knechod%peruvian@hellgate.utah.edu (Kevin Nechodom) (06/05/91)
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.