Re: Hardware Recommendations for 50/60 user system

bill@promdist.pds.com (Bill Foote) writes: >Our company is currently considering an expansion that would go beyond >the limits of our current hardware. What is a good mid-range Unix hardware >platform for business database applications? >We currently are using Informix ESQL/C (without the On-Line database engine) >on a 33 MHz '486-based Altos system (a series 5000). Response time is >acceptable with approximately 30 users. We're looking to expand to >approximately 70 users with roughly triple the number of transactions >(although, of course, we want room to expand further). Our database >is currently about 1 GB, but would probably grow to about 3. >I'm thinking that the On-Line engine would definitely be a Good Thing (tm) >(especially since it would let us do continuous backups), but I doubt that >that alone would give us enough extra capacity to push our poor little 486 >that far. What is a good kind of platform for this sort of load? I'm >thinking that it will probably be some kind of HP or Sun RISC-based >machine, but I'm not all that familiar with what's out there. >I suppose that the key performance metric would be the I/O subsystem (and >enough RAM for effective caching)... Is there any point to getting a box >that can support multiple processors? >If anyone would care to recommend a good place to buy such a system >(one that provides service contracts, of course) in the LA area, I'd >love to hear about that, too. >advTHANKSance, >-- >Bill Foote | Oh, and I suppose *you'd* prefer a little >bill@pds.com | animated clown who would juggle over to the >uunet!promdist!bill | little file cabinet and then wink at you and >PDS Corp, Los Angeles, CA USA | point to the right drawer -- Crow T. Robot We were running INFORMIX SE on a 486/33 system and moved to an hp 9000/720 for a more reliable platform. The 720 is about 3 times a fast as the 486 was. A nice plus. The 720 has a 50 MHz processor and can be upgraded to a model 730 or 735, which are 66 & 99 Mhz respectively. An an even faster CPU will probably be available next year. There is plenty of headroom in the series. The 715/75 might be worth considering however, it has lots of bang for the buck but will not hold as much ram. -- ted slack MIS Director symbiosis corporation (305) 597-4111 fax (305) 597-4002 miami, florida 33166-6202 teds@symbiosis.ahp.com uunet!symbi1!teds