Sun 4/490 - Any Opinions?

[Morry Katz]

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
> 
--
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Morry Katz
Rockwell Science Center
administrator at rpal.com (machine administration issues)
katz at rpal.com (other)
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