fbag@RICE.EDU (Keith Cooper) (04/17/87)
It seems to me that one selection criterion which is overlooked in all the discussions on the net is how much it costs to keep the machine running. At Rice, we have a lot of experience with SUNs and little with other workstation vendors. Clearly, there is great variation between vendors and, with the same vendor, between configurations. For example, a collection of 8 SUN 3/52's (standalone workstations with local disks) costs substantially more to maintain than the equivalent diskless configuration - 8 3/50's with a 3/160 server. (The local disks on the 3/52's each cost nearly what the much larger faster disk on the server does - in maintenance prices.) I have heard that HP has reasonable maintenance prices and good service. What sort of experience have you had, particularly in places where you have workstations from competing companies? thanks, keith cooper (cooper@rice.edu)