Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ico!ism780c!haddock!news
From: news@haddock.ima.isc.com (overhead)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: fad computing
Message-ID: <15284@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 28 Nov 89 18:34:12 GMT
References: <1128@m3.mfci.UUCP> <1989Nov22.175128.24910@ico.isc.com> <3893@scolex.sco.COM> <39361@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <17305@netnews.upenn.edu> <1989Nov25.000120.18261@world.std.com> <89Nov25.051946est.2233@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: suitti@anchovy.UUCP (Stephen Uitti)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Interactive Systems Co
Lines: 79

In article <89Nov25.051946est.2233@neat.cs.toronto.edu> rayan@cs.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) writes:
>[ This article mentions no chips, no brands, no benchmarks.  It is
>  about fuzzy issues as viewed from a systems management perspective.
>
>Like Barry says, hardware technology is NOT the issue at this stage.
>The issues (that I can remember now :-) are:
>Education.
>Psychology.
>Economy.
>Quality of Service.
>Immature Software.
	All very good points.

>In large environments, the workstation concept is a fad.

I don't agree, and in only 62 more lines.  Workstations currently
have plenty of resources, and tend to deliver them cheaper than
fewer, central systems.  Expandability is cheap and
non-disruptive too.

While working for a well known University, I suggested (and we
implemented) replacing large, high maintanance 780s with uVAXen.
We treated the workstations as "mainframes", centrally
administrated, access by terminals (which we already had &
wired).  Total maintance costs were about a fifth of the previous
costs, systems downtime decreased, the upgrade costs were
defrayed by the sale of the old systems (but not alot).  System
response time for individual users was faster bacause there were
more systems, more total cycles, fewer people per machine.  The
"workstations" had more RAM than the old dinosaurs, etc.  It
worked pretty well - the system software was the same, backups
were made daily, users could request files retrieved from backup
with one or two day turn around.  Disk quotas were quadripled and
large spaces were made available for special projects.  The new
disk drives were larger capacity and cheaper by an order of magnitude.

While there, I was asked to spend a few hours helping a professor
in another department.  He had a machine donate to his
department.  It was a minimal machine, but fast, and good enough
for a user with a largish project.  100 MB of usable disk, good
CPU power,...  The only removable media was 8 inch floppy disk.

After giving him a hand with whatever it was, I asked if he made
frequent backups of the system.  He said, "no, it would take too
long".  So, I asked if he made backups of the files he was
working with.  He grumbled, but the answer was still no.  I
advised that backups of some sort should be made.

Needless to say, he never made any backups.  Four months later, I
get a call - it seems his hard disk has crashed, and needs to be
replaced.  He wants to know if anything can be done to retrieve
his data.  Sigh.  Education is expensive.

I have two computers at home.  I do backups in proportion to how
much data I feel I can afford to lose.  The only people I know
who do regular backups of their home machines are those who work
exclusively from floppy disk.  In one case, the person has a hard
disk, but only for system software.  All data files are written
to floppies.  Only those floppies that are at all important get
copied.  In this case, it is the only discipline that works.

The workstation concept works well when the maintenance is done.
At work here, we have a LAN with a bunch of workstations.  We
have someone who is responsible for backups, etc.  We have gone
the route of hiring cheap (inexperienced and unknowledgeable)
help, and found it to be unreliable, and therefore worse than
useless.  Education is expensive, fortunately, we didn't lose
much.  The next step is to learn to make sure that the office
space doesn't get hotter than 80 F on summer weekends...

Our workstations are fast enough so that a central mainframe is
not required.  The workstations are connected well enough that I
can do what is required for my current project, whereever that is
taking place, without getting out of my chair.  I have CPU cycles
and disk throughput to spare, and it has been a blessing.  The
local CPU drives the graphics of my screen without being
completely drained.

Stephen.


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