UNIX Research Computer Replacement Being Sought

By Marc St.-Gil, UNIX System Manager (mstgil@unt.edu) and Maurice Leatherbury, Ph.d., Interim Director of Academic Computing Services

The aging Solbourne 6/904 ( Sol ) is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life and the Research Program Group of the Information Resources Council started a process in mid-October to select a replacement for that UNIX machine. There were several reasons for retiring the system and bringing in a new one:

  1. it is no longer supported by its manufacturer so keeping it running is difficult and expensive,
  2. it cannot run the latest UNIX operating system and limits our ability to add new users to it,
  3. a larger, faster UNIX platform will provide a means of migrating users off of the campus mainframe and thereby reduce the growing load on the administrative IBM computer, and
  4. we have increasing requirements for large-scale computing capabilities that support research and advanced instruction at UNT.

A meeting of the Research Program Group was held on October 19th and everyone on campus who had an interest in the UNIX research computer environment was invited to attend. About 20 persons attended the meeting and together developed some guidelines for the selection of the research computer:

  1. Software that should be available
    1. A. Statistics SPSS and SAS
    2. B. Statistical databases ICPSR, CRSP, Computstat
    3. C. Mathematics packages Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, IMSL
    4. D. Programming languages Fortran, C, C++, COBOL, Lisp
    5. E.Visualization frontends Spyglass, Precision Visuals, S-Plus
  2. Hardware configuration that should be provided
    1. A. CPU power at least twice that of Sol
    2. B. 1 GB of physical memory that can be addressed by a single program
    3. C. At least 72 GB of fast disk memory
    4. D. At least 72 GB of slower disk memory
    5. E. A 9-track tape drive
  3. Management and support issues that should be addressed
    1. A. High uptime, with rapid response to trouble calls
    2. B. Upgrade path for the hardware to take advantage of improvements in CPU s and storage
    3. C. Local support for hardware and software
    4. D. Easy software migration path for both system administrators and users
    5. E. Easy ordering process with a short delivery time
    6. F. Cost of hardware and software (initial and ongoing)

The goal of the Academic Computing Services is to purchase the new UNIX research computer and install i by Fall 1996, a goal that is quite ambitious when one takes into account the fact that over 10,000 users will have to be registered on the system. The switchover to the new system can only take place when classes are not in session and when there is an extended period (at least two weeks) during which the research computer is not available for use by faculty and students.

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