Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ames.arc.nasa.gov!lamaster From: lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: X-terms v. PCs v. Workstations (long) Message-ID: <37638@ames.arc.nasa.gov> Date: 8 Dec 89 16:21:01 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> <1989Nov27.144016.23181@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1989Nov27.213238.2413 wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) writes: >a little background might help. we sell a cad package that's main >claim to fame is that we have large processing and picture creation >programs that let our customer put a little bit of information in and Your customers will decide which way they want to go. Objectively speaking, it may not be the most cost effective way to go for them. The important thing is for you to offer an X interface on the system of their choice. (P.S. We use Ultrix DEC/VAX, SGI 4D Irix, SunOS Sun-3's and Sun-4's, Convex C2xx, and Cray UniCos here :-) >what i have been thinking about recommending using is a "large" main There is no single answer. You will have customers that use all of these arrangements. > utilities, and application programs on disc. only one copy of > application programs that are being used by more than one > person are shared in memory rather than being duplicated on This brings up the question of how you will handle licensing. Frame Technologies and Sun both have distributed license server arrangements so that the number of active programs is what you pay for. This type of arrangement is now a necessity for third party software like yours. > Disadvantages: > > * can you upgrade the terminal to use X11R4 (or whatever). does > this make a difference? If you buy the right type of system, you can. This is a requirement. We have a number of NCD X terminals here (B&W) and they are downloaded from a SunOS host. I would recommend against buying a system with everything in ROM. > * everything that goes to the screen must go over the lan. highly > graphically oriented programs may use up a lot of the lan's > bandwidth. This is not an issue. The amount of LAN traffic is always *less* than what you would have if you had individual workstations, believe me. NFS is much more consumptive of LAN bandwidth. Diskless machines are a real problem. We don't have any completely diskless machines in this facility. >PC's running X windows > * for programs that run under dos, all of the disadvantages of > decentralized computing. Exactly. This is a very expensive solution if you figure the cost of the time required to support it. Also, what about resolution? IMHO, you need at least 1024x1024 resolution and, can you get that, and at reasonable cost, in the PC based solution? But, some of your customers will want to do it, so you might as well be ready. >diskless workstations > * swap space for each workstation must be reserved on the main > server. In my experience, these always end up as workstations with local tmp and swap, described below, before long, because of excess network traffic and because it is wasteful of the server CPU, which will also be a bottleneck. >disk based workstations >X terminals: > * are they really the cheapest option? Color, or B&W? B&W are cheap. If you are going to color, you might as well buy a color workstation with a local swap/system disk. B&W X terminals are a *very* cost effective approach. > * are they really fast enough to do useful work? Yes. But don't forget to put the MIPS back in the central server! I recommend at least 1 VAX equivalent (VUPS, SPECmark, whatever) per X user. Just a Sun-3/50, really. But, if you have 16 users, that is a Sun-4/490 or SGI 4D/210 or DEC 5810 or whatever, roughly speaking. > * am i going to be stuck two years from now when X11R6 comes out and > my X terminal is X11R3 based? No. Not if you buy the right kind. >pc's running X: Not recommended IMHO. >diskless workstations: > * will they bog down the network so much that to make them useless? Yes. >disk based workstations: > * could this really be the cheapest system when everything is > considered? For CAD work, still a good bet. With individual workstations, you get "fair share scheduling" automatically. Use local system/swap, plus a centrally administered user-file system server with backups, etc. >please mail or post your replies. i will try to summarize the mail >responses that i get. You need a better email address to reply to! Hugh LaMaster, m/s 233-9, UUCP ames!lamaster NASA Ames Research Center ARPA lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov Moffett Field, CA 94035 Phone: (415)694-6117