ADSM-L

Re: Request for Proposal - New ADSM Server

1999-05-28 10:27:44
Subject: Re: Request for Proposal - New ADSM Server
From: "Prather, Wanda" <PrathW1 AT CENTRAL.SSD.JHUAPL DOT EDU>
Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 10:27:44 -0400
Hi Jerry,

We are backing up 400 desktop Wintel clients and 30 assorted UNIX & NT
servers to an RS6000/J30 4-way.  We push 20-25 GB of data a night.  The J30
is an old machine, we are upgrading shortly, not because I'm out of cycles
but because I need more slots so I can move some of the disk I/O to another
bus.

In general, I would recommend going with an RS6000.  Most any RS6000 you buy
today will be faster than the J30, and should work fine.  But with 400
clients, you'll want really fast disk, and some way to spread the I/O over
multiple disks.

IBM produced some performance benchmarks a couple of years ago on some
RS6000 and NT platforms that showed in general, you get more I/O throughput
with an RS6000 than with an NT server, you could get those documents from
your IBM rep.  (Those were older machines though, and if you just happened
to have one of the big new Netfinity NT servers hanging about, that might be
hard to argue with.)

As far as UNIX servers, since you already have AIX experience I would
recommend the AIX server  over HP or SUN,  based on responses to this list
which indicate a much larger installed base and knowledge base for AIX.
It's a terrific piece of software to work with, I"ve enjoyed it (and I'm an
MVS sysprog retread....)

We use both DLT 7000 tapes and 3490 tape in an STK9710.  The STK9710 is
outstanding, and we never had any problems with the 3490 tape.  We have had
persistent problems with the DLT7000's, to the point that I had to give up
collocation.  Constant appending to the tape just stresses it too much, we
get a LOT of tapes that fail to read back completely.  As a result I keep
double copies of all data on DLT7000's.  It certainly WILL NOT GIVE YOU the
kind of reliability you are used to in a mainframe environment.

If you have a choice between 4mm and DLT, go with DLT and just keep extra
copies.  But if at ALL POSSIBLE, go with 3490/3590 tape.  It's expensive up
front, but you will save money on personnel time and down time in the long
run.

My experience, my opinions....
************************************************************************
Wanda Prather
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
443-778-8769
wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu

"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" -
Scott Adams/Dilbert
************************************************************************







> -----Original Message-----
> From: JerryLawson [SMTP:jlawson AT THEHARTFORD DOT COM]
> Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999 3:42 PM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Request for Proposal - New ADSM Server
>
> Date:     May 27, 1999             Time: 3:22 PM
> From:     Jerry Lawson
>           The Hartford Insurance Group
> (860)  547-2960          jlawson AT thehartford DOT com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> We have been using ADSM on MVS for several years now, and I have a good
> background in that area.  However, we now have a group of users
> (approximately 400 desktop users) that will be moving to another office
> building, and backing up to our mainframe will not be practical.  I
> proposed
> to the customer that they use a local ADSM server, and they like the idea.
> The question now on the table is "which one"?
>
> At this point we are open to the platform choice. The area will have
> expertise in both NT and Unix.  This is a customer support area, so NT,
> Sun,
> AIX, and possibly HP are options.  My question to the list is as follows:
>
> If you had the option of platform, which one would you pick to support a
> 400
> user desktop environment? (No servers at this time.)  Is NT robust enough
> to
> handle it, or would AIX or Solaris be a better choice?  How big would you
> make the server, and which Tape solution would you recommend?
>
> This is not a "blue sky, if I had a million" question - we do have to have
> a
> reasonable price tag on this solution, so please don't get too carried
> away
> in your proposed configuration.
>
> Thanks in advance.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
>                                                      Jerry
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