[McIDAS #XTD-131268]: Best platform to run LDM/Mcidas/Gempak

["Unidata Platforms Support" <support-platforms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Samuel,

re:
> We are looking to buy a Linux based server platform to run LDM/McIDAS and possibly GEMPAK.

I am wondering what you have in mind because of your reference to a "server platform".
Is your intention to setup a machine what numerous users will login into to run McIDAS and
GEMPAK?  If yes, how many users?  If no, would the machine be better discribed as a
workstation?

> What vendor/hardware platform/requirements do you suggest, if any?

We have used a variety of PC platforms as workstations (as opposed to servers) over the
years ranging from boxes that we assembled from parts to off the shelf units from outfits
like Dell Computer.  All boxes work well assuming that they have quality parts (e.g.,
motherboard, RAM, had disks, etc.).

The machines we are currently buying for internal use are Intel dual core, 64-bit Xeons
with at least 4 GB of RAM and a reasonable (e.g., 250 GB+) amount of hard disk.  We
run the Fedora distribution of Linux on these machines (e.g., Fedora Core 6 and Fedora 7),
but the choice of Fedora over some other Linux variant is more-or-less historic.  That being
said, we do prefer RedHat-base/compliant Linux distributions because we have the most experience
on them.  RedHat Enterprise, Fedora, and CentOS all fall into this broad classification.

We purchase machines like the one generally described above so that:

- we can run any Unidata analysis/display application: GEMPAK, IDV, McIDAS-X, LDM, netCDF,
  UDUNITS, etc.

- we can perform stress tests of a variety of software simultaneously

If you are really looking for solid yet not extremely configured workstations, you can
decrease the memory included in the machine, but I would not recommend less than 2 GB.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: XTD-131268
Department: Support Platforms
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed