[Xen-users] RE: XEN and Windows Guests in critical environment(hospital)

["James Harper" <james.harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 10:44:15PM +0100, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> > Ligesh wrote:
> >
> > > For the app vendor, it is irrelevant if you are running it inside
xen
> or
> > > on baremetal. Even for windows it doesn't matter, so for something
> that
> > > sits so high up in the application chain, why would you want to
> > > complicate and confuse the easily confused people by bringing in
> > > information about a software about which they probably haven't
heard
> about
> > >
> > Nonesense. I've *been* the vendor, and it makes a big difference
what
> > kernel you're using. Lying to them just confuses the issues, and
I've
> > run into *that*, too.
> 
>  We are talking about application written in dotnet. That's pretty
much 3
> layers above the kernel. I had very clearly stated that if you are
running
> kernel level apps, then it is better you stick with real hardware, or
even
> if you are migrating, you get the proper experts to do it.
> 
>  We are talking about pure user-level applications, like the one in
the
> Original Post--a dotnet medical app --which would mostly be dealing
with
> accounting and database. So obviously, it has nothing to do with Xen
or
> the hardware. If you are running apps that has device drivers, then
the
> situation is completely different, but that's obvious.

What you are saying is probably correct, assuming as you say that the
applications in question are not data acquisition processes or anything
requiring low level drivers. But the point you aren't getting is about
support, and what happens when something goes wrong. 

I made the assumption that the word 'critical' used in the original post
meant that lives could depend on it, eg if the application in question
is responsible for scheduling medical test and sending results to the
right person. In my experience the platform for 'critical' applications
like this is that they are sized and specified very tightly by the
vendor, and if you have ever been in the role of support for such a
thing you'll understand why.

So I agree with you that the application will almost certainly work and
work perfectly, but everyone is very sensitive about legal
responsibilities these days, and if someone died and it was determined
that a computer failure caused the results of a medical test to be lost
or delayed and that that was a contributing factor to their death, and
it turns out that you used an unsupported system configuration to run
the software on, then take a guess what happens next - the fact that it
wasn't Xen or VMWare's fault will have nothing to do with the outcome of
the inquiry...

James


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