Xterminals vs. worksations (was Re: avoiding obsolescence)

[Ray Loyzaga]

In article <4038 at brazos.Rice.edu> ames!ultra!shj at uunet.uu.net (Steve Jay) writes:
> In the veiwpoint of a system administrator, the server/terminal model is
> certainly easier to manage.  However, I think until the economics favor
> server/terminal installations by a very large margin (like 5 or 10 to
> one), workstations will continue to be the prefered model for many
> installations.  The reason is autonomy: who's in charge?
> 
> I have seen a lot of users who will put up with poorer performace, higher
> cost, and more hassles for themselves, just so they can retain control
> over their own computer system.  I spent a long time working for a
> computer center at a large research university, and I was astounded by the
> level of anonmosity toward the computer center, regardless of the quality
> & cost of the services provided.  I have talked to enough folks from other
> installations to know that this is almost universal...nobody loves the
> computer center.  With a central facility, you just can't get away from
> the issues of how the central resource is divided among the users.  The
> administrative hassles of dealing with a central facility are always
> considered much worse than the hassles of running your own machine.  I
> think this is almost entirely an issue of who controls it.  My own machine
> may be a mess, but it's MY mess, and it's none of your business.

I am not talking about truning over control to another department or
computer centre, i am talking about the simplicity of managing a
departmental system, much like an 11/780 with many terminals and moving to
a system of many diskless/dataless workstations and a few servers.  The
administrative costs go up alarmingly.  I am all for people having
autonomy over their own machines, if they want the responsibility of
maintaining their machines and are capable of doing so, or don't care what
their machine is set up like, they just want to use it as is. The problem
that I am addressing is one where the machine users do not want the
responsibility of their own machine administration, they want all the
services available on a centralized system replicated on each workstation,
they want the individual machines to give an environment that really
"feels" like a single system.  All filesystems are visible,
backups/restores are done for them, printers and software systems are
maintained by someone else.

Over here the users want to work on their own area of reserach, some might
consider that system hacking is fun, but most just want a well maintained
computer environment to be provided. The others (mostly paostgrads) get to
play with the system anyway, because we like to cooperate with each other.
For our research users, a centralized computing resource and many
windowing terminals, would be a a lot simpler to maintain than a set of
workstations trying to look like a system.  For our student users, a
centralized system should be the only way to go.