Repl requirments comments

[Paul Leach <paulle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So, I'm now here, and I've managed to catch up a bit (so forgive me if I
accidently tread trodden ground).

I don't see anywhere in the requirements spec what I thought the number one
customer requirement would be -- that replicas be _able_ to be 100%
completely faithful totally functional clones of one another (although
perhaps out of date) (An aside -- being customers they would really rather
have it completely consistent and always available for updates too, even
though that's impossible). Let me call this the "perfect copy" model, for
short.

The reason for their desire is simple: what customers always say they want
is to be able to have an environment where they've got all their DS replicas
from Vendor A, and when Vendor A's prices or performance or whatever starts
to annoy them, go out and buy a DS from vendor B and plug it in, and it just
works exactly like those from vendor A -- even when all of vendor A's
replicas happen to be down or inaccessible.

The "perfect copy" model is what I think customers mean by "replication",
and the multivendor interop and interchangability is what I think they
expect from a replication "standard".

I know for a fact that if Vendor A happens to be Microsoft and we say we
support the replication standard, and the customer can't bring in vendor B
as above, we'll take 20 tons of sh*t. And, these days, they'll write their
Senator in addition.

So, if there is no intent to provide the perfect copy model, then I strongly
suggest we don't call it "replication".

Comments?

Paul