristics:

• Availability

• Reliability

• Scalability

The design of the cluster computer system evolved as an answer to such a Request for Proposal.

The term "cluster" as it applies to the computer industry was popularized by Digital Computer Corporation in early 1983 with VMS version 3.7. Two VAX 11/750s maintained cluster communication at the rate of 70 million bits/sec or 8.75 Mbytes/sec. During the past 17 years, many ideas of what the term cluster should mean have been set forth.

When the cluster system was first introduced, the selling point was not the term "cluster." Nobody knew what the term meant. But, people did "know what they would want, if they saw it." Therefore, the selling points were availability, reliability, and scalability, all of which the cluster system would provide. The term "cluster," over the years of development, evolved to become synonymous with these characteristics.

Unfortunately,...