Seeking a Development Environment (Sun?)

[Skip Egdorf]

> In article <174 at lpi.UUCP> jeff at lpi.UUCP writes:
> >
> >BACKGROUND:  LPI is a quickly growing software company with a family of
> >compilers.  We are looking at options for our development system.  The 
> >system must be easily expandable to support planned growth.  Our ideal 
> >main system would be a 68k UNIX box.  Since we have to support at least 
> >30 to 60 users, we need a lot of horsepower.  We also need a central 
> >file repository that all have access to.
>  ...
> >- A big central Sun fileserver with lots of disk for the central
> >  repository of files.  (with 8 or 12Mb of RAM)
> >- One Sun node for every five or six users. (all Sun 3s)
> 
> From what I've heard, you can only put 3 or 4 users on a Sun 3 before
> it starts degrading quite ungracefully.
>   ...
>
> >| UUCP: ...{linus|harvard}!axiom!lpi!jeff         
> -- 
> 
>       Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg
>         (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)
> 
> " In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
>  people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

A few years ago, I replaced a VAX-750 4.2BSD system [8MB, ABLE DHDM,
2 Emulex Massbus controllers with Fuji 2294s and CDC 9766], with a
Sun 2/120 FS [Sun 1.6, 2MB, Systech 1600, Xylogics 450, 2 Fuji 2322s].

Despite those who said it couldn't be done, both the VAX and the Sun supported
12 VT-100s logged in, with 2-3 active at one time.
The system load was almost all RTI Ingres (Version 2.0).

The users didn't complain (they would have had the Sun been slower
than the VAX).
The only real benchmark that I have is that to load one database from
text files (including all the 'modify to isam on...' stuff) took around
6 hours on the 8MB, two disk controller VAX, and took 3 hours 10 minutes
on the 2MB Sun 2.

I am sure that this difference was due to 4.3-type performance enhancements
getting into the Sun OS, rather than a 2-1 performance factor of 68010s to
VAX 750s.

>From this experience, I am confident that to replace a VAX with a TIMESHARING
Sun is very possible.
A Sun 2 is every bit of a VAX 750.
If you have a VAX 780 with 32 users and a load average of 2-3, a Sun 3 should
handle you nicely.
Looking over my Sun3/75's screen, I seem to have enough windows to account for
12 logged-in VT-100s. Of these, 4 are 'active' in some way.
Don't forget, that one reason that these workstations are popular is that
my productivity is not the same as when seated at a VT-100.
This is due to my ability to burn more computing power on my behalf.
That computing power CAN be burned by single VT-100s if the job requires...

				Skip Egdorf

These opinions are my own, not Los Alamos National Laboratory's.

I don't work for Sun. I Don't own any Sun stock.