Performance on a 3/280

[Glenn Pitcher]

I'm the new Sys Admin on a 3/280 with the following features:

  32M memory
  ~1.5G formatted disk capacity
  2 ALM-2 boards with all 32 ports used.
  supports 6 printers
  Serves a server for 2 diskless 3-50's
  Runs *heavy* Informix database apps
  34M of swap on first disk
  All database tables and indexes on the second disk

Since I started at this job, everyone has been asking me what is causing the
system to be so slow.  I'm trying to convice my boss that there are two things
that seem to be affecting the performance. 1) lack of memory and 2) low MIPS
cpu.  

What I'm looking for from the user community is to start a conversation on 
experiences that other Sys Admins have had with this machine.  Sun is really
trying to do everything they can to get us to upgrade to a Sun-4.  I can see
their points (expandability and continued (?) support)  but I would like to
see us squeze some more performance out of the existing system.

Another issue I want to bring up is that of running Informix 4.0 on the same
platform.  Apparently, about one month before I came on, they installed this
newest version but found that performance was horible.  We paid Informix
something like $1000.00 for them to tell us that they have never seen a problem
like this before and there's nothing they can do.  (don't you just love great
support?)

Can anyone give me *any* input on either of these two matters??

Thanks,
Glenn Pitcher
hp-sdd!teamnet!gpitcher (home)
ucsd!lyon!gpitcher (work)