Sun 4/490 - Any Opinions?
Morry Katz
katz at elements.rpal.com
Wed Oct 31 03:17:41 AEST 1990
In article <350 at gallium.UUCP> garyb at gallium.uucp (Gary Blumenstein) writes:
> ===============================================================
> Sun 4/490 Questionnaire
> ===============================================================
> General Questions:
> ------------------
> o How satisfied are you with the performace of the 4/490?
Very.
> o How long did it take to install and get the system running?
1 day for system software. 1 month to install and compile all the 3rd
party sources, get mail and news working, etc.
> o Did you have any reservations about going with Sun's IPC disk
> technology? If so why?
No.
> o What was your main bottleneck in performance prior to installing
> the 4/490. (e.g. NFS traffic, CPU,...)
We used Symbolicies. They were deadly slow on all accounts.
> o What was your most significant reason for selecting a 4/490 instead
> of let's say, an Auspex?
We wanted our machines and maintenance from a single manufacturer.
>
> Service, Support, and Reliability:
> ----------------------------------
> o How would you rate Sun Hotline Support for the 4/490?
Sun support has some real problems. Personal answerline is better
than basic support but response to bugs is still slow. Sun is
probably no worse than the there vendors; software support is just
abismal throughout the industry.
> o How is the Sun Hotline turnaround time?
I have used PAL so long I dont know about basic service. PAL time for
a call back takes only a couple of hours. Solutions to problems take
between weeks and years. (I have been less than satisfied.)
> o Have you experienced any down time? If so, for what reasons?
> ( How long did it take to recover?)
A bad CPU board (actually a bad Cache chip) caused the machine to
crash about once a day. It took 36 hours to get us a new board. We
also had a problem that we needed to upgrade several of our boards
when we upgraded the OS. This was not documented so we experienced 2
days of downtime waiting for all of the boards to be replaced.
> o Have you had any disk crashes? Were you able to recover?
No.
>
> Your Environment:
> -----------------
> o When was your 4/490 server installed?
11-89
> o What system/server did you previously use?
Symbolics
> o What types of software applications are you running?
Emacs, TeX, X11R4, Cnews, NNTP, kermit, Allegro and Franz Common Lisp,
Fortran compiler, CAP, KIP, Scheme
> o How many clients do you have on the 4/490? What kind?
7 - 4/60's
> o How many terminals, PC's and Mac's do you have on the network?
20
> o How many users?
25
> o How many people are in your systems department?
1/4 - This is really insufficient so many, many things remain undone.
At least a 1/2 person is needed.
> o What level of unix experience do they have?
Extensive
>
--
------------------------------------------------------
Morry Katz
Rockwell Science Center
administrator at rpal.com (machine administration issues)
katz at rpal.com (other)
------------------------------------------------------
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