Need info about server-configurations

[Ben Lippolt]

In the near future we expect to have the following situation: about 10
SUN-3's (2 or 3 diskless, the others have local swap-disks), some
Sparcstations (starting with 3 but slowly increasing), and about 40 PC's
with PC-NFS. I proposed a solution with a SparcServer (370 or 390 with
about 1 Gb disk), but our computer-department doesn't like Sun that much
(they're in favor of Digital). They agree that we need a fast server, but
think a DEC-machine (or perhaps some other brand) could do the job. 

My questions are:
 - Which power should the server have? My sales-rep said that Sparcstations
   shouldn't be served by a slow machine (SUN-3 or VAX-785 class). He also
   said that the CPU-power (ie. MIPS) plays a role in the capacity of the
   server, because a faster machine could utilise the ethernet-interface
   better.
 - In case of a DEC-server, which one would be sufficient?
 - Is it possible to boot SUNs from a non-SUN machine?
 - Which solution do YOU favor, a SparcServer-3X0 or a DEC fileserver?

Thanks for any info.


Ben J. Lippolt    

PTT Research Neher Laboratories         [ E-mail : BJ_Lippolt at pttrnl.nl ]
P.O. Box 421, 2260 AK Leidschendam,     [ BITnet : LIPPOLT at HLSDNL5      ]
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