🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5824@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> cswarren@enzyme.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU (Warren Gish) writes:
>You may be able to come up with an initially less expensive system that uses
>diskful clients (i.e., workstations with their own disk drives for swap
>and OS), but my impression is that the longterm cost will actually be higher,
>as in:
>
>	(1) increased system administration costs -- OS upgrades
>	cost more to install, and backup procedures may be more complex.
>
>	(2) more parts to break, more equipment to insure, maybe more
>	desk space given up.
>
>	(3) a server with large disk drives is still a likely necessity.
>
>Often the bulk of the load on a server and the network these days is due
>to swapping on the clients.  In the not-too-distant future, RAM should
>be cheap enough that swapping will be a minor issue.  RAM caches will
>be larger, too.  A Sun-3/50 has only 4 MB RAM, whereas 8+ MB clients
>may be common place in less than a year.  I would discount somewhat
>the current experiences with 4 MB clients.
>
>My vote is for diskless.  I'll also volunteer to beta-test a 128 MB Mac!

(1) Are the sys admin costs higher? Higher than the decreased overall
per system cost? I envisioned a diskful workstation with a clone disk --
never essentially changing, or allowed to be changed by the user. It is
just there to get executable loads and swapping off the net AND off the
server. Do your economics cost out both the net traffic and server usage
decrease?

In article <5821@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> edmoy@opal.berkeley.edu () writes:
>Sun was supposed to be running some test of workstations with local disks
>for swapping and paging, running under heavy load.  Has anyone heard the
>results?  In my opinion, this is the way to do it (the minimum-disk
>workstation).

Yes - I was informed of the results by the person at Berkeley who paid (that's
right - paid SUN to run the tests) but was not given permission to copy or
quote from them. The surprising thing to me at the time was the economics -
in short, if your hard disks start costing the end-user under $5,000, then
diskful starts making more and more sense, and the decrease in useless net
traffic such as paging (O.K. - my biases ARE showing :-) ) is the cherry
on top.

Now since I am not in a position to either copy the report, or buy 3-4 servers
and 60 or so workstations just to run a few scientific tests ( :-) ), I am
wondering if any out there has.

>	(2) more parts to break, more equipment to insure, maybe more
>	desk space given up.
Well, yes (not space, in a Mac II, the extra parts are a disk, a data cable,
and a power cable inside the box). The other hand is that when your server
breaks, your systems are still autonomous, or could be sent to another server
without grossness (I've seen 10 additional diskless systems switched to
another server when the first server went down. 33 diskless systems on
3/280? It didn't work too well).

>	(3) a server with large disk drives is still a likely necessity.
I agree - SUN large servers are very nice boxes. And I'd like to make A/UX
such that I can connect as many Mac II's to SUN servers as possible - but
I am trying to accumulate facts (hard ones) on software priorities. Example,
add even more sophistication to the A/UX SCSI driver to enhance even more
its support of generic SCSI drives, OR, pick up ND-like protocols (or wait
for whatever is in the next NFS release), or what?

As I said, since I don't have the facilities to really test out
the rule of thumb "facts" I've encountered, I'd very much like to
find someone who has. And I also welcome strong feedback on what
Apple should be doing with UNIX A.K.A. A/UX.


Philip K. Ronzone
A/UX Technical Manager

MAIL:  Philip K. Ronzone
       Apple Computer
       Mail Stop 27AJ
       10500 N. DeAnza Blvd.
       Cupertino, CA  95014

PHONE: (408) 973-2509
UUCP:  ...!{sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual,unisoft}!apple!phil