Athlon CPU's in IT servers

[hbooraem]

I'm wondering if anyone else out there in the IT field is using/considering using Athlon CPU-based servers in their department? My boss is currently opposed to upgrading our systems (most of our servers are Pentium 120's or thereabouts) to Athlon-based Compaq systems, despite my best efforts at convincing her.
We don't have an actual "standard" for servers, but she prefers to maintain us as an "Intel-only" shop for stability's sake. I think that this practice would hurt us in the long run, as we could upgrade some of our servers to Athlons and quintuple (or better) our processing power.
Anyone else have thoughts on the matter from an IT perspective?
Thanks,
Hendrik Booraem VI

[tonym]

I don't have a response from an IT perspective, but I think from a common-sense viewpoint. The response that your manager wants an "Intel-only" shop denotes an ignorance of IT principals at a basic level.
In an IT environment, isn't the goal to have the least latency/biggest pipe/largest storage that the users will require for now and at least 8-12 months in the future. It seems like that if you tie youself to a name plate or single technology, that at some point the state-of-the art will catch up to you...and so will your competitors! In the DEC and DG haydays, the PDP's, VAX's and Nova's were quite popular...but folks migrated to the competing technology (the PC) and things eventually changed for the better for user (but for the worse for DEC/DG).

And of course there are alternatives to both Pentium and Athlon. What about an HP machine with the PA RISC processor? Or a Sun with a SPARC? Are these not stable machines with excellent computing track-records. Most Telcos use Lucent switches (SS5/SS7), and most of these have Sun boxes (Netras) as the controller. No Intel inside there!!

So why not Athlon? My personal experience is that I have a moderate-sized engineering shop (I presently have 6 Athlons of various configurations) and use the Athlons for everthing from very complex circuit simulations/CAD to word-processing to data-base archival stuff. They run 24x7, and I haven't had a hardware crash or a compatibility issue since I got them (about 1 per month since Aug. 99). Alternatively, I have similar PII and PIII machines that are configured identically (disks are clones!) and they experience periodic seize-ups/freezes/crashes.

I personally don't think that the issue is what's INSIDE the box, it's the name OUTSIDE the box. If the systems you buy are from COMPAQ, they've certainly done HQA and SQA and compatibility testing and are satisfied that the K7 is an equivalent to the PI/PIII as a Windows box. And if they put their name on it, they will support it. That's where she should focus...not on the uP!!

Just my $0.02 worth...

Tony

[Target]

My IT perspective is exactly what TonyM has already written. Well said Tony!!

Those IT managers that refuse to use, are unwilling to learn, or simply don't understand todays technology, are in my mind the ones that hold the opinion that your manager does. They've fallen for the mind-set trap of "nobody ever lost their job for going with Intel".

Close mindedness has no place in IT or technology, its too bad your manager feels the way she does.

[BBA]

I see both points on a small scale IT perspective...but you kinda need true smp up to 8 or 16 CPU's (or more) for large scale servers. Athlons fall way short here. Thats also where Intel comes on strong, along with sun and others. We (at my company) have a few 4 CPU servers and a few 20 cpu servers, using anything from P3Xeons to Alpha's. But then again, were not exactly a "small" business either.

AMD has a lot of server equipment, like NIC's of various style but have yet to enter the server CPU market. Maybe one day, but they have to make their own chipsets first, as the 3rd party parts just dont have it.