Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!uunet!aplcomm!fmonaldo
From: fmonaldo@aplcomm.JHUAPL.EDU (Monaldo Francis M. S1R x8648)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Dream System
Keywords: Rolls Royce, but poor marketing...
Message-ID: <327@aplcomm.JHUAPL.EDU>
Date: 12 Dec 90 14:18:35 GMT
References: <54@gauss.mmlai.UUCP> <25849@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1990Dec11.193127.23709@actrix.gen.nz> <25876@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Organization: JHU/APL, Laurel, MD
Lines: 47

Arguments between buying SUN vs HP computers are interesting, because we were   faced with this same dilemma 2 years ago.  In the past, for technical
computing we had purchased HP computers.  We were given significant funds to
set up a small network of workstations and could choose between SUN's and
HP's.                                            

At the time we were working with researchers at Harvard, who used SUNs. The
questions at the time was do we jump aboard the SUN bandwagon or do we
maintain our long satisfying relationship with HP. We did both.

We purchased an HP9000 Series 360 as combination fileserver/workstation an
Seres 319 workstation. About 1 Gbyte of hard disc space was connected to the
HP server. On the SUN side, we purchased 2 SUN 3/60's with enough disc space
to boot up and swap with, and little else. The HP disc was mounted onto the
SUN's file system via NFS. After a couple of years, here is our experience.

(1) It is amazing to me that the systems work together well. The HP file
server and SUN workstations communicate with no problems.

(2) Although significantly more software is available for the SUN's, most
software we use is available on both.  It is, however, a pain to maintain
two sets of software.

(3)The SUN's came with more tools such as an editor. In time, we were able
to accumulate the necessary software for HP. For example, we bought HP's
visual editor, which works great.

(4) In general the CPU speeds have not been a problem, we have generally been
RAM and I/O limited in our processing. We are just now getting to the 
point that the systems have enough RAM. This problem was  particularly
acute for the HP's because X-window is more of a RAM hog than Sun View.

(5) In the long term, I believe our hardware investment in the HP equipment
has better supported. SUn is, in effect, dumping its 68000 support and going
entirely to SPARC. This means we either radically upgrade our hardware or
live with our current systems.  HP is suppoting both the 68000 machines and
the HP-PA RISC systems with an essentially unifie operating system.d        
Upgrades can be made more incremently. Since HP follows the standards,
instead of trying to drive them as much, with the HP equipment, we have
always had X-windows.

Any comments to the above would be appreciated. Let it be said that my
bias has been with the HP machines, but in retrospect, I think we would
have been better off with one vendor (either), less sysstem administration 
headaches.

Frank Monaldo
fmonaldo@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu