SUMMARY - Sparc2 as Multiuser System

[Hal Bloom]

Many thanks to those who responded to the following query:

  I'm interested in whether anyone has had experience using a
  SPARCserver 2 as a multiuser system.

  The intended use for the system would be reading news, reading mail,
  and the editing associated with such tasks.  There would most likely
  be 24-30 simultaneous users.  Could a SPARCserver 2 with adequate
  memory handle this type of load?  How much memory would one want?


I received three respones from people who were running a SPARC2 as a
multiuser system.  The basic summary is that a SPARC2 should be more than
adequate for my needs.  Excerpts from the reponses follow:

X-From Ric Anderson ( ric at cs.arizona.edu):

We just got an SS2 to replace an aging Vax-8650 as a general cycle server,
mail reading place, and news reading place for those who don't have access
to workstations in our department.

We put 64MB RAM in it, the 207MB Sun internal disk, and a Sun S-Bus SCSI
controller.  We then got 4 Fuji 2266SA disks from R-Squared, which provide
an 885MB C partition (that's used+avail, as opposed to "kbytes" which is
983983).  I put 2 of the fuji's on the internal scsi controller, and two
on the S-bus one.

This machine is our central mail/news machine, and seems to run quite
well.  It also supports nntp news readers from other workstations, and
exports a filesystem for one of our researchers who bought the 4th disk
with his grant.  So far, i've seend 27 people at most on the machine.

X-From: ira at cis.upenn.edu (Ira Winston)

We use a Sparcserver 2 with 64mb, 3x669mb disks, 1x207mb disk, 2.2gb tape
and CDROM drive as a timesharing machine for 30-40 simultaneous users
running mail, news, emacs and tex.  The machine is also our primary
nameserver and mail relay.  most of the users accessing it have NCD
X-terminals.  This machine replaced a 4/280 with 48mb and 2gb of SMD disk.
The Sparcserver 2 handles the load that was starting to be a problem on
the 4/280.  Furthermore, tex runs 2-3 faster.

X-From: beauchem at DMI.USherb.CA (Denis Beauchemin)

Though I didn't have any experiences with a 330, I can tell you that our
SS2 currently supports around 12 programmers day long.  They produce
Informix stuff (with lots of cc and SQL queries).  They are connected
through an Annex II terminal server.  The console is used in OpenWin (by
me) all day long also.  The machine has 32 MB RAM and it is enough for our
purposes.  The response time is excellent.  Looks like to me that your
needs (news, mail and the like) are less demanding than ours so it would
be quite reasonable to support 24-30 users on the system.

END of Summary (and thanks again to all who responded)

Hal Bloom              Manager of Sites, Systems and Network Services
                                  Academic and Public Computing
halb at midway.uchicago.edu          University of Chicago Computing Organizations