[McIDAS #XTD-131268]: Best platform to run LDM/Mcidas/Gempak

Hi Samuel,

re:
> We are looking to buy a Linux based server platform to run LDM/McIDAS and 
> possibly GEMPAK.

I am wondering what you have in mind because of your reference to a "server 
platform".
Is your intention to setup a machine what numerous users will login into to run 
McIDAS and
GEMPAK?  If yes, how many users?  If no, would the machine be better discribed 
as a
workstation?

> What vendor/hardware platform/requirements do you suggest, if any?

We have used a variety of PC platforms as workstations (as opposed to servers) 
over the
years ranging from boxes that we assembled from parts to off the shelf units 
from outfits
like Dell Computer.  All boxes work well assuming that they have quality parts 
(e.g.,
motherboard, RAM, had disks, etc.).

The machines we are currently buying for internal use are Intel dual core, 
64-bit Xeons
with at least 4 GB of RAM and a reasonable (e.g., 250 GB+) amount of hard disk. 
 We
run the Fedora distribution of Linux on these machines (e.g., Fedora Core 6 and 
Fedora 7),
but the choice of Fedora over some other Linux variant is more-or-less 
historic.  That being
said, we do prefer RedHat-base/compliant Linux distributions because we have 
the most experience
on them.  RedHat Enterprise, Fedora, and CentOS all fall into this broad 
classification.

We purchase machines like the one generally described above so that:

- we can run any Unidata analysis/display application: GEMPAK, IDV, McIDAS-X, 
LDM, netCDF,
  UDUNITS, etc.

- we can perform stress tests of a variety of software simultaneously

If you are really looking for solid yet not extremely configured workstations, 
you can
decrease the memory included in the machine, but I would not recommend less 
than 2 GB.

Cheers,

Tom
****************************************************************************
Unidata User Support                                    UCAR Unidata Program
(303) 497-8642                                                 P.O. Box 3000
address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80307
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unidata HomePage                       http://www.unidata.ucar.edu
****************************************************************************


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: XTD-131268
Department: Support Platforms
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed