20000328: N-AWIPS system resource requirements

Chris,

You might want to talk with Arnold Hori (address@hidden) at U. Hawaii
since they just bought 4 of the Ray clients.

I don't know how well that system would handle, but my guess is that the 
configuration
would probably be underpowered. You don't mention if the system will also be 
ingesting
data on the LDM and running data decoders. Our LDM server here is a dual 500mhz 
pentium
with 1GB of ram running Solaris X86- there are no users on the system. That 
configuration
cost about $5k, and has cpu cycles to spare. 

My concern is that we generally suggest 64MB of ram for Gempak users (of 
course, bigger grids
will require more ram). Genarlly 128MB is a well configured platform. With 20 
users, and only
768MB of memory, I suspect that the graphics would be somewhat slower than 
desired,
since the primary calculations in gplt would all be going on the server and not 
the client side.
If decoders are running and hitting the disk- then it would probably be 
unacceptable.
The only feed back we've had from someone working at Sun who has a ray client 
is that
if the server reboots- then everyone is standing around- but you may find that
trade off acceptable for less administrative overhead.

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support


>From: "C. Vandersip" <address@hidden>
>Organization: .
>Keywords: 200003281833.LAA11515

>Hi folks,
>
>We are designing/planning for an upgrade of our primary teaching lab and I
>have a tech question regarding N-AWIPS resource requirements in a
>network-appliance/server environment.
>
>We are considering purchasing Sun's new zero-administration network
>appliances (Sun Ray 1) as replacements for our SPARCstation 10 boxes. The
>promotional configuration consists of: 1 Ultra Enterprise 10S w/ a 440 MHz
>UltraSparcII CPU, 768MB RAM, and 2-9 GB disks, and 20 Sun Ray 1 appliances
>with monitors and keyboards.  The server has 2 Fast Ethernet Ports, one
>for a connection to the Ineternet, the other to connect to a Fast Ethernet
>siwthch dedicated to connecting the Sun Ray's to the server.  The price is
>very nice and I'm very much in favor of reducing administrative overhead,
>but there's one nagging question...
>
>We're wondering if the Ultra10S would be able to handle, say, 20 multiple
>connections simultaneously running N-AWIPS graphic products and a web
>browser.  Specifically, is anybody there familiar enough to know whether
>we do or do not need more processing power/memory on the server to handle
>that many N-AWIPS sessions together?
>
>Any suggestions or contacts you can provide would be very helpful.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Chris
>
>
>        ###############################################################
>        #                      Chris Vandersip                        #
>        #        Computer Research Specialist/Dept. Sysadmin          #
>        #  Rm. 024, Dept. of Meteorology, Florida State University    #
>        #          address@hidden   (850)644-2522                     #
>        ###############################################################
>
>