The general consensus was that, since the SS20 has been EOL'd, and the
Ultra will "wipe the walls with the SS20" that going with an Ultra is the
way to go. While a 4x125MHz SS20 has more raw horsepower than an Ultra
170, the MP config would only really be helpful with multiple users. For
a single user, the Ultra's CPU will be much more efficiently used. Also,
unless there's a good reason not to, going with the newest product is
safer, as the system will take a longer to become obsolete. Going PCI, if
possible, would be a good idea as apparently Sun is going to phase out
SBus over the next few years.
Clones came well recommended, primarily for their prices (though we get a
good discount from Sun, which negates a lot of their appeal). In general,
Tatung received a lot of recommendations, in part because Tatung uses a
lot of actual Sun parts in their boxes. Axil and Integrix received a
couple.
One of the better points that was made is that the maintenance on the
older SPARCs is getting quite pricey. The Ultra contracts are much
cheaper.
Another good point that wasn't made directly, but became apparent, is that
the older the hardware, the sooner you can see support for it vanish from
Solaris. That's so simple that it seems easy to forget.
One person pointed out that Workstation Express has some good prices on
Integrix Ultra boxes. I wish they had a web page, but you can call them
at 800-844-5757.
A report on TK Technologies showed that they have some good prices on used
equipment, and have a good reputation. http://www.execpc.com/~tkeidl/
On a side note, SunPC got a basically bad review, and SoftWindows 95 from
Insignia ( www.insignia.com ) was recommended instead. From the info I
have, it's much faster, though it does use a lot of CPU time on your
machine. I was told a 167 Ultra will perform around the performance of a
P-90, which is a lot quicker than the AMD chip on the SunPC card. Faster
machines give you better performance. List prices of the two are
equivalent.
My conclusion is to have the money held off to next year's budget as I
truly wasn't happy with any of the available options. I'll wait for the
4Q97 announcements from Sun and make the purchase 1Q98. Yes, one the
respondents did suggest it, and it seemed like the most sound choice at
this time. Right now, $10K US gets a system that has limited upgrade
potential. Hopefully prices will be such that I'll be able to squeeze an
Ultra 2 out of my budget next year.
<soapbox>
One person suggested that this wasn't appropriate for sun-managers because
he didn't feel it was time critical, and that I should have asked in
comp.sys.sun.admin or comp.sys.sun.hardware. Well, I somewhat disagree,
as the Sun and UNIX groups are of limited usefulness anymore (and I had a
limited amount of time in which to make a decision on this). I've had
piss poor luck getting intelligent responses for questions that require
analytical skills and good judgment in the news groups. Here, I get
educational and well informed responses.
This leads me to ask if anyone would be interested in a sun-managers-talk
list? This would be for general questions and discussion about Sun
hardware and software, and possibly open discussion of questions on
sun-managers by those who are knowledgeable in the subject, but don't what
to sift through the chaff on the news groups. This would NOT be a
replacement for sun-managers, but rather a complement. Opinions or
suggestions on the idea?
</soapbox>
Thanks to all those who responded. It was most informative.
Joe Pruett
Rachel Polanskis
Glenn Satchell
Chris Tubutis
Karl von Jena
Art Kufeldt
David Wolfskill
Russell David
JEFF WITULSKI
John DiMarco
On Wed, 1 Oct 1997, Scott McDermott wrote:
> I'm in need of some opinions from other admins on this one. I've $10k
> budgeted with which to purchase a workstation for administration and
> testing (that means it's for me). I'm basically stuck on whether I should
> go with an Ultra based solution or a SS20. I have 3 main options at this
> point:
>
> All systems include 4G of disk and 128M RAM.
>
> Option 1: http://www.sparclogix.com/docs/ultimaAX.htm
>
> A 250Mhz Ultra based on the SPARCengine Ultra AX board
> ( http://www.sun.com/sparc/SPARCengineUltraAX/ ) using a MGX 24 bit PCI
> graphics board.
>
> Option 2: http://www.sun.com/servers/ultra_enterprise/1/
>
> Ultra Enterprise 1 167Mhz
> TGX
> SunPC accelerator
>
> Option 3:
>
> SS20
> Dual 125Mhz module with 512kb cache
> (I think I can go quad and stay just within my budget)
> ZX 24-bit frame buffer
> SunPC accelerator
>
>
> So what do you all think? Have any other ideas or suggestions? I'm not
> completely happy with any of these, but I'd be really tempted to try the
> quad SS20..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Scott McDermott - SysAdmin \ "Always make it reversible."
King County Library System \ - A wise SysAdmin
PGP key in the usual places... \
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -