Thanks to all who supplied their thoughts and ideas:
Brian Pawlik, Joe Fletcher, Tom Devine, Blake Williford, Joe Ryals,
Alan Davis, Ed Murphy, Danielle Georgette, Hicham Jaouhari,
Eugene Gordienko, Octave Orgeron, Peter Stern, Brian Hostetter,
William Magill, etal.
I received a number of good suggestions and pointers to URLs with
performance information.
Overall (12-2), where preferences were stated, preference was given
to an Alpha solution, either on an ES40 or DS20E platform. Of
course, given that this is the Tru64 managers list, a slight
preference for Alpha should be expected :)
A number of respondents stated that their Compaq maintenance support
was both better, cheaper and overall more effective than IBM support.
It was pointed out that without knowing more about the application in
question, comparing this applications' performance on different
platforms simply by looking at SPECmarks, etc would be unreliable.
We run and maintain both AIX and Tru64 at this site (and HP-UX,
Linux, Solaris, BSD,...) and have onsite staff managing the servers.
Therefor arguments made as to costs involved in supporting multiple
OSes, did not relate as much to the decision made at my site.
Some Performance URLs:
http://www.rs6000.ibm.com/hardware/enterprise/f80_specs.html
http://www.compaq.com/alphaserver/a-chart.html
http://www.tpc.org
ES40 SPECINT
http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res1999q4/cpu2000-19991130-00007.html
F80 SPECINT
http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2000q2/cpu2000-20000505-00083.html
ES40 SPECFP
http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res1999q4/cpu2000-19991130-00006.html
F80 SPECFP
http://www.specbench.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2000q2/cpu2000-20000505-00081.html
Thank you all
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tom Brand [mailto:Tom.Brand_at_bmc.org]
>Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 2:39 PM
>To: tru64-unix-managers_at_ornl.gov
>Subject: Comparison : Tru64 ES40 == ? RS/6000 AIX
>
>
>I have to upgrade a AS4100 with more CPU/RAM to support new load from
>an application. Application is CPU and RAM intensive, disk I/O load
>is not a factor.
>
>My options are to beef up the existing 4100, replace it with an even
>more capable ES40, or -- as others here desire -- switch to AIX and
>an 'F80' server.
>
>The 4100 would need (minimum config): dual 600Mhz CPUs, 3Gb RAM,
>The ES40 would be configured with: dual 667 MHz CPUs, 4GB RAM
>
>
>Could anyone with experience Alpha and AIX servers give me the
>"ballpark" equivalent for either/both of the above Alpha hardware
>configs in the IBM AIX world?
>
>I'm being told that if we go with AIX, we can get the equiv of the
>ES40 for 1/2 the price. I'm somewhat sceptical of IBM oriented sales
>comparisons.
>--
>
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thomas Brand
System Administrator
Boston Medical Center
Email: Tom.Brand_at_bmc.org
Phone: (617) 638-8205
Received on Wed Aug 30 2000 - 21:07:34 NZST