[rescue] Making the network the computer

[David Rouse]

Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at yahoo.com>

>Wow, that is a big jump in processor speed/system performance - what is
>the driver - Affordable support, increase in work load, what?
>
>Just curious - for a few $$ you could throw several U60s at this
>"problem" (each has dual SCSI chains built-in) and save *thousands* of
>dollars...

The current system is well under the hardware recommendation for the current
level of software that we have. Looking at vmstat and sar this computer is the
hardest worked in the building -- many times during the day it is stuck at 100%
CPU utilization. I don't think it is really a RAM or disk speed problem (at
least those aren't the bottlenecks right now).

As for what exactly we would have as the CPUs, I guess the V120s are just an
example. What really interests me is if the idea of having some kind of backend
RAID Box to hold the binaries and data while having less expandible boxes as the
CPU machines to work on the data. I was assuming that NFS over ethernet wouldn't
be an option, which is why the example used FC loop.

Probably what we will do is turn our main file server (a U250) into the
accounting server and get a new main file server -- but I wanted to make sure I
wasn't overlooking an option.

I've just been paying attention to the Google Guys and their arguments for the
reliablity of having a lot of little machines instead of one big one. But if I'm
stuck with needing a big raid box, maybe I should just get a used 450.

-- 
David Rouse