20010618: Server for LDM

Karl,

Below is the previous response I sent you regarding this question.
You should consider the questions I posed below.

We have a SUN E-450 serving a large number of LDM feeds (eg 20-30).
The machine has 1GB ram per processor.  The machine has a large number of
other tasks, not LDM or GEMPAK related, but the loads are generally low
for the horsepower it has. The machine has a hardware RAID.

As alternatives, we do have several high end PC computers (dual P-III)
which handle the LDM load well with RAID. The disk IO from the LDM is quite
high, so RAID devices are much better at balancing the load.
Cost wise, several PC's can be obtained for the price of the higher end 
workstation,
so you might consider the question of whether you want users running
software packages on the same machine doing the LDM processing..

Steve Chiswell






>From: Karl R Brosius <address@hidden>
>Organization: UCAR/Unidata
>Keywords: 200106181401.f5IE1Up21452

>Hi, my name is Karl Brosius, and I need to purchase a new workstation for
>LDM feeding. On top of that, I need this station to run garp 7 or 8 times
>at once for remote connections. Do you suppose that you could assist me
>with a recommendation for a server? 
>
>Thanks
>
>Karl Brosius
>
>Unix Systems Admin
>

From address@hidden Thu May 24 12:36:34 2001
        by unidata.ucar.edu (UCAR/Unidata) with SMTP id f4OIaWp22764;
        Thu, 24 May 2001 12:36:33 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <address@hidden>
Organization: UCAR/Unidata
To: karl <address@hidden>
cc: address@hidden
Subject: 20010524: Question 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 24 May 2001 14:38:11 EDT."
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 12:36:32 -0600
From: Unidata Support <address@hidden>

>From: karl <address@hidden>
>Organization: UCAR/Unidata
>Keywords: 200105241441.f4OEf7p14952

>I am a LDM admin for UofM, and the machine we have to field remote
>connections to garp isn't cutting it. What sort of Sun would you reccomend
>to support say 10 to 20 connections to a machine mounting the LDM data
>remotely, and running garp for those connections?
>--------------------------------
>-Karl Brosius
>-Unix Administrator
>-Space Physics Research Facility
>"Implement Technology"
>
>

Karl,

Is your 1 server running Garp for all 10-20 users, or are the
remote machines running Garp locally and just mounting the
GEMPAK/Garp binaries and LDM data files?

The primary consideration for running Garp is the amount of RAM available,
since running loops of images for each copy of the program will use considerable
memory resources. If swapping has to occur, the annimation loops will be slow.
If you run Garp on the individual machines, and utilize the server as
the file server, the server can be much less robust.

Are you currently running NSF3 in your lab?

What type of machines are the remote displays?

Steve Chiswell