On Tue, 3 Sep 1996 13:20:53 -0700 Jeff Reichard said:
>And now the question for those of you also using the AIX server: what
>hardware configurations are you using - especially what kind of RS-6000?

We have a 41T, very similar to a C10 I believe.  3 SCSI channels, 25GB of
disk (mostly Seagate Barracudas) across 9 drives.  2 tape robots, an 8mm
with 2 drives and a DLT with 3 drives.  64MB of memory.  We move about 4-5GB
per night.  We also have longish-running expiration.  Our migration runs
faster now that we use DLT and can throw 2 drives at a time at it.  However,
MOVE DATA still takes awhile when it happens.  We see database updates as
our bottleneck, and I am also not sure what the best way to address it is.
We have gone with Barracudas because of the fast seek time (7200 rpm).  I
think that has helped some, tho we have not done any comparative analysis.

Personally, I think the key to the db update problem is in the storage
system, not necessarily in a faster processor.  We see lots of I/O wait
on our server, which is why I think this.

One tip: Try to make sure you don't have expiration running at the same
time as migration at the same time as reclamation at the same time as
backups.  We use administrative schedules to try to accomplish this,
and it seems to help a lot.

>The C10 seems underpowered in both processor and SCSI ports for our needs.
>Are the kind of CPU loads we're seeing normal for this product and platform?
>We're trying to figure out what, if anything, we'd gain by upgrading our
>server to a faster RS-6000.  Any advice folks here could offer would be
>appreciated,
>
>Jeff Reichard
>Ota Likar
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Stanford Unix Systems Group
..Paul

Paul Zarnowski                     Phone:   607/255-4757
Cornell Information Technologies   Fax:     607/255-6523
Cornell University                 US Mail: 315 CCC, Ithaca, NY 14853-2601