AUERBACH@sri-csl.arpa (Karl Auerbach) (04/15/86)
I'm working with some folks who have about 2600 users spread across
six ancient PDP 11/70s running various flavors of obsolete Unix kernels.
The main use is electronic mail and some light document formatting.
They use smart terminals to avoid running their screen editors in raw mode.
My question is this: is it even conceivable that this user base could
be squeezed onto a single VAX 8600 running Ultrix?
(By-the-way, I forgot to mention that out of these 2600 users, only about
100 are signed on at any one time.)
Thanks in advance.
--karl-- (Karl Auerbach, Auerbach@sri-csl.arpa)
-------jrw@hropus.UUCP (Jim Webb) (04/16/86)
> I'm working with some folks who have about 2600 users spread across > six ancient PDP 11/70s running various flavors of obsolete Unix kernels. > > My question is this: is it even conceivable that this user base could > be squeezed onto a single VAX 8600 running Ultrix? > > (By-the-way, I forgot to mention that out of these 2600 users, only about > 100 are signed on at any one time.) > This reply is coming from a VAX 8600 running System V Release 2. Right now, there are, let me check, 74 people logged in running mostly vi's, ed's, troff's and nroff's. We have about 400 accounts on the machine and anticipate adding about 200 more before we upgrade to an 8650. I don't think any one machine could handle 2600 accounts unless these users do not use any disk space. I am already on my 5th ra81 with 400. I know I should be hawking 3B20's, but this machine is __FAST__ -- Jim Webb ihnp4!houxm!hropus!jrw
lerner@isi-vaxa.arpa (04/16/86)
In answer to your question Karl ... yes. But, I'm not shure what you really mean by "smart terminals" that decrease cpu load and, it depends upon what kind of mailer software you run and how the terminals interface to the system, ect. Have you looked into a Sun3 configureation? It might be less expensive, both at the outset and in maintainance cost (I am be subtle here by just mentioning maintainance instead of downtime and hardware trouble). We have an 8600 running 4.3bsd and It's got at least 100 users on it (probably not all running at the same time yet) and It doesnt seem daunted at all. I dont know how many sun3s it would take to handle your load (5, maybe less?) and It might prove more fault tolerant (very subtle). I've found SunUnix (based on 4.2) to be better documented and more efficient than 4.2 or ULTRIX and it has more support for networking applications (both sun's distribution and user development). P.S.: In that I dont know what you configuration really is, this may be entirley off the wall but ... If you use terminal servers on the ether net and a SUN goes down, then the user can just connect to another sun3 via the net, but if your 8600 goes down, then the whole show is cooked. 4.3bsd seems to a much better and faster implementation than ULTRIX or 4.2.
stevens@anl-mcs.arpa (04/16/86)
Have you considered machines like the Sequent or Encore. We have both and have done some early benchmarks that seem to indicate that the 12 processor Sequent can keep pace with respect to maintaining good
tim@cithep.UucP (Tim Smith ) (04/20/86)
An 8600 running Ultrix should be the same size as an 8600 running anything else. If you have managed to squeeze 2600 people into 6 pdp-11s, then it should be possible to also squeeze them into an 8600, depending on exactly how it is packaged ( I presume one can get expansion boxes, like a plain vax? ). It will almost certainly get you the world record. However, be aware that the traditional place stuffers prefer a telephone booth or a VW. They might not recognize your record if you use a VAX. -- Tim Smith ihnp4!cithep!tim