Xref: utzoo comp.sys.apple:13845 comp.sys.apollo:2870 comp.unix.aux:1029 comp.unix.questions:14244 comp.sys.mac:33341 comp.sys.dec:1394 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!crdgw1!crdgw1.ge.com!barnett From: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.apollo,comp.unix.aux,comp.unix.questions,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.dec Subject: Re: Academic workstations Message-ID: <755@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 13 Jun 89 10:35:18 GMT References: <3160@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) Followup-To: comp.sys.apple Organization: GE Corp. R & D, Schenectady, NY Lines: 46 In-reply-to: abstine@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Arthur Stine) In article <3160@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, abstine@sun (Arthur Stine) writes: > >One cannot realize the maximum potential of the >higher performance workstation by using them as a diskless workstation. I question this statement. See below. >Here at Clarkson University, we have a number of Sun workstations (3/50's, >3/60's, 386i's) which are served off of a couple of 3/260 servers. The 3/50's >are primarily diskless, but the others all have local disk. I would say you have your machines configured backwards. The 3/50's need the disk because they are the ones most likely to page, and if they have local disks, they won't flood the network. >Performance >is adaquete for the diskless workstations, but when the network becomes >heavily used, the diskless stations feel the pinch. I would say you have a network configuration problem. >Diskless only stations (in my opinion) are the wave of the past. Without >higher bandwidth networks, they have become throttled by the available >network technology. I will agree that an application that has to work with a lot of data (Image processing, etc) will need a fast disk. We have 300 Sun's here, and 80-90% are diskless. They are all on a single Ethernet (with several seqments and smart bridges). If a machine is slow, we add more memory. If we can't (like a Sun 3/50), we try to add a local SCSI disk to eliminate the swaping. Some high end servers have their own disk, that's true. But with the coming of network window systems, and diskless machines with 64 megabytes of memory, I do not agree with your statement about diskless machines being passe. In our experience, we see a continued use of diskless workstations. If we had to convert over to diskfull workstations, we would have to double or triple the support staff needed to keep them all running. -- Bruce G. Barnett a.k.a. uunet!crdgw1.ge.com!barnett barnett@crdgw1.UUCP