Appliance testing - none of you would do this would you ?

skotl · 16 Mar 2013

You're just resorting to insults, BAS - another classic sign of one who has lost the argument.

Interesting that not a single person has leaped to your defence?

Has it occurred to you that if you just left this thread to die that it would quietly slip back down the front page? That way you could offer some constructive advice to suicidal amateur electricians, rather than wasting your time here.

ban-all-sheds · 17 Mar 2013

If Simon feels insulted by any of the things I have said to him then he has only himself to blame for being the originator of insulting behaviour.

He really has behaved utterly appallingly, and I wanted to make it absolutely clear just how I felt about that, and that I genuinely do believe him to be a complete ****.

I'm sure you will note that in my last post above, all I did was to use the same words to him as he used to me.

What is interesting is that you say to me "You're just resorting to insults, BAS - another classic sign of one who has lost the argument", but not a peep was heard from you when Simon wrote them.

You see, according to his rules, his advice regarding the heating elements was wrong. According to his rules, it should not have been given, because not all thermostats will operate in the range required, not all relays can cope with the current drawn by the elements. It's also possible that the OP might not install it safely, and he included no information on how it should be done.

According to his rules, advice like that shows that the person giving it doesn't know what they are talking about, and deserves dismissive criticism for it.

Unless of course he wants rules which operate one way for him, and a different way for other people.

SimonH2 · 17 Mar 2013

ban-all-sheds said:
I'm sure you will note that in my last post above, all I did was to use the same words to him as he used to me.

But in the usual way a troll does it, deliberately used out of context so as to appear to mean something difference to what any reasonable person might infer from the context. In the context of someone who is clearly aware of what he is doing, clearly has enough knowledge to select components to suit the task in hand, then the list was sufficient.

If I had made that post in response to someone who clearly didn't know his amp from a screwdriver, then you would be correct in challenging it. But since that wasn't the context, then you are wrong.

And I'm still waiting for the answer to that simple question I asked you. You seem to be having trouble selecting yes or no.

ban-all-sheds · 17 Mar 2013

SimonH2 said:
In the context of someone who is clearly aware of what he is doing, clearly has enough knowledge to select components to suit the task in hand, then the list was sufficient.

It's still assuming things.

It is still therefore, according to your rules, worthy of dismissive criticism.

You cannot have it both ways. Either one is allowed to make what one considers blindingly obvious assumptions, or one is not.

Your attempted defence relies on you making yet more assumptions, namely the knowledge and skills of a complete stranger who you've never met in person.

And I'm still waiting for the answer to that simple question I asked you. You seem to be having trouble selecting yes or no.

Your question has a lot of the "When did you stop beating your wife?" about it.

Can all planes fly to New York? No.
Is any type of luggage accepted on planes? No.
Can you carry all everyday items with you on a plane? No.

Does that mean it is wrong to say "You can fly to New York" without specifying all the conditions needed for that activity to work? No.

Can everybody drive? No.
Does everybody have a car which can carry several passengers and their luggage? No.
Can a car always be parked anywhere you like at any time? No.
Does every destination have good enough quality roads leading to it? No.

Does that mean it is wrong to say "You could go by car" without specifying all the conditions needed for that activity to work? No.

Can all virtualised environments support live migration? No.

Does that mean it is wrong to say "virtualise the servers and use live migration so you can empty one for maintenance" without specifying all the conditions needed for that activity to work? No.

SimonH2 · 17 Mar 2013

ban-all-sheds said:
SimonH2 said:

In the context of someone who is clearly aware of what he is doing, clearly has enough knowledge to select components to suit the task in hand, then the list was sufficient.

Click to expand...

It's still assuming things.

It is still therefore, according to your rules, worthy of dismissive criticism.

You still don't get it do you. I have not said it's unreasonable to make assumptions - I fact I think (without going back through several pages to check) I've said as much.

What is worthy of dismissive criticism is making statements which rely on assumptions which are false in the context in which they were made.

Either one is allowed to make what one considers blindingly obvious assumptions, or one is not.

Well yes, one is allowed to make blindingly obvious assumptions. You are the only one (as far as I can see) making the blindingly obvious assumption that you rely on for your statement to be true. I believe your "blindingly obvious" assumption to be completely false, and also that it's one that no-one knowledgable in the area would consider a valid assumption (whether blindingly obvious or not).

So what it comes down to is that you consider an assumption "blindingly obvious", others (everyone else it seems) consider it false. You seem unwilling to accept that - but instead have spent 6 pages now trying to prove that everyone else is wrong. Even now going to the extent of deliberately hi-jacking another thread.

ban-all-sheds · 17 Mar 2013

SimonH2 said:
What is worthy of dismissive criticism is making statements which rely on assumptions which are false in the context in which they were made.

And what was the context which applied to what I wrote?

Was it Eric saying that he had a server, or servers, where "asking people to log off to be able to test is common and with servers finding windows to do work again common. But switching off is still a problem"?

Or was it a generic observation from Eric about a generic issue?

Well yes, one is allowed to make blindingly obvious assumptions. You are the only one (as far as I can see) making the blindingly obvious assumption that you rely on for your statement to be true. I believe your "blindingly obvious" assumption to be completely false, and also that it's one that no-one knowledgable in the area would consider a valid assumption (whether blindingly obvious or not).

skotl said:
As for virtualisation, then yes, of course it's a huge benefit in utilising server resources. We get to spread maybe 140% of the server load across the physical devices, knowing that not all applications will be using all the resources at all times.
As BAS mentions, you get some additional benefits with the higher end solutions such as VMWare ESX. The first is load balancing, where the farm will move virtual servers seamlessly to less busy hosts.
Next you have failover; when a host fails, the virtual server stutters a bit and then begins running on another host.
The final benefit circles back round to the initial discussions; maintenance of hardware becomes easier because you can "evacuate" virtual machines from a host onto one or more of the remaining hosts, then bring it down for maintenance, patching, etc.

So what it comes down to is that you consider an assumption "blindingly obvious", others (everyone else it seems) consider it false.

Actually what it comes down to is that, given a choice between assumptions which would obviously have to be true for a statement to be valid, and ones which if were not true would make the statement wrong, you have chosen the latter and gone on and on and on criticising me for being wrong.

You seem unwilling to accept that - but instead have spent 6 pages now trying to prove that everyone else is wrong.

I have spent 6 pages defending myself against unjustified criticism from you.

And I'll spend 60 or 600 doing that if you make me - if you think I will roll over and let you get away with your unjustifiable behaviour you are deluded.

Even now going to the extent of deliberately hi-jacking another thread.

Not true - I said I made a mistake there.

I leave it to you to decide where you would prefer to deal with the fact that you too have given advice which has requirements for certain assumptions to be true.

SimonH2 · 17 Mar 2013

ban-all-sheds said:
I have spent 6 pages defending myself against unjustified criticism from you.

And I'll spend 60 or 600 doing that if you make me - if you think I will roll over and let you get away with your unjustifiable behaviour you are deluded.

You have spent 6 pages on diversionary tactics (analogies that in no way relate to the subject in hand) and personal abuse to justify why making a statement, that relies on an assumption, was correct. The problem is, that your assumption relies on people assuming that reference a range of techniques, where only a relatively small subset meet your needs, was the one and only assumption that people could reasonably make. In some situation that could be a valid case to argue - but not this one.

The more you keep harping on about how your set of assumptions can the only reasonable assumptions, or at the very least are the assumptions that the majority of people would automatically make, simply reinforces that my initial comment was correct. 6 pages ago, had someone suggested it, I might have conceded that perhaps it was a little strong - you've spent the last 6 pages proving that it wasn't.

ban-all-sheds · 17 Mar 2013

SimonH2 said:
You have spent 6 pages on diversionary tactics (analogies that in no way relate to the subject in hand)

I've used analogies in an (apparently fruitless) attempt to get you to understand that it is OK to make a statement, or give advice, without exhaustively listing every single prerequisite required for the statement to be applicable or the advice to be good.

and personal abuse to justify why making a statement, that relies on an assumption, was correct.

SimonH2 said:
Get a number of elements, of a lower wattage than a normal kettle.
Thermostat that can have it's sensor positioned over the contents so it will be triggered by the steam when boiling.
Relay
Momentary button to set it off.

The problem is, that your assumption relies on people assuming that reference a range of techniques, where only a relatively small subset meet your needs, was the one and only assumption that people could reasonably make. In some situation that could be a valid case to argue - but not this one.

No - the problem is that you consider it so unreasonable to assume that if servers were to be virtualised in order to be able to migrate live VMs then the necessary technologies to enable live VM migration would be employed that you've launched into sustained criticism.

The more you keep harping on about how your set of assumptions can the only reasonable assumptions, or at the very least are the assumptions that the majority of people would automatically make, simply reinforces that my initial comment was correct.

No, your original comment was wrong, for it is predicated on me not assuming that the virtualised infrastructure necessary to support live VM migration would be implemented by someone wanting to virtualise servers so that one of the things they could then do was live VM migration.

6 pages ago, had someone suggested it, I might have conceded that perhaps it was a little strong - you've spent the last 6 pages proving that it wasn't.

I have spent the last 6 pages trying to show you that you were wrong to criticise me for saying "do A then you can do B" without also saying "when you do A don't forget you'll need to base it on X, Y & Z" when there's no alternative to basing A on X, Y & Z if you want to end up with B.

Just like you didn't think it necessary to point out that suitable thermostats and relays would be needed to have thermostatically controlled heating elements in your advice quoted above.

skotl · 17 Mar 2013

This is ridiculous, and you are being ridiculous, BAS.

Your original assertion was that virtualisation would remove the problem with having to shutdown applications when maintenance needed to be performed.
All Simon and I did was to state that virtualisation alone would not achieve that and that a significant investment in hardware, software and expertise was needed to achieve that.

Ever since you have been throwing around red herrings and taking us down blind alleys simply because you can't accept that there is more to the argument than your point of view. These arguments, counter-arguments, demands and embellishments are doing nothing to convince anyone that you have a commanding grasp of this topic, or even this argument.
You're simply becoming more strident and more bullying because people are not accepting your point of view.

ban-all-sheds · 17 Mar 2013

skotl said:
Your original assertion was that virtualisation would remove the problem with having to shutdown applications when maintenance needed to be performed.

And it can. It was not untrue to say so.

All Simon and I did was to state that virtualisation alone would not achieve that and that a significant investment in hardware, software and expertise was needed to achieve that.

At no point did I ever suggest otherwise.

I simply made the assumption that if one of the things someone wanted to get out of virtualisation was the ability to migrate live VMs then they would implement a virtualisation infrastructure which provided the ability to migrate live VMs.

And that's not all that Simon did - what he did, over and over and over again was to say I didn't know what I was talking about because I didn't go into detail on the specific features/attributes/capabilities of a virtualised environment which would be needed, that it was wrong to say what I did.

Ever since you have been throwing around red herrings and taking us down blind alleys simply because you can't accept that there is more to the argument than your point of view.

My point of view is that it is not necessary to always exhaustively list every prerequisite required for a statement to be true, or for advice to be good. It is not necessary to explicitly list every assumption made.

It seems clear from the suggestions which Simon made concerning the heating elements that neither does he, yet still he chose to have a go at me for it. And then when I pointed out his hypocrisy his defence was to accuse me of hijacking, and of being a troll.

These arguments, counter-arguments, demands and embellishments are doing nothing to convince anyone that you have a commanding grasp of this topic, or even this argument.

I do have a grasp of it. A very good one.

So good in fact that to me it was so blindingly obvious that you can't do live VM migration without an infrastucture which supports live VM migration that I didn't think it necessary to say "So virtualise them all using an infrastructure which will support movement of live VMs, then you can move the VMs and empty the physical server".

You're simply becoming more strident and more bullying because people are not accepting your point of view.

My point of view is that it is not necessary to always exhaustively list every prerequisite required for a statement to be true, or for advice to be good. It is not necessary to explicitly list every assumption made.

If you believe otherwise then you are barking mad, and you should plan on making very long and detailed posts in the future, with not one single assumption left undocumented, lest you want your hypocrisy to be highlighted.

SimonH2 · 17 Mar 2013

ban-all-sheds said:
No - the problem is that you consider it so unreasonable to assume that if servers were to be virtualised in order to be able to migrate live VMs then the necessary technologies to enable live VM migration would be employed that you've launched into sustained criticism.

You're slowly getting to understand.
Yes, I consider it unreasonable to make a statement that requires a lot of techniques that are not inherent in the <whatever>, and where common understanding of the technique mentioned would not include those additions, without mentioning it.
You are in a minority of 1, or so it appears, in thinking that virtualisation (in the context you used it) == virtualisation technology + redundant server capacity + shared storage* + relevant shared filesystem/whatever* + management tools* and that anyone else would immediately think the same. Perhaps in some contexts such a belief would be justified, this is not one of them.

You yourself have admitted that the shared storage*, shared filesystems/whatever*, and management tools* are not an inherent and inseparable part of the technology known as virtualisation. Without them, your statement is false.
Your continued attempts to justify why they should be considered inseparable, or that the only reasonable assumption anyone could make is that they are also used, simply make my initial response seem more and more appropriate.

* Depending on/appropriate to the virtualisation technology in use.
Obligatory (or so it seems these days to keep the troll happy) boilerplate

You've kept introducing various analogies which actually prove my point. Take your introduction of toasters for example. If you mention toaster, then a reasonable image that most people will think of will almost certainly be an electric one - by far the vast majority of toasters are mains electric powered, and that is the type that is used by almost everyone. Thus there is no need to mention needing an electrical supply - that is a reasonable assumption. However, if your were intending for it to mean a gas powered toaster together with the bottle and regulator etc, then it would be necessary to mention it so as to differentiate what you are talking about from what almost everyone else will think of. That is, unless the context would naturally make the gas power what most people would be thinking of.
Analogy : virtualisation (without any qualification) = toaster (assumed electric), virtualisation (with mention of needing the appropriate infrastructure and tools) = toaster (with mention of being gas powered and need ing a gas supply).
Simply stating (say, in a thread about camping) that "a toaster will toast your bread" would be a ridiculous statement except in limited contexts, as was your statement that "virtualisation will allow you to do live migration". However, "a toaster will toast your bread while out camping - but you'll need a gas powered one if you don't have an electric supply" would be perfectly valid, as would "virtualisation may allow you to do live migration (if you have the right infrastructure in place)".
Of course, a big difference is that most people understand toasters - so if you omit details then the majority could probably see what you meant. That is not the case with virtualisation - in a forum discussing electrics, it would be expected that the majority of people aren't virtualisation experts, and would not know the difference between "virtualisation" and "virtualisation" (with the assumptions you expect everyone to make).

Pensdown · 17 Mar 2013

Good to see it's business as usual - some things will never change

ban-all-sheds · 18 Mar 2013

SimonH2 said:
You're slowly getting to understand.

Yes - I understand that you are at best stupid and at worst maliciously offensive.

You are in a minority of 1, or so it appears, in thinking that virtualisation (in the context you used it) == virtualisation technology + redundant server capacity + shared storage* + relevant shared filesystem/whatever* + management tools* and that anyone else would immediately think the same. Perhaps in some contexts such a belief would be justified, this is not one of them.

Why on earth would I say that running VMs could be moved from one server to another if I was not envisaging an infrastructure without all of the features which would be needed to move running VMs from one server to another?

THAT WAS THE CONTEXT IN WHICH I USED IT, YOU CLOWN.

READ IT AGAIN.

"SO VIRTUALISE THEM ALL, THEN YOU CAN MOVE VMS AND EMPTY THE PHYSICAL SERVER."

DOES THAT LOOK TO YOU LIKE THE CONTEXT IS ANYTHING BUT VIRTUALISING IN A WAY WHICH WOULD ENABLE LIVE VM MIGRATION?

JUST WHAT KIND OF DEFECTIVE OR TWISTED THOUGHT PROCESSES DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO ASSUME THAT THE CONTEXT IS ANYTHING BUT VIRTUALISING IN A WAY WHICH WOULD ENABLE LIVE VM MIGRATION?

You yourself have admitted that the shared storage*, shared filesystems/whatever*, and management tools* are not an inherent and inseparable part of the technology known as virtualisation. Without them, your statement is false.

FFS.

Not all environments which could be described as virtualised have those features.

Some do.

If I'm suggesting that using virtualisation can be used to enable live VM migration then you either have to be stupid, or maliciously offensive to tell me I am wrong to say that because I did not list all of the features your virtualisation environment would have to have.

Your continued attempts to justify why they should be considered inseparable,

I have never said they were inseparable.

or that the only reasonable assumption anyone could make is that they are also used, simply make my initial response seem more and more appropriate.

It IS the only reasonable assumption to make given that I'd suggested doing it in order to be able to migrate running VMs.

To assume, as you have done, that I was suggesting virtualising in a way which did not enable live VM migration so that live VMs could then be migrated was not, and is not, and never could be, appropriate.

You've kept introducing various analogies which actually prove my point. Take your introduction of toasters for example. If you mention toaster, then a reasonable image that most people will think of will almost certainly be an electric one - by far the vast majority of toasters are mains electric powered, and that is the type that is used by almost everyone. Thus there is no need to mention needing an electrical supply - that is a reasonable assumption.

If it is not possible to do live VM migration without the virtualised infrastructure possessing certain features then there is no need to mention needing those features when the particular benefit of live VM migration is stated as a result of virtualisation.

Analogy : virtualisation (without any qualification) = toaster (assumed electric), virtualisation (with mention of needing the appropriate infrastructure and tools) = toaster (with mention of being gas powered and need ing a gas supply).

Virtualisation done in order to facilitate live VM migration (without any qualification) = virtualisation done with the appropriate infrastructure and tools.

Simply stating (say, in a thread about camping) that "a toaster will toast your bread" would be a ridiculous statement except in limited contexts, as was your statement that "virtualisation will allow you to do live migration".

I take it you can provide an actual quote where I wrote that statement, can you? Being mindful of it's context, as that seems to be something else you are finding impossible to grasp.

However, "a toaster will toast your bread while out camping - but you'll need a gas powered one if you don't have an electric supply" would be perfectly valid, as would "virtualisation may allow you to do live migration (if you have the right infrastructure in place)".

If I'm suggesting the use of virtualisation to enable live VM migration you'd have to be stupid or maliciously offensive to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about because I didn't say that you'd have to do the virtualisation in a way which would make live VM migration possible.

Of course, a big difference is that most people understand toasters - so if you omit details then the majority could probably see what you meant. That is not the case with virtualisation - in a forum discussing electrics, it would be expected that the majority of people aren't virtualisation experts, and would not know the difference between "virtualisation" and "virtualisation" (with the assumptions you expect everyone to make).

Utterly irrelevant.

It is true that what I said would not give people enough information to go off and implement, or even specify, a virtualised server farm, but then that's hardly within the scope of this forum.

But that does not mean that I was wrong, or that I didn't know what I was talking about, when I said that virtualising can allow VMs to be moved.

SimonH2 · 18 Mar 2013

ban-all-sheds said:
SimonH2 said:

You're slowly getting to understand.

Click to expand...

Yes - I understand that you are at best stupid and at worst maliciously offensive.

Ah, resorting to personal insults again. Last resort when you run out of reasoned arguments.

THAT WAS THE CONTEXT IN WHICH I USED IT, YOU CLOWN.

Ah, that explains the difference of opinion, you've redefined context to mean "what you meant when you wrote your post"

You might want to look it up in a dictionary.

ban-all-sheds · 18 Mar 2013

SimonH2 said:
Ah, resorting to personal insults again. Last resort when you run out of reasoned arguments.

You started with this:

SimonH2 said:
Says the man demonstrating a politicians level of knowledge of technical matters

SimonH2 said:
Sorry BAS, there is a saying that when you are in a hole, stop digging. You clearly know the buzzwords, but also clearly don't have practical experience - either that or your identity is revealed as one of those IT tools salesmen who will happily sell your tool as doing all that and more (probably even makes the coffee) but which actually turns out to have a lot of gaps.

SimonH2 said:
No, I change my mind. You're not an IT salesman, it's far far worse than that - you speak like a ... and I feel a bit dirty even using the words ... a management consultant

and since then you have repeatedly refused to accept that when I suggested virtualising so as to be able to move VMs around I was naturally suggesting virtualising in a way which would result in an infrastructure with the capability to move VMs around.

You have repeatedly refused to accept that if <something> needs to be done in <some particular way> in order to provide <some functionality> it could possibly be reasonable to assume that when a suggestion to do <something> in order to get <some functionality> implicit in that is that the suggestion is to do the <something> in <some particular way>.

And when I showed that you have also given advice with assumptions which you left unstated because you thought they were so obvious as to not need stating, you accused me of being a troll.

And also along the way you said that I'd suggested putting backup data on the same storage as live data and moving the VM of the backup to the same box as the live server, and then repeatedly refused to show where I did say that.

So yes - the conclusion I draw from the way you have gone on and on behaving like this is that you are either stupid or are being maliciously offensive.

Ah, that explains the difference of opinion, you've redefined context to mean "what you meant when you wrote your post" You might want to look it up in a dictionary.

I have done. Not that I needed to, but I have a dictionary open here, and it says, for context

The conditions and circumstances that are relevant to an event, fact etc.

So, yes. When I suggested using virtualisation to provide the ability to migrate live VMs, which is more reasonable -

that the conditions and circumstances relevant to that were virtualisation technologies which would allow the live migration of VMs

or

that the conditions and circumstances relevant to that were virtualisation technologies which would not allow the live migration of VMs

?

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Appliance testing - none of you would do this would you ?

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