[R] Off-topic---hardware

[David Scott]

Sorry to be completely off topic here, but I know there will be many list
members who have an interest in and knowledge of hardware.

We have for some time used Sun hardware for our departmental servers, most
recently Sun Ultras of various specifications, running Solaris. We share
some hardware with Mathematics as well. 

The applications we use are the usual suspects:
R (obviously), S-PLUS, the statistical software which must not be
named***, Matlab, Maple
also we have compilers, C, C++, Fortran, and various tools such as TeX
etc.

I am of the view that Sun is pretty damn expensive these days
(particularly in NZ$), and also less and less defines the mainstream.
Whereas once most things first appeared on Sun, now much of the action is
for free unix OS with intel hardware.

For these reasons we are looking at purchasing a four processor intel box.
We are looking at the IBM Netfinity 7100 and the Intel ISP4400. For us the
IBm is much more expensive for what looks like pretty much the same specs.

One concern in moving away from Sun is reliability. Our Ultra 450 has been
super reliable. The only times it has gone down are when we have taken it
down or when we have had extended power failures so the UPS can't maintain
supply. We would not want to go to unreliable hardware (or OS for that
matter).

Now to the questions:

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of hardware and OS
combination which they could share with me?

In particular does anyone have experience of the the IBM and or Intel
boxes?

Does anyone have any suggestions for other similar hardware?

Does anyone have any comments about the general idea of moving away from
Sun/Solaris to Intel/free unix?

Replies to me only thanks, not the list. I will try and summarise if there
is interest.

David Scott

*** my Harry Potter joke---SAS

_________________________________________________________________
David Scott     Department of Statistics
                The University of Auckland, PB 92019
                Auckland        NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 6830     Fax: +64 9 373 7018            
Email:  d.scott at Auckland.ac.nz

President, New Zealand Statistical Association
Head, Department of Statistics, University of Auckland

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