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What Goes into an Enterprise Network?
Komi asks: "I work for a big semiconductor company, and I'm part of a group that is spear heading the Linux movement here. Right now everyone uses Sun machines to design, but you can get a cheaper Linux x86 machine that is four times faster. So it is my job to prove that Linux works. The problem is that I'm an analog circuit designer stuck in the role of sysadmin. So I need some advice on what goes into a network. It won't be that large right now, but it has to be scalable for up to a couple of hundred machines. If this works, then hopefully we'll convince all designers at my company to make the switch."
"Here's the hardware that I am planning on getting:
- 2 servers:
These would hold the home accounts and tools, as well as serve out NIS, NTP, etc. I know I'll need a lot of hard drive space (2x72GB SCSI each), but do I need a lot of memory? (It's 4GB RDRAM max.) Should the processor be fast, or dual?
-
3 batch machines:
These would be a small compute farm running LFS or something. Jobs would get queued up and run continuously. So these should be dual CPU with lots of memory, probably 4GB each. Any other particular details?
- 10 desktop machines:
These would be on the designers and developers desktops. These should be reasonably fast (~2GHz) single CPU machines with probably need at least 2 GB RAM. The simulations we run do not benefit from dual CPUs. They probably don't even need SCSI. I'm thinking a $2k PC should work.
- 1 Itanium server:
This would be to play around on to test our 64-bit applications. The only advantage of 64-bit is applications using huge amounts of data.
Either this is the biggest troll ever, or you're deeply in the shit. Assuming it's the latter, for now, I shall toss my orb and see where it lands:
*HIRE A REALLY GOOD SYSADMIN*
You're horrendously out of your depth and there are shedloads of really good sysadmins around who need jobs. Take someone on for three months to look at the problem properly. Advice 2:
*DON'T BUY AN ITANIUM MACHINE*
There is simply no point, particularly if you don't really know what you're going to use it for.
Cheers,
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Your missing one metric which my company has found to be the most important!
QUALITY!
Because of the reduced price and increased performance of our DELL XEON boxes we are able to run more simulations on our circuits. This allows us to check a greater range of operating conditions thus improving the overall quality of our product.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
No offense, but if I were an engineer with a $15,000 Sun workstation, I would laugh at the idea of a $1400 homebuilt PC replacing my workstation. Then I would probably punch you in the face for suggesting something so stupid. People seem to have absolutely no idea of the massive learning curve (even if short) Linux would have for a user moving from Solaris. All the customized menus on the Sun box for CAD applications would need to be recreated on the Linux side. You couldn't just give them KDE or GNOME and be done with it; any competent admin would replicate their environment completely and exactly in order to minimize the amount of utterly wasted time spent learning and re-learning new ways of doing things in Linux.
The poster of this article claims eventually all user workstations will be replaced with Linux boxes (in his fantasy world at any rate.) So, let's say he has 200 highly-paid CAD engineers whose workstations might be replaced. Let's figure it will take them each one week (40 hours) to re-learn everything on the Linux side, which IMO is not unrealistic at all assuming he simply plops a new Linux box down on their desk one day. So, when all is said and done, his "cheaper" solution will have cost the company 8000 man-hours in wasted labor. Let's say each engineer or developer makes $40 an hour (again, not unrealistic.)
So, that's $320,000 out the door on top of hardware costs, which I am sure will be more than you quoted because you can't do CAD on a machine with the kind of parts you listed (hint: a $60 video card will not work for CAD. Don't even attempt it. No, AutoCAD does not count. Real pro-level CAD cards cost more than the PC you specced out.) A truly realistic figure for a PC capable of being used by engineers would cost closer to $4000, especially if you want someone else to do hardware support (trust me, with 200 or more users, this is what you want.)
Then there's the countless hours (hundreds, perhaps thousands) spent porting any custom applications and simulation software you may have to Linux.
Then there's the Sun machines you'll still have to keep around for the applications which don't run on Linux.
Then there's the two or three full-time sysadmins you will need to hire to at least oversee this tremendous effort (there's no way in hell I'd trust anything like this to an amateur who read about Linux and thought, hey, it would be awesome to switch everyone over to that at work.)
Then, unless you hire sysadmins permanently for this, there's the 40 more hours you'll be working every week as one.
Enjoy your Linux boxes!!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Case I just bought was $150, but it is a .
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SOHO server with lockable front and side
panel with a 430 watt power supply
Good cases and power supplies are worth it
when you have expensive hardware you are
powering and housing
Cases with no filters lead to dirty parts
inside, that is why most Sun hardware has
filters on them
As for $2,000 for these machines, I agree,
that is WAY over priced if you shop around
on http://www.pricewatch.com
Money saved build an extra server or 2,
several extra desktop boxes for rapid
replace, and house all the data on the
servers with a RAID5 array with hot
swappable drive trays with HOT standby
spares
Cool thing is you can do this with IDE
drives now and save a small fortune
IDE's tend to not last as long according
to factory testing, so keep a few spares
handy and you should be fine
Well Ia m re-writing what I have already
posted, my apologies
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"