zvr@ntua.gr (Alexios Zavras) (05/03/91)
Hi everyone!
I would like to get some opinions on the decision we are facing:
We have a HP9000 850S, which has a number of terminals (say,
around 20), and is also on a net with a variety of otehr machines
(mostly suns). The idea is to upgrade the whole system, i.e. to
give better performance to a number of users.
One way to go is to upgrade the 850S to 865S (I think I have
the right numbers), which involves adding a processor, 16MB RAM
and two 26/64MB controllers. The problems is that the price HP
quotes for this is, to say the least, *very* high (prices in
Greece are a lot different than the States, but we're talking
$136,000 here: I suppose the equivalent in US should be about
the half (?)).
As you can probably guess, we thought of better ways to invest
that kind of money: get some snakes (the 9000/700 machines).
Possibilities include a 750 and a few 720, or just a bunch of 720s.
Now, keep in mind that the 850 already has 2GB disk, so it
would be a sort of file server to the new machines. Would it
be able to handle the load, or would it crash from network requests ?
So, another possibility is getting an I/O card for the 850S and
some 700s, to help it cope with the traffic from the faster snakes.
What do you all think ?
Any opinion would be much appreciated,
-- zvr --
+---------------------------+ Alexios Zavras (-zvr-)
| H eytyxia den exei enoxes | zvr@ntua.gr
+-----------------------zvr-+ zvr@theseas.ntua.gr
Somebody said it couldn't be done / But he with a chuckle replied,
Maybe it couldn't, but he would be one / Who never said no till he tried.
So he buckled right in / With a brace and a grin
And if he was worried, he hid it,
He started to sing / As he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done
And he did it.mike@socrates.umd.edu (mike santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sys Staff)) (05/04/91)
zvr@ntua.gr (Alexios Zavras) writes: >Hi everyone! Howdy. > I would like to get some opinions on the decision we are facing: > We have a HP9000 850S, which has a number of terminals (say, >around 20), and is also on a net with a variety of otehr machines >(mostly suns). The idea is to upgrade the whole system, i.e. to >give better performance to a number of users. > One way to go is to upgrade the 850S to 865S (I think I have >the right numbers), which involves adding a processor, 16MB RAM >and two 26/64MB controllers. The problems is that the price HP ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What do you mean by this? >quotes for this is, to say the least, *very* high (prices in >Greece are a lot different than the States, but we're talking >$136,000 here: I suppose the equivalent in US should be about ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sounds about right. Specs on 865S: 53 (integer) MIPS 11.4 (double-precision) MFLOPS 768K Cache (256K I + 512K D) 8K TLB (2KB pages) The 865S was the fastest HP-PA 1.0 processor HP had until HP-PA 1.1 stuff came out (e.g. Snakes). Model 870/100 was same SPU but had capability to be upgraded in-cabinet to two of these processors, 870/200. Both 870 models had 256K additional I cache. >the half (?)). > As you can probably guess, we thought of better ways to invest >that kind of money: get some snakes (the 9000/700 machines). Terminals... You using HP asynch MUXs for this or TELNET terminal servers? You will need to use TELNET servers to do any serious asynch user-interaction on the snakes due to the user-license restriction (2 or 8 user), but if they come in over TELNET, no problem (thank goodness), they all cound as 1 user, so... >Possibilities include a 750 and a few 720, or just a bunch of 720s. > Now, keep in mind that the 850 already has 2GB disk, so it What kinda drives are these? How are they connected, HPIB or HPFL? Your likely to have a problem with either on the snakes, especially HPFL, although there is an EISA HPIB controller. Does anyone at HP want to comment on whether the CS/80 and SS/80 stuff is going to be/is supported driver-wise on HP-UX 8.X on the snakes? Can you, using this card, attach 793X disk drives and 7974/7978/7980 tape drives? >would be a sort of file server to the new machines. Would it >be able to handle the load, or would it crash from network requests ? The Model 850S has a combined (I & D) 128KB cache, the Snakes have at LEAST double this, TLB is 4K on 850S, ? on Snakes (can't find, but page size in HP-PA has doubled from 2K to 4K and the TLB has some interesting optimization that allow mapping multiple contiguous virtual pages). > So, another possibility is getting an I/O card for the 850S and >some 700s, to help it cope with the traffic from the faster snakes. I/O card for the 850S? Huh? What kind of I/O card? > What do you all think ? It seems to be a hot topic on the list right now just how well the Snakes do in a multiuser environment, apparently no one has had the ability to find out yet. What would be neat to see is a real benchmark along these lines, the TPC-A would do quite nicely. Anybody (esp. at HP) done any preliminary studies along these lines with some popular database like Informix or something? Would help gauge multiuser performance. >Any opinion would be much appreciated, >-- zvr -- > +---------------------------+ Alexios Zavras (-zvr-) > | H eytyxia den exei enoxes | zvr@ntua.gr > +-----------------------zvr-+ zvr@theseas.ntua.gr >Somebody said it couldn't be done / But he with a chuckle replied, >Maybe it couldn't, but he would be one / Who never said no till he tried. >So he buckled right in / With a brace and a grin > And if he was worried, he hid it, >He started to sing / As he tackled the thing > That couldn't be done > And he did it. -- Mike Santangelo (mike@socrates.umd.edu) UNIX / VMS Systems Manager
randy@imagen.com (randy scofield) (05/04/91)
Greetings: We have a HP 9000 series 300 workstation that is used mostly for schematic capture. The system is quite slow, and hard to work with. I have been told that the reason is lack of memory. To get more memory we need to buy a new cpu. It is also recommended that we get a larger disk. With credits for return and such, the price still comes out to be near $13,000.00. My question is this. Since I can buy a whole new snake workstation for near the same price, does the PA platform support DCS? How about Valid? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Randy Scofield
cag@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Craig Gleason) (05/10/91)
> The Model 850S has a combined (I & D) 128KB cache, the Snakes have >at LEAST double this, TLB is 4K on 850S, ? on Snakes (can't find, >but page size in HP-PA has doubled from 2K to 4K and the TLB >has some interesting optimization that allow mapping multiple >contiguous virtual pages). The Snakes TLB's are split I/D, 96 entries (fully associative) each. There are also "super-TLB" entries which can map up to 16MB of contiguous memory each. Several PA-RISC 1.1 features were added to cut the TLB miss penalty and improve TLB performance in general (including the page size change mentioned above). Snakes caches are 128kB instruction, 256kB data for the 720/730 and 256kB I/256kB D for the 750. These are direct mapped, as opposed to the two-way associative caches on the 870 (I'm not sure exactly what configuration the 865 is). Craig Gleason