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19990729: NOAA-HPCC FY2000 draft proposal (comments cont.)

>From: address@hidden (Chris Elvidge)
>Organization: NOAA/NGDC
>Keywords: 199907271354.HAA26136 DMSP IDD

Chris,

>Thanks for taking a look at the draft proposal.

You are welcome.

re: your vision for how users would get the data
>FTP.  Are there other options we should consider?

I think that it is worthwhile to consider trying to use things like our
Interent Data Distribution system for a subset of the data that certain
sites would like to see whenever there is new data available.  I also
think that investigating the use of a client-server approach for access
to the data makes sense.  It seems to me that a number of sites that
would want access to the data would only want it sporadically.  In this
case, FTP works OK, but does not give the users the ability to browse
the data remotely.  For this reason I suggested that it might be
interesting to run something like the McIDAS ADDE remote server so that
sites running McIDAS could look at displays of the data and decide
on-the-fly what they may or may not want.  McIDAS is, of course, not
the only client-server application that could be run.  I suggest it
since I am familiar with it (I support McIDAS at some 50 Unidata
universities, and these seem to be the only ones in our community
that are doing satellite research).

re: why NT
>I am looking for "bang for the buck".  We current do the ingest and
>processing on an aging SUN SparcCenter 2000 with four 40 MHz processors.
>What operating system are you using on the high end PCs?

Sun Solaris x86 (aka Solaris for Intel).  We are running this OS on
dual 550 Mhz machines.  The latest one we configured has 0.5 GB of RAM
and 72 GB of Ultra wide SCSI hard disk.  We will be investigating use
of RAID software/hardware to see how much of an improvement this makes
in the disk access area.  The base machine above comes with two 18 GB
hard disks (again, ultra wide SCSI).  It cost us just over $5000 and
included a 21" monitor and 10/100 Mbit ethernet, CD-ROM, etc.  It seems
to me that you could get multiple muscle PCs for the $46K that you
included in your budget.

>The machine I
>scoped out was a DELL Model 6300 server.  This could run LINUX if that would
>make things easier for everybody.

The only thing about Linux is there MUST be a system administrator who
keeps up with security patches.  Of the attacks that we have heard
about at our sites and within NCAR and NOAA, almost all have been
linked back to a breaking through Linux.  Linux security _should_ get
better with time, however.  It is heartening that Dell will sell you a
machine with RedHat Linux loaded on it.  This has the advantage of you
knowing that the components in the machine will work correctly in the
OS.  Sun, on the other hand, has stated Solaris x86 is a server
operating system.  What this means in practice is that their support
for the newest graphic cards is a little weak.  There is a work around
for this, however: one can go directly to the company that did the
Solaris x86 X window work and get needed drivers from them at a modest
(~$100-150) cost.

Thanks for letting me put in my 2 cents worth on things to consider.

Tom
--
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
* (303) 497-8642 (last resort)                                  P.O. Box 3000 *
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