[rescue] Movin' on up (long)

[Chris Byrne]

I found myself in a similar situation about a year ago. I had all the Intel
power I wanted, but both my Suns and my SGI's were too small for what
everything I wanted to do with them (3 O2's, an Ultra 10 Creator 3ds3 and an
Ultra 1 170e, 3 low end intel laptops, a high end gaming pc, about 6 generic
intel pcs, 3 old PPC macs, an old Mac workgroup server, a digital box, an hp
box and some other random stuff ). I considered clustering but that wasnt
really a viable option with the networking infrastructure I had, and it
didnt solve the heat and noise issues. I was living in Northern California
at the time and the power crunch was really killing my wallet.

So here's a list of the tasks I wanted to accomplish:

1. General Business tasks. Windows required for format compatability (Im a
consultant. I cant just tell a client to resend it in a non-propietary
format). I travel a lot so a laptop is essential and it has to have guts
because it's my primary work machine when Im away.
2. Games. Mostly high end 3d games requiring high framerates. Also windows
required
3. Security work. Lots of crypto stuff, general networking tasks, lots of
general testing, OS testing
4. Performance testing work. General systems performance testing. Network
infrastructure stuff, phyical hardware stuff etc...
5. Database testing. I do a lot of architecture work, especially on the
storage side of things and DB performance is job #1 for most of these
clients.
6. CAD. I still play with aircraft and other vehicle design
7. Various CAD and Aerospace related tasks. Thermo, CFD, Structural
analysis, solids, dynamics, flow modeling etc...

So I did what I figgered was the smart thing. I bought an Ultra 60 Elite3D
m3, acquired a SunPCI-II, a bigass monitor, and an intel based laptop
(ThinkPad A21P), kept the gaming PC and Ultra 10 and sold everything else.
Basically I went from around 20 machines down to four(five if you count the
SunPCI-II)

Since then I've rescued a junk Intel system (PII-300, 64 MB, 3gig, Trident
graphics) laying around that I usually use as my ISDN gateway, an integraph
TDS-410 2x200x1meg ppro workstation with the high end graphics that I
usually run some type of Linux on (if only BeOS supported it's hardware),
and a DEC PWS 433AU with the Integraph graphics that thus far I've been
unsuccessful getting anything to run properly on, but none of these were
part of the original work plan.

All my general business work (business docs, presentations etc...) gets done
on the laptop. My games of course go on the gaming pc, and any intel hacking
gets done on the SunPCI-II or one of the two rescued systems (that integraph
has had like 15 different OS's on it at this point).

The U60 does all my serious Solaris work and I use the U10 as a client
machine for when I'm doing testing work. It basically acts as a traffic or
query generator.

Anyway that setup does everything I need it to do as long as I'm willing to
work around a bit. But if I had the budget there are a few little things I'd
change.

First the U60 is a 2x300 and while the clocks are fine I want more cache. I
sometimes work with large datasets especially in my DB, AE, perf testing,
and crypto work and larger cache would benefit me greatly.

Second, I really need more RAM for the u60. It has 512 in there and that's
fine for playing around, and most of my work, but when I run oracle or the
AE stuff I really wish I had 2 gigs to play with.

Third, I want an external storage array with a good cacheing raid
controller, either integrated into the box or in the U60. When I'm working
with large datasets, especially with Oracle I need more storage, and more
importantly I need to be able to test with varous RAID configurations (1,
0+1, 5, others). The ideal solution would be a full on FC storage array with
SAN switch, but that's WAY beyond my budget at the moment.

Fourth, I really want an SGI. The Elite3D is a good graphics platform
(though I wish I had the M6 + Expert, or VXR for the Texturing), but there's
a hell of a lot of software avialable out there for the SGI, and I just like
them. Plus I have a source for all the AE related graphical tools I want for
SGI for free. Honestly I'd like a 2x300 R12K Octane MXE with 2 gigs, and you
can pick one up (if you can find one, the MXE isnt all that common) at a
relatively low cost these days.

Fifth, I really want a Mac. I just want one. Theres no real specific reason
for it except maybe to run OSX but I really want a DP G4E with a gig and a
DVD burner.

Chris Byrne



> -----Original Message-----
> From: rescue-admin at sunhelp.org [mailto:rescue-admin at sunhelp.org]On
> Behalf Of Jonathan C. Patschke
> Sent: 22 April 2002 08:32
> To: Sun-Rescue Mailing List
> Subject: [rescue] Movin' on up (long)
>
>
> Okay, I've got a uniprocessor Octane, an Ultra 10/360, and a decent PC[1].
> In short, I've got a lot of decent hardware on my network, and, as soon as
> I get the insurance settlement on my auto accident, I may have a Powerbook
> G3 to replace my dead laptop.