knechod%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kevin Nechodom) (06/04/91)
HELP!!! My department has at least 3 independent systems on Sun, and I am wanting an HP 730. I have put together a system of one 730 server and two of the new 700/RX monochrome X-terminals for about the same cost as 1 Sun SparcStation 2 and 2 IPC's. The HP system would have about 1G on two disks (1 controller), while the Sun system would have about 1.3G on two disks and 200Mb locally on each workstation. I have Sun telling me that X-terminals are not good for a development environment, and that binary compatibility between all workstations is a Good Thing. Hanging X-terminals will degrade performance for everyone on a big run, while a separate workstation will not. I have HP telling me that even loading down the server with two X-terminals would not bring the performance down to the SS2, and definitely not down to the IPC's. They have also told me that there is no big deal having a workstation with a CISC chip running off a RISC server, and I could put some of their recently announced 425's if I really wanted local workstations. I anticipate mostly database (don't know what yet) and stats (probably SAS) applications. I have been told that Sparc floating point is abysmal, but that DB and stats are mostly I/O intensive, and Sun is better than HP for I/O. My boss would like a good level of cooperation within the department, and it seems that buying Sun would do that. My own biases are towards HP. We have been an HP3000 customer for over 11 years, and I have been very happy with their machinery and support. I chuckled to myself about HPUX 8.05 getting shared libraries, because I have been using them since Day 1. What a quandrary! What am I missing? I'm running a 2 minute drill here, but I hate making snap decisions! I am open to any and all comments (notice the cross-posting). Kevin Nechodom University of Utah CSSRD/STACC (801) 581-6410 nechodom@cc.utah.edu Disclaimer I: I know nothing about my ideas. Disclaimer II: The University knows nothing about my ideas. ergo: I and the University are one.
perry@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Perry Scott) (06/06/91)
>..., and Sun is better than HP for I/O. I'd have to question this assumption. The 730 is not your grandfather's HP. The rumor I've heard that the 720 performs very well against SS2 in the SAS demo, somewhere >2X. Your HP Rep should have the real information. If he doesn't, he should call the factory. The LAN traffic generated by X fairly minimal when compared to other LAN operations. Your mileage may vary, but X has never been a LAN hog on my cable. Booting 720 diskless off another 720 is 5 seconds of hell. >My boss would like a good level of cooperation within the department, and it >seems that buying Sun would do that. It is true that ((HP-UX != SunOS) && (HP-UX != BSD)). You have to weigh the disadvantages of being multilingual against the performance advantage of the 730. Perry Scott HP Ft Collins The opinions expressed here are mine and mine only, they do not represent an official or un-official statement of the Hewlett-Packard Company.
kev@hpcpbla.HP.COM (Kevin Jones) (06/06/91)
> Sun is better than HP for I/O. See the MAY 1991 edition of UNIX REVIEW - Miller Freeman publications. It contains a report on the 9000/730CRX, with comparitive data for the SPARCII, IBM + others. Their I/O benchmark (which isn't all that extensive, but at least its independant) indicates performance of the Snake is 50% better than the SPARCII. There's also comparitive data on MIPS/FLOPS/*Stones etc.... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Jones. | Hewlett Packard Ltd, | Computer Peripherals Bristol, kev%hpcpbla@hplb.hpl.hp.com | Filton Road, | Stoke Gifford, Tel: 011 44 272 799910 (ext 22351) | Bristol. BS12 6QZ. | ENGLAND. ----------------------------------------------------------------- This response does not represent the official position of, or statement by, the Hewlett-Packard Company. The above data is provided for informational purposes only. It is supplied without warranty of any kind.
bcripe@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Brian E. Cripe) (06/08/91)
> Hanging X-terminals will degrade performance for everyone on a big > run, while a separate workstation will not. This week at Xhibition I attended a panel on workstations vs. X-terminals. Somebody from HP said that their data shows <1% LAN loading per X-terminal and sombody from Tektronix said their studies show 0.5% LAN loading per X-terminal. Everybody agreed that the most common limiting factor for X-terminal performance is the amount of RAM in the host system. Brian Cripe Hewlett-Packard
Noel Maddy <YTHNMADD@MTUS5.BITNET> (06/14/91)
In article <1991Jun4.164957.10585@hellgate.utah.edu>, knechod%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kevin Nechodom) says: > .. >I anticipate mostly database (don't know what yet) and stats (probably SAS) >applications. I have been told that Sparc floating point is abysmal, but that >DB and stats are mostly I/O intensive, and Sun is better than HP for I/O. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Actually, I believe SAS (and probably most other stat packages??) always uses floating point internally, even if the number is an integer. This would make floating-point performance a larger criterion. .. > >Kevin Nechodom >University of Utah >CSSRD/STACC >(801) 581-6410 >nechodom@cc.utah.edu >Disclaimer I: I know nothing about my ideas. >Disclaimer II: The University knows nothing about my ideas. >ergo: I and the University are one. -- Noel Maddy ythnmadd@mtus5.bitnet
nenaas@ulrik.uio.no (Nils-Eivind Naas) (06/17/91)
In article <91165.115530YTHNMADD@MTUS5.BITNET> YTHNMADD@MTUS5.BITNET (Noel Maddy) writes: In article <1991Jun4.164957.10585@hellgate.utah.edu>, knechod%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kevin Nechodom) says: > .. >I anticipate mostly database (don't know what yet) and stats (probably SAS) >applications. I have been told that Sparc floating point is abysmal, but that >DB and stats are mostly I/O intensive, and Sun is better than HP for I/O. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Actually, I believe SAS (and probably most other stat packages??) always uses floating point internally, even if the number is an integer. This would make floating-point performance a larger criterion. In fact, many statistical packages use exclusively double precision (64-bit) floating point for all numerical work. They even store data on file in this format. At least, both SAS and SPSS do so by default. Then, stats are more than cross-tabulation tables! Try running multi-nomial logit or tobit analyses on a 2000 case survey, and you will discover that "stats" can be computationally demanding as well ! .. > >Kevin Nechodom >University of Utah >CSSRD/STACC >(801) 581-6410 >nechodom@cc.utah.edu >Disclaimer I: I know nothing about my ideas. >Disclaimer II: The University knows nothing about my ideas. >ergo: I and the University are one. -- Noel Maddy ythnmadd@mtus5.bitnet Nils-Eivind Naas nen@isaf.no ISAF, Oslo or nenaas@ulrik.uio.no