SS-1+ performance: swapful vs. standalone

[lbd at alux5.att.com]

My group of three Sun administrators is faced with the task of installing
30 new SS-1+'s at our existing site of ~200 Suns (servers/clients,
mostly). We are trading in older models for these SS-1+'s. Our existing
site has 14 servers, 4 3/280s and 10 4/280s, all of the relevant ones
running 4.1. We have one or two servers per lan, and, in all but one case,
at least one 4/280 per lan. The backbone is now ethernet but we are
testing fddi.

Now, for my question:

We can install these new SS-1+s either swapful or standalone. We see a
potential administrative headache if we go standalone, but we also
understand that there may be a performance hit if we go swapful. 

Has anyone out there benchmarked these scenarios? Gut feelings won't help
us here -- management can't put intuition on a viewgraph :^). We're trying
to find out if the increased administrative overhead might be balanced by
a dramatic increase in performance if we go standalone. Dramatic means 20%
or more. 

I realize that any numbers I get will be relative to the type of work done
on the machines, the amount of swap on each client, configuration of the
network, etc. I'm willing to take whatever I can get.  We just don't have
the man- (woman-?) power or the time to perform these benchmarks. Any
numbers at all would be helpful -- we're really divided on this issue.

I know that standalones perform better -- the question is, how much
better? Is it worth the hassle?

Profuse thanks in advance, and I will summarize...

Leslie Dreyer
AT&T Bell Labs, Allentown, PA
lbd at alux2.att.com