SUN 4/390 as Compute/Timesharing Server (Response Summary)
John F. Fowler
jffowler at gamera.cns.syr.edu
Wed Oct 4 03:14:25 AEST 1989
A week ago I posted a query about the feasibility of using a 4/390 for a
general timesharing compute server. I received quite a few responses,
most of which were requests for me to share any answers I got .....
apparently others are thinking along the same lines.
Generally, of those that have looked into it, the responses are positive.
There were 2 mailings from people that had tried it and were unsuccessful;
here they are:
>>
>> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 89 13:17:03 -0400
>> To: "John F. Fowler" <uunet!gamera.cns.syr.edu!jffowler at uunet.UU.NET>
>> From: jam at philabs.Philips.Com (John A. Murphy)
>> Subject: Re: SUN 4/390 as Compute/Timesharing Server?
>>
>> My experience with a 4/280 is it would grind to a halt under those
>> conditions. We have had just a few users running compute bound simulations
>> and it can cause several server dropouts to clients. Response on the
>> machine also slows considerably. I can't comment about a 390.
>>
>> Murf
..
>>
>> Date: Sat, 30 Sep 89 21:11:06 EDT
>> To: jffowler at gamera.cns.syr.edu
>> From: jdh at bu-it.BU.EDU
>> Subject: re: SUN 4/390 as Compute/Timesharing Server?
>>
>> We don't have any 4/390s, but we have several 4/280s
>>
>> My experience has been that they don't fair very well as timesharing
>> engines; actually, and I may be in the minority with this, the 3/280
>> seems to better handle generic light timesharing for n users ( where n
>> equals about 10 to 20 users )
>>
>> There's been a lot of conjecture as to this, but the best reason that
>> I've heard is that the sun4 has 7 (8?) register windows and this
>> affects the rate at which it can do context switches. When you have
>> more than 7 or 8 active users performance is sluggish.
>>
>> If you're looking for just a MIPs box with light to medium timesharing
>> it works pretty well ( though the 4/280 is probably somewhat less than
>> the rated 10 MIPS, maybe 8 or 9 MIPs )
>>
>> Jason Heirtzler
>> Distributed Systems Group
>> Information Technology
>> Boston University
There were 2 responses from enthusiastic Solbourne users. Both of them
were essentially doing this in addition to other tasks with their
Solbournes and were happy. They were Paul Graham
<pjg at urth.acsu.buffalo.edu> and David Botticello
<botticel at orion.crd.ge.com>.
There were 9 responses from people that were using 4/260, 280, or 390
hardware successfully for this purpose. One of the constant themes in
these messages was the need for adequate memory. Everybody that mentioned
it was using a minimum of 32MB. Mark Foster of UPenn has a rule of thumb
of 1MB per user, which seems to coincide with what other people are doing.
Here are the respondents:
Ken Rossman <ken at watsun.cc.columbia.edu> - 4/280s, 15-30 academic users
per machine, very happy.
Scott Schwartz <shire.cns.psu.edu> - two 4/280s, typically 10 users & some
crunching.
David Oliver <oliver at smectos.gang.umass.edu> - 4/260, serves 5 diskless, 4
diskfull, 20-40 timesharing users, running pretty full.
Mark Bell <markb at jpl-cray.jpl.nasa.gov> - 4/280, 30-40 users plus large
Informix database jobs; pleased.
Charles Buchholtz <chip at pender.ee.upenn.edu> - 4/280, typically 15 users
and some large number crunching (SPICE).
Mark Foster, <mark at central.cis.upenn.edu>, Ira Winston
<ira at central.cis.upenn.edu> - 4/280s, light timesharing with email and
text formatting, 40-50 logged in, load average usually less than 1 unless
dumping.
Vaughan Pratt <pratt at coraki.stanford.edu> - About to go production on
switch from Vax 8600 to 4/390 after lengthy testing.
Craig Warren <munnari!charlie.oz.au!ccw at uunet.uu.net> - 4/260s, 4/280s,
30-40 students apiece with database work.
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