Multiprocessor system VS one processor system

[Lanny Baron]

On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 22:12, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Olaf Hoyer wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Simon wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>What exactly is not easily achievable with a modern dual Xeon Intel server
> >>with 20 modern SCSI harddrives and proper RAID card? that is on an old
> >>E450 Sparc? have you personally done any testing to back this up? surely,
> >>the chipset design of Intel boards are not up-to-par with latest Sun servers,
> >>but Intel is catching up. There was just never enough demand until now.
> > 
> > 
> > Yes, its an E450 with 4x400MHZ Ultrasparc 2, IIRC with 2 or 4MB 2nd
> > level cache, acting as mail server, pumping several millions of emails
> > around per day, with 2 million mailboxes to deliver to, being one of
> > several mailhosts.
> > 
> > Thats a region where a i386-based box won't fit easily, also the
> > diagnostics regarding flaky RAM or CPU are way better with SUN than with
> > most i386-based hardware.
> > 
> 
> People tend to forget that the CPU clock rate of all Sun boxes is 
> pretty low but the I/O bandwith is much higher than the memory 
> bandwith of Xeon machine.
> 
> Little things like changing a CPU while the machine is up and 
> running is not known to PC based servers at all.
> 
> A PC based server is good when you have to consider the money but 
> will increase the risk of down-time.
> 

That very strongly depends on what kind of pc Server you buy. 

A high quality Server with fully redundant power, dual or quad CPU's,
dual NICs, IPMI compliant, you will have one hell of a time showing me
downtime due to hardware. Yes, if the Server Board blows, it matters not
if it is a Sun<tm> or PC based. But then when it comes to mission
critical, a second lower cost or entry level Server as a backup or
failover will keep the 'lights on'.

The thing here is, how well does a company stand behind its product and
how quickly (or slowly) will you get looked after is very important.

Lanny

> Erich
-- 
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Lanny Baron
Proud to be 100% FreeBSD
http://www.FreeBSDsystems.COM
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