Here is the Summary for the server recommendations. I would like to thank
sun-managers and especially those who responded to my posting, the input
really helped.
Original posting:
>Hello,
>We are in the process of ordering a SUN workstation to be used as a large
>www/gopher/wais server. We expect to have a lot of data to be offered
>to the internet via these services (let's say 10Gig ; just a guess).
>This machine will be dedicated to this project -- no NFS/compute jobs.
>We expect many telnet/www/gopher/wais/ftp concurrent connections (let's say
>100 as a guess). This would be a peak load. Is a sparcserver 20 model
>612 with 256 MB overkill for the job?
>What would be a good server for this task?
>We have to decide on a machine quickly!
>Thanks for your input.
I received 6 responses from managers with input on how the server could/should
be configured. Three other responses were from individuals who were
interested in my results. For those who don't know a SparcServer 20 model
612 has 2 cpus and a SuperCache. I have it configured with 20Gig of disk
space which is stored in a SPARCstorage array and has a total of 6 SCSI
Buses.
In general:
-----------
4 responses said it was a good choice or overconfigured as server. Which
is fine since money isn't an issue at this juncture. I would much rather
be overconfigured so that we won't have to order some hardware when money is
tight. 1 response said it was under configured as a server for this
project and 1 other response was more informational in content. My personal
feeling is that the server will be quite adaquate if perhaps a little
overkill. I feel the weak point would be the ethernet interface
under extreme load and properly configure the kernel for the task.
In specific:
-----------
Some responses to my post requested that I include other responses in my
summary. Since I only have 6 responses and they are relatively short I
included them here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tog@lan.nsc.com (Todd Glassey - Lan Systems Administrator )
No. it's a good choice! We use similar configs internally
for local servers inside our corporate net. In fact my
group wide binary server (SS20 - 128mb memory, 8 GB Disk)
is a testement to the 20 product.
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: len@netsys.com (Len Rose)
A Sparc20 would be fine.. Just have at least 64 meg (128 if you can afford it).
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Lewis E. Wolfgang" <wolfgang@sunspot@sunspot.nosc.mil>
We have had excellent service from our 690MP with 4 processors.
I would recommend a system that allows expandability beyond even
a model 20. Have you looked into a SPARCserver 1000?
Good luck,
lewie
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nate Mann AP35-1008 x4774 <ndmann@tacl.dnet.ge.com>
DON'T LOCK YOURSELF INTO USING SO-CALLED OPEN SYSTEMS.
Having SUN/HP/DEC/SGI/SCO/IBM flavors of system mgmt experience...
I suggest you examine the capabilities (and limitations) closely
before you commit. Not all open (proprietary) systems can handle
what you've projected.
------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hello,
>
> We are in the process of ordering a SUN workstation to be used as a large
> www/gopher/wais server. We expect to have a lot of data to be offered
> to the internet via these services (let's say 10Gig ; just a guess).
> This machine will be dedicated to this project -- no NFS/compute jobs.
> We expect many telnet/www/gopher/wais/ftp concurrent connections (let's say
> 100 as a guess). This would be a peak load. Is a sparcserver 20 model
> 612 with 256 MB overkill for the job?
>
Is there such a thing as "overkill" for a computer? (Maybe using
a Cray YMP to add two (single digit) numbers together)
8-)
> What would be a good server for this task?
But seriously, You need a high of a network bandwidth as possible.
This means that the critical item in you system will be the network
interface. I havn't found that Sun's network ports are particuarly
fast -- you might want to investigate third-party options for
as second ethernet port.
The second item is the relative throughput of the SBUS vs. the
VMEbus offered on some of the models. (screws up the physical
size of the box but allows for a lot of expansion and a fair
amount of disk). (I don't know the "normal" configuration of a
SS20...haven't kept up.)
The other item is the multi-processor workstations. I have
four processors in my system, but I'm running 4.1.3... I don't
really see any benefit from the extra processors. I need to
upgrade to solaris 2.3.
Given the amount of disk access you are likely to have you
will want to consider multiple SCSI busses with the drives
divided between them. (You can probably statistically predict
which items will be accessed most and place them in "smart" spots).
As far as memory and processing power -- I still subscribe
to the "more is better" and "how much can you afford" philosphies.
sound like a neat project...
-seg
===============================================================================
Steven E. Grevemeyer Phone: (810)574-5106 FAX: -5008
Software Engineering Division (AMSTA-OS)
US Army Tank-Automotive RD&E Center
Vetronics Technology Center Email: grevemes@vtc.tacom.army.mil
Warren, MI 48397-5000
===============================================================================
From: brobbins@mako.Newbridge.COM (Bert Robbins)
>
> We are in the process of ordering a SUN workstation to be used as a large
> www/gopher/wais server. We expect to have a lot of data to be offered
> to the internet via these services (let's say 10Gig ; just a guess).
> This machine will be dedicated to this project -- no NFS/compute jobs.
> We expect many telnet/www/gopher/wais/ftp concurrent connections (let's say
> 100 as a guess). This would be a peak load. Is a sparcserver 20 model
> 612 with 256 MB overkill for the job?
>
> What would be a good server for this task?
>
> We have to decide on a machine quickly!
> Thanks for your input.
Yes, a SS20 Model 612 is overkill. What is the speed of your connection
to the Internet? I beleive that you would be better served with a SS20
Model 50 with two SCSI busses and 64M of memory. Use the money for the
other processors and memory on something that will benefit you internally.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:09:05 CDT