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Re: Enterprise 250 (fwd)


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Robb Kambic                                Unidata Program Center
Software Engineer III                      Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research
address@hidden             WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 00:51:26 -0400
From: Tom Grzelak <address@hidden>
To: weather <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Enterprise 250

At 09:04 PM 7/5/2000 +0000, you wrote:
>Is anybody running the ldm (full set of decoders) and possibly
>McIDAS/GEMPAK, web server, etc.. on a Sun Enterprise 250
>with one or two 300Mhz CPU's.  If so how do you feel about the performance,
>especially if you have dual CPU's?
>
>Thanks,
>Robert Mullenax
>

While we do not have an E-250, we have been running LDM, decoders, and WXP
generating 2500+ images a day all on a single CPU Ultra 10.  It has worked
great for us.  However, the machine runs at 90% of full throttle all day.
It's been running like this for two years without a hardware hiccup (knock
on wood).  We have been very happy with it.

As far as multi-processor Suns go, we have 2 4-CPU E450s here which are
fantastic.  Whether we are running models sequentially or in parallel (or
just handling a number of users), the ability of the machine load share
across its CPUs is impressive.  We have been very happy with their
performance.  Even though Sun gives us great deals here at times, I still
find their multi-CPU machinces pricey.  But if you want solid performance
with little hardware downtime and price is not a critical concern vs
performance, the Sun machines flat out work.  We have been so pleased over
the past three years with them that we have gone from 3 Sun machines to
nearly 40. 

We are just now getting into GEMPAK and working with all of its decoders,
etc. so I really can't comment on how much of a performance hit those will
entail beyond what we take with our WXP processing. I fully expect that the
Sun machine will perform wonderfully.  Having 2 CPUs would be even better.

I will say that if we buy a multiple CPU capable machine, we fill it with
CPUs.  I have never upgraded a machine in three years.  If you were going
to buy an E250, I would not consider going with a single CPU.  Get the
advantage you're paying for anyways by buying the second CPU.

Take care!
Tom 


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Tom Grzelak                                  732-932-4923
Manager - Computing Services         732-932-8644 (FAX)
   ------> Department of Environmental Sciences
   ------> Center for Environmental Prediction

address@hidden      www.envsci.rutgers.edu/~grzelak
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