Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:20176 comp.unix.wizards:20762 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!neil From: neil@uninet.cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Looking for a big Unix box Keywords: BSD Unix compatible software macsyma Message-ID: <1990Feb25.075337.22513@zardoz.cpd.com> Date: 25 Feb 90 07:53:37 GMT References: <1990Feb23.231206.26885@ucselx.sdsu.edu> Sender: news@zardoz.cpd.com (usenet news administrator) Reply-To: neil@uninet.UUCP (Neil Gorsuch) Distribution: na Organization: Uninet Peripherals, Santa Ana, CA, USA Lines: 54 In article nash@ucselx.sdsu.edu (Ron Nash) writes: >I am throwing this to the collective net wisdom (:-). I am asking for >suggestions and any experiences good or bad to guide us in our search. >The main uses of the computer will be teaching Unix and programming, >and research. We have Macsyma and Lisp users and neural-network >research that can be quite a drain. >We are looking for a Unix engine that will support at least 100 >concurrent users. It would be nice if it could be expanded to support >more users if needed. The Unix should be BSD or be BSD compatible. A >major concern is compatability of BSD software. Here's one way to do it that will definitely save you big bucks. Instead of buying a single BIG machine for a BIG price, look to where the best deal is in (MIPS+Mbytes/$), which is currently desktop workstations, and buy some of those, TO BE USED AS MULTI-USER MACHINES. For instance, how about using 10 Sparcstations (or substitute your own favorite brand) as multi-user machines. Actually, I would only put in 5 and put 20 users per machine, but you might want to be more conservative and put in 10 with 10 users each. If you make each one a "dataless" client of an appropriate server, you will have a VERY peppy 10 (20) user machine. There's a nifty way to add a bunch of serial ports to desktop workstations without using the ethernet, so that shouldn't be a problem. Each Sparcstation is 12.5 MIPS or so, can have up to 64 Mbytes of memory, can have Gigabytes of 16 mS disk storage, and is BSD ported/compatible, so they should handle your needs. And with recent/upcoming announcements, you will probably be putting in 27 MIPS machines instead of 12.5 MIPS machines if you wait a few months 8-). Personally, I would even skip the server and sprinkle the user's files amoungst the workstations, with various NFS cross-mounts, while making sure to put as many user's files on the workstations that they mostly log onto as is possible. You should be able to do that with a lot of the students and most of the professors. You can be very creative in how you cross-mount user's home directories, while still backing everyone up each night over the network with a few Exabyte tapes. The entire "system" will be much more reliable, since you will have a number of machines so that one machine going down will not cripple all of your users. With the money that you save on a maintanence contract for a big machine, you could even have spare workstations lying around, and have users files duplicated on more than one disk, with automatic nightly duplication, so that in the event of a disk or workstations crash you could just switch around your NFS mountings for fast "repair". The system is very easily expandible, just add more workstations. In the case of the Sparcstations, you can even have 2 ethernet interfaces in each for ease of networking configuration. When researchers clamor for a workstation instead of a terminal, you can accomodate them without bogging down your primary "system" ethernet backbone by putting the private workstations on a second ethernet interface in the workstation that was their "login" computer. -- Neil Gorsuch INTERNET: neil@uninet.cpd.com UUCP: uunet!zardoz!neil MAIL: 1209 E. Warner, Santa Ana, CA, USA, 92705 PHONE: +1 714 546 1100 Uninet, a division of Custom Product Design, Inc. FAX: +1 714 546 3726 AKA: root, security-request, uuasc-request, postmaster, usenet, news