Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!occrsh!uokmax!apple!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!virtue!aukuni.ac.nz!russell From: russell@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Russell J Fulton;ccc032u) Newsgroups: comp.unix.large Subject: Re: Survey Keywords: Hola! Message-ID: <1990Sep11.040014.6958@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> Date: 11 Sep 90 04:00:14 GMT References: <6f7y02Ubc6wm01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <25894@boulder.Colorado.EDU> Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand. Lines: 22 What is a large Unix system? --- Probably anything with over 100 regular users. This eliminates individual workstations but should include clusters of workstations run from a server as well as systems serving lots of ascii terminals. We operate a SGI 4D/240S with is accessed by terminals on the network, either PCs or terminals connected to terminal servers. We usually have about 50 users on the system with about 1000 registered users. We also have a SG PI (Personal Iris, diskless) and a SUN 4/330) both of which mount most of the 240S's disk via NFS. I think this group could provide a useful forum for the discussion of issues relating to maintaing and using large systems. This is not an area in which UNIX excells. For instance we are currently having problems with the 240S crashing and not leaving any evidence as to the reason. It is very frustrating for us and our local support agents because we can't even decide if the problem is hardware or software. A workstaion crashing every now and again is a nuisance for us its disasterous. --