Re: GLUG: OT: Solaris/Sun fans, advice pleeze...

[Hendrik Visage <hvisage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 10:53:13AM +0000, Soren Aalto wrote:
> Or even HPUX or AIX fans...I'm spent some of the morning
> looking through tenders for new hardware to "rightsize"
> the current S/390 system here at the university.  The

Sure they don't want a AS400 or a Starfire ;^) ????

> On the Sun front, the proposals are for:
> 
> 420R with 2x440Mhz CPUs, 1GB memory, 18GB OS disk + 72GB RAID array
> 220R with 1x440Mhz CPU, 1GB memory, 2x18GB drives
> 
> or
> 
> 450E with 2x400Mhz CPUs...and as above
> 250E with 1x400Mhz CPU, as above.
The E450 etc. do have a 480MHz option available, ask about it.
Advice:
 DON'T go for the E450 if you are going external RAID controller, but
otherwise it'll be a nice beasty with the internal disks being setup
with software RAID options... sometimes cheaper than the external HW RAID...

Also ask about the SunBlade beasties...

> I dunno how to size these boxes -- the intended application
> is to run Natural/Adabas for as many as 100 concurrent

Ask the Natural/Adabas guys for advice on the hardware needed for your 
environment.

> users.  My *guess* would be that these boxes would
> be adequate, but I dunno what a 440Mhz UltraSparc CPU
> compares to in my world.  The pricing horrifies me,
> however -- when people start talking about R6000 for
> a PCI ethernet controller, etc.

Well... my biggest issue with Sun hardware is the several layers of 
people adding and taking their profits...
 However, DO ask for comparative pricing from ALL the suppliers, PQ, Ariel,
DD, CCH etc.

Otherwise, comparing to the PeeCee world, these machines are "Plug-and-Work",
not plug-a-play-and-pray...

The UltraSPARC is a 64bit CPU, with VIS long before MMX
was on the cards for Intel (I'm talking end 1995). Doing I/O, these thingies
would beat nearly every Quad Pentium out there, off course it depends on the
inteligence (or rather lack of idiocy) on the solaris admin/configurator's
side. (VIS: Visual Instruction Set, nearly the same things as MMX, 
 BTW: AMD had similar type matrix instructions on their FPUs for the 386...)

Doing RC5des or fractal calculations is preferably left to a beowulfe cluster,
just let this thing do the I/O for your (Which you might find the S390 wasn't
too bad in doing...)
> 
> Does anybody have any comments about Solaris vs HPUX 11?
> My gut predjudice is: there are probably more Solaris
> hackers out there than HPUX guys, and certainly this

Sometimes true.

> is true when it comes to Internet-related stuff.  I am
> looking at the "rightsizing" as a major opportunity to
> start nudging our MIS people in the direction of things
> like web-based applications and such.  I see that HPUX
> "comes with Netscape FastTrack server," which is no

Solaris 8 ships with a iPlanet Webserver and Suite of software,
including a Oracle 8i for in house development etc.
The httpd from Solaris 8 is Apache, with the zsh, tcsh, bash and
gzip/unzip semi standard, while the companion CD includes GCC , xemacs etc.

> advertisement.  However I also thought I heard that 
> HP was shipping Apache on their boxes now.  What does
> Solaris ship with as an httpd?  I understand that Solaris
> now ships with a supplementary CD with a lot of GNU 
> development stuff on it.  My impression is that the
> "Internet runs on Sun...and FreeBSD, Linux, and sometimes,
> on a good day, on IIS/NT(2k)"

:)

> Which companies have the clearest open source strategy
> (ok, probably IBM...)?  I note that there are license
> fees in the tenders for HPUX, but not for Solaris.  Is
> it really free with the hardware, or is it part of the
> bundle price?

Solaris 8 on less than 9 CPUs doesn need a license, but support
are charged for... advisable to get the SunSolve login ID & password...


> Pricewise there seems to be a clear winner...however I
> also find that I am underwhelmed by the "support" you
> get out there.  I have dealt with some vendors, and
> frankly some of the field engineers working with Sun
> equipment should really go back and play on Windows98.

:( I'll just say that I want my SunSolve login, and only after that
will I log a call, and then start to push for semi immediate escalation to
the solutions centres etc.


-- 
------------------------
Hendrik Visage
hvisage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx