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From: edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
Message-ID: <5821@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 14:48:17 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5821
Posted: Sat Nov  7 14:48:17 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Nov-87 02:23:47 EST
References: <235@bernina.UUCP> <933@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <6633@apple.UUCP> <5790@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <33128@sun.uucp> <6655@apple.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu ()
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 34
Keywords: NFS, diskless, A/UX

In article <6655@apple.UUCP> phil@apple.UUCP (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>If SUN 3/260 can really only handle 10-12 diskless before sluggishness
>overwhelms, then isn't the true cost of those 10-12 diskless workstations
>= workstation_cost + 1/10 or 1/12 of 3/260 cost?
>
>And what if a hard disk is much less than 1/10 or 1/12 of a 3/260, and
>said hard disk allows 20-24 workstations per server?
>
>I am very interested in the performance and cost tradeoffs in this area
>and would like input - it will affect Apple A/UX development priorities.
>                          ----

Of course it depends on what the users on the clinets are doing.  If they
login just to read their mail and do an occassional n/troff, then you
could probably get by with 15-20 workstations on a server.

On the other hand, we have a computer science class that runs some heavy-duty
software and they were forced to run without SunWindows (because it is a real
resource hog).  They either ran the X window system or often no window
manager at all (yuk!), so that the swapping and paging load didn't kill
the clients or the server.

Sun was supposed to be running some test of workstations with local disks
for swapping and paging, running under heavy load.  Has anyone heard the
results?  In my opinion, this is the way to do it (the minimum-disk
workstation).

Edward Moy
Academic Computing Services
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

edmoy@opal.Berkeley.EDU
ucbvax!opal!edmoy