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buying too powerful hardware

Sometimes people spend a lot more on hardware than they need to.

From: tony@aplawrence.com
Subject: Re: Would a 2nd processor really be a waste of time???? help
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:55:00 +0000 (UTC)
References: <Ic5Ra.81020$JA5.1643994@news.xtra.co.nz> 

Lee and Nadine <lee.nadine@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>We are looking at different aspects on what to do about our older unix sco
>5.5 server that tends to run slow at times (333mhz with 196 meg ram).  using
>cpqmon it shows the CPU "2 sec avg" the "10 sec avg" and the "20 sec avg" as
>maxxed out when things run slow.  One idea was to buy another processor and
>more ram, however this is what one supplier has told us - see below.  I have
>no idea if what he is saying is correct of if hes trying to drum up more
>sales. Some ideas on what he wrote would be greatly appreciated.

Well, it doesn't sound to me like he's trying to drum up more sales
necessarily.

I'd disagree with some of what he said:


>Memory is not an issue unless the system is swapping , if this was the case
>on your system you would not be able to login.

Not true.  Logging in (and everything else) might be painfully slow,
but not impossible.  It's easy enough to find out if you are having
memory issues: see http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/memory.html and
http://aplawrence.com/Boot/swap.html

>Your system is not swapping and so is not the cause of the slow system.

So what is the cause?  Maybe he already knows, but if not, it's time
to look at sar, http://osr5doc.ca.sco.com:457/PERFORM/CONTENTS.html
 and http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/slow.html

>The server is only 333 MHz, what would a 5 year old 333 MHz PC with 75 users
>logged in run like?

Pretty slowly, though I xan remember running 20 users on a machine 1/10th
as fast.  The CPU speed just isn't necessarily the issue; in fact
you are much more likely to be disk and i/o bound than cpu bound.
That's "likely", though: sar will show you what's really going on.

>The Unix system takes full advantage of Symmetric Multi Processing when the
>SMP license is installed.

Right.

>The only advantage of this would be seen when the system as it stands gets
>processor bound and slows down , with dual processors the load is shared and
>this processor bound state takes a little longer to occur .

>A second processor does not speed up a server but shares load at current
>processor speed.  i.e. 333Mhz

Well, yeah, but that doesn't tell the true story.  If you are slow because
the cpu can't keep up with the workload, activating a second cpu will
make you faster.  Ther's a great big IF in there; again you need to
know why you are slow now.

>It should be noted that even with a second processor the system may become
>processor bound very quickly.

Sure.  And with a $70,000 super-charged, fire breathing everything to the max
super machine, 75 users doing the right (or wrong) things could make it
run like an old Tandy Model 16 with 15 users.  So?

>Estimated Pricing:

>SCO Unix SMP License
>$2,900

If that's some currency that's worth about a third of U.S. dollars that's 
about right.

>Second 333 MHz Processor [ subject to availability]
>$1,000

And that's a good point about availability.

>Installation approximately 2 days labour [ out of hours rate ]
>$ 2,400

Two days ??????

Doing what?  


>As discussed this is not a very good idea due to the small possible
>advantage it may bring during peek usage and cost benefit.  Even after
>installation you may find that there has been no improvement in performance
>.

>Again as mentioned on the phone we need to get the new server installed as
>soon as possible so users can benefit from superior technology enhancements
>of the past 5 years.

I'd agree with that with this caveat:  very often people over-buy in 
the hope that the super-duper machine they have paid some outrageous sum
for will last for many years.  It won't.  The Superman machine you buy 
today is plain old clark Kent in two years and is the skinny wimp on the
beach in three.  Unless you have a real need to be on the bleeding edge,
or have money to burn, don't do this.  Consider this:

A $1,000 machine today (U.S. Dollars) will outperform almost ANYTHING you
bought 5 years ago, even if you spent 20 times that.  So don't make that
mistake again.  Maybe you can beef it up a little, maybe a $2,000 or 
$3,000 box, but almost nobody really needs anything more than that.  If
you buy in the lower range, you can afford to have duplicate hardware 
ready to employ, and you also won't feel bad about replacing it with
another inexpensive box two years from now.

Many a time I have had smaller places try an off the shelf $700.00 Dell
to replace a $12,000 monster they bought 5 years back.  They could
always use it as someones desktop if it didn't work out, but it almost
always does - oh, maybe we throw in some more RAM, or if the number
of users is up there I still prefer SCSI, but it is very, very rare
to have to speInd big money on hardware today.  You are a bit larger,
and of course I don't know what apps your 75 users run, so you probably
couldn't get away at the very bottom, but neither is it likely you
need bleeding edge either.

--  
tony@aplawrence.com Unix/Linux/Mac OS X  resources: http://aplawrence.com
Get paid for writing about tech: http://aplawrence.com/publish.html

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