Date:         Sat, 8 Jul 2000 02:13:02 -0400
Reply-To:     paula <icj808@USWEST.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         paula <icj808@USWEST.NET>
Subject:      Re: UNIX vs Windows NT

Here are several cents from me.

"typically process 10 GB files":
1. What exactly do you mean by "process" ? querying against a file totaling
10GB is different from a queried file of 10 GB, in terms of SASing the data.
2. If you already think about terabyte space, that implies your growth is
relatively rapid over time. So the scalibility is a strategic issue. In this
regard, NT 4 is generally not as good as Unix. NT and Unix scale up
differently. NT, in terms of practical solutions, tends to add up pieces in
a more external fashion, while Unix typically is scalable "intrinsically".
If you expand your NT boxes, sooner or later down the road, the marginal
return from each unit of money (say, each 500,000 dollars) you spend will
diminish fast. Technically, you may hit the wall faster than otherwise with
Unix. Windows 2000, on the other hand, needs more time to be tested. Timing
is not very good for you to look at Windows 2k now, although W2k may turn
out to be a winner. The trend during the past 24 months or so is NT and
Unix, in terms of implementation costs and practicalities, are moving to the
middle and become more comparable and competable to each other. In many
aspects, they copy each other. You may want to check out sites such as
www.openNT.com, www.intelligententerprise.com, http://www.cio.com
www.techweb.com www.kmmag.com for more in-depth and systematic treatment of
this type of issues. When visit, pay attention to who sponsors to what
extent. Some sites are subtly biased.

3. "we can get comparable power for less money": this is a vertical issue as
well as a horizontal issue. Vertically, it involves history of vendor
relationship. Since practically nobody really likes to switch vendors very
often, this issue really is more vertical than horizontal. By horizontal, I
mean range of component selections, price competions, and so on. Selection
of a strategic partner and how to maintain it seem more important than how
wide the selection pool is.

4. Internal network backbone or infrastructure should not be much concern
for you. By the time you finish first inning, you probably are running
Gigebyte network, if not optical, already. SAS wise, SI has variations for
Server and networks. Given the weight of your future loads,
centralizing/distributing processing power and optimizing code are of
paramount importance. My dream plan is to use W2k as client and let Unix
server manage the center, and distribute power over NUMA-Q. I would not
worry about how to make Unix and Windows work nice and easy and economically
together. Solutions are beoming more and more like off-shelf products. To
sum, you may want to select solution providers that are versatile in
multiple OSs. Avoid vendors that are strongly at either extreme. Hardware
wise, try to minimize number of vendors involved and pick specalists that
fit your needs. I commmission IBM for my organization. IBM does not make
Windows; its Unix breed is not the best either. But IBM does not care. If I
ask them to configure applications on OS/2, they will do a good job. I
stayed away from Dell and Sun. Dell is too much Windows, while Sun's service
is not on top, and purely Unix is a dangerous notion after all.

P. D



<wendy.watson@COVANCE.COM> wrote in message
news:5EBF4C59CC50D311832200A0C9771429040CEFA9@NTEXCH01...
> Hello SAS-L,
>
> We are currently evaluating our system needs and are wondering what your
> experience is using Windows NT/Windows NT Server vs. UNIX for large file
> processing.  We have 4 users and typically process 10 Gb files.  We are
> considering using Windows NT as our platform, with 4 processors and a
> terabyte of disk space. We are looking at a having the processing occur on
> the client, while data is stored on the server.
>
> The reason we are considering Windows instead of UNIX is because we are
> assuming that we can get comparable power for less money.  Any suggestions
> or ideas?  We really don't know what the optimal configuration should be
so
> any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks a lot,
> -WW
>
>
>
>
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