Sun vs SGI - advice needed

[Chris Kranz]

Hello People,

I have just been informed that SGI has won an award to supply our
organization with workstations for the next five years.  We currently
only have Suns.  It will be my job to fit these new machines into our
current configuration.

The new workstations are going to be SGI 4D/25s.  I've been told that
they will have 16 MBytes of memory, 8-bit color, and over 300 MBytes of
local disk.

We have both Sun-3s and Sun-4s now.  Our workstations are a mix of Sun
3/50s (approx. 70) and SPARCstations (1, 1+, and SLCs), we have about
15 of these.  The Sun workstations are configured as "dataless" (only
root, swap, and tmp on the local disk).  We currently are using a Sun
3/480, a Sun 4/490, and a Sun 3/160 as servers.

Some specific questions that I have are:
1) What OS is the 4D/25 running?  I have heard it is derived from SVR3,
   if this is the case will they be going to SVR4 like Sun plans to do?

2) Does SGI support NIS(aka YP, ONC)?  Is it compatible with SunOS?

3) I assume SGI has NFS, is that the case?  Does SGI's OS have the
   NFS automounter facility?

4) Is there an equivalent to Sun's "dataless" configuration for the 4D/25?
   Can we use our Sun servers for that purpose? 

5) Does SGI support lpr or just lp for printing to remote printers?
   Does it matter that the printers are on a Sun?

I have just started to think about this so I'm sure I'm missing some
important issues.  I was hoping somebody could take a moment to relate
any experiences either positive or negative.  The only information I
have on the 4D/25 is a glossy dropped on my desk some time last year.

Any information, advice, warnings, etc., that you care to pass
my way would be appreciated.  Thanks.

		Chris Kranz
		GFDL
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Christopher L. Kranz                     GFDL
         Computer Systems Programmer                 P.O. Box 308
    Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory            Princeton, NJ  08542
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Internet Address: clk at gfdl.princeton.edu        Commercial: (609)452-6585
      UUCP Address: princeton!gfdl!clk                   FTS:      298-6585
                                                         FAX: (609)987-5063
===============================================================================
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Christopher L. Kranz                     GFDL
         Computer Systems Programmer                 P.O. Box 308
    Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory            Princeton, NJ  08542
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Internet Address: clk at gfdl.princeton.edu        Commercial: (609)452-6585
      UUCP Address: princeton!gfdl!clk                   FTS:      298-6585
                                                         FAX: (609)987-5063
===============================================================================