Recommendations on solutions of future computing needs are made very difficult by the extraordinarily dynamic nature of the computer business. The power of mini computers is increasing rapidly and the cost for a given performance is falling dramatically. Progress in larger machines is less marked. A crucial question which is particularly relevant to interactive computing is whether power should be provided centrally or locally - or rather what proportion of each should be provided. Certain users require facilities that can only be provided locally - particular examples are where very high transmission rates are required between their terminals and the computer. Other users are so thinly spread that the only economic solution is to satisfy their requirements with a central facility. About 25% of the users considered in this study fall into each of these classes leaving 50% that can in principle be satisfied either locally or centrally.
This discussion concerns about 50% of the user population that can in principle be satisfied by either central or local facilities.
Possible ways of providing interactive services are:
The arguments for local minis are:
The arguments against local minis are:
At the present moment central facilities are the only solution for the 50% user demand that could in principle be satisfied by local facilities. Thus in total 75% of the user demand should be met centrally and 25% locally for the immediate period - 1976-1978. Beyond this period it is probable that cheaper and better services will be provided by local minis. (See Appendix 2). With either solution a communication network will become more necessary with the passage of time.
Although minis cannot satisfy the requirements at this stage the two following sections discuss the capital and recurrent costs of central and mini systems at current prices.
Capital has to be provided for the computer, terminals and communications. To make the comparison these costs have to be evaluated per user channel. Appendix 1 discusses communication costs. Conclusions are summarised in Table 6.1.
Terminal costs are the same in all cases but the costs are nevertheless included for completeness on the assumption of one alphanumeric terminal and one storage display system per channel at a total cost of £4K.
Capital Costs in £K | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Machine | Communications to Terminals |
Terminals | Total | |
Central System | 16.7a | 5.9d | 4 | 26.6 |
Multi-user mini | 13.3b | 0.8d | 4 | 18.1 |
Single-user mini | 27.0c | 2.3d | 4 | 33.3 |
(a) £1M for 60 user channels - see Section 6.2.1
(b) £80K for 6 user channels
(c) £27K for one user channel
(d) See Appendix 1
It would require 60 single-user minis to provide a service for 600 users. With 60 separate installations it is not possible to provide a similar service to that at a central facility and hence single-user minis are ignored below.
Items to be included in recurrent costs are:
The comparison to be made is one central system against 10 multi-user minis. The staff required to cover operations, applications, customer support and systems programming for the central system is about 20 (see Section 6.4.1). About the same total staff would be required for 10 multi-user minis.
Media costs would be the same per user for both systems. Maintenance costs are taken as 8% of capital costs per year. Housing costs are dependent on where the installations are put and what arrangement is agreed with the university.
The conclusion is that there are no major differences between the two solutions as far as recurrent costs are concerned.
Detailed recurrent costs for central facilities and multi-user minis corresponding to a recommended staffing are given in Section 6.4.
It is recommended that:
Table 6.2 summarises the user service provided by these recommendations.
Location | Computer | CP Power Atlas Units |
Users Supported |
User Channels Supported |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chilton | ? | 3 | 600 | 60 |
UMIST | PDP KA10 | 0.7 | 150 | 15 |
Edinburgh | PDP KI10 | 1.6 | 250 | 25 |
5 existing centres to be enhanced |
Various (eg PDP11/45) |
5×0.3 | 5×50 | 5×5 |
Total | 6.8 | 1250 | 125 |
There are other computers that have been provided by SRC for interactive work but they are for special purposes or are sufficiently small to be ignored without distorting the overall picture. This plan provides 0.2 Atlas hours/week and 3.6 hours/week of connected time for each user. This falls well below the requirements given in Table 5.7 but is about a factor of three greater than is currently available. It is a reasonable first stage plan. It is possible that some of the shortfall may be satisfied by future Computer Board provisions. The effective processor power recommended for interactive use by 1978 is only 8% of the current batch processing power used by engineers on Computer Board machines. Further provision beyond 1978 is discussed in Section 6.5.
Terminal requirements were discussed in Section 5.4.4. It is estimated that the cost is £4K per user channel. A possible breakdown of the provision is given in Table 6.3 but it is recommended that the expenditure be spread over the period 1976-78 and that the actual provision should be guided by experience of user needs. The total requirement for terminals to match the 125 channels in Table 6.2 is 250. Provision is made for 200 because of the existing terminals at UMIST and Edinburgh.
It is recommended that a sum of £540K be provided for terminals and hard copy units.
Type of Terminal | Example | Cost/Unit £K |
Numbers to be provided |
Cost in £K |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alphanumeric terminals | Teletype | 0.9 | 100 | 90 |
Simple graphics terminals | T4010 | 2.7 | 80 | 216 |
Larger and better quality graphics terminals | GT40/T4014 | 6.5 | 20 | 130 |
Hard copy units for graphics terminals | Tektronix hard-copy unit | 2.2 | 20 | 44 |
Simple lineprinters | Centronics | 2.2 | 30 | 66 |
546 |
These terminals are for the central and local facilities. In particular some uses of the GT40 will require substantial local computer power.
The objective is to provide an integrated and coordinated interactive computing service to engineers. This is only really possible if all of the component parts are interconnected and this must be the long term aim. It will only be fully achieved if there is a unified network of computer links available to all universities. This provision is too expensive and ambitious for the SRC to undertake. It is recommended that the SRC together with other interested parties (Computer Board, DES, D of I etc) should encourage the Post Office to construct rapidly a national network. £50K of capital equipment and four staff at Chilton are recommended as a provision towards the network development involved in respect of the interactive facilities.
For the period 1976-78 a general network will not be available. It is recommended that the Chilton, UMIST and Edinburgh systems should be linked by 9.6 Kbits/sec private lines. The Chilton facility should be linked to the 360/195 and to the considerable SRC star networks already existing. As minis are upgraded to local multi-user facilities they too should be linked to the other facilities. Money has also to be provided for the communications between user terminals and the central facilities - these are estimated to cost about £5.9K per user channel. (See Appendix 1). Some equipment already exists but it is estimated that about 100 new channels will be required at a total cost of £590K. Including the links between Chilton, UMIST and Edinburgh the total recommended capital for communications is £620K.
Development and documentation of application packages is a very costly process. At the moment there is considerable duplication in development work and comparatively little work is fully documented. The Technical Group recommends that a strong attempt be made to reduce the unnecessary duplication in development and to provide adequately documented software for general use. The provision of an integrated interactive service should help achieve this objective. Where possible existing software and packages should be used including industrial and commercial packages where relevant. The general policy for applications packages of limited use should be to provide packages at a single site and users can then gain access to these through the interconnection of all facilities. This single site philosophy should apply to special languages and special hardware as well as to application packages.
An adequate number of qualified staff should be provided at Chilton to assess user needs for specific application packages and to mount the selected packages at the relevant machine. The level of staff recommended in Section 6.4.1 is inadequate for any major production of user packages. Should a case be made and accepted for significant work in this area extra staff will need to be provided.
Preparation of some of the existing applications software for general service must be one of the first tasks undertaken. In particular an interactive FORTRAN library should be established. Co-ordinating and documenting for all the levels of graphics software should be started.
A Bulletin or Newsletter related to the work of the proposed interactive service should be established and published regularly. The Bulletin should have wide circulation to computer scientists in universities, polytechnics and other organisations, as well as to users and potential users. The contents of the Bulletin or Newsletter should be selected in order to make, amongst other things, a significant contribution to the identification of applications software development projects.
Personal contacts between the staff of the service, users, potential users, and computer scientists, should be encouraged. Resources should be made available to finance:
(All figures in this Section relate to direct staff)
It is recommended that staff be provided at Chilton to operate the facility 24 hours per day and seven days per week. It is anticipated that the majority of the interactive load will be between 9.0 am and 10.0 pm on Mondays to Fridays and it is assumed that two operators will be required throughout this period. During the remaining period batch processing can be undertaken and interactive facilities can be provided for users requiring abnormal facilities such as large central processor power or large memory or file space. It is assumed that one operator will be required in these dark hours. Allowing for overlaps between shifts, holidays etc a total operating staff of 9 will be required together with a service manager.
It is recommended that a group be established to provide user support. This group will be responsible for documentation, answering user enquiries, identification and education of new user groups, routine provision of established packages, the newsletter/bulletin, organisation of workshops and meeting house activities. A staff of 6 is recommended for this group.
A staff of 3 is recommended for systems programming and 6 for communications and network development.
In Section 6.2.1 it was recommended that two new multi-user minis be provided to enable development work to be undertaken by the centre to assess the future capabilities of such systems. A staff of 4 is recommended for this work. This group should also give advice and assistance to universities provided with multi-user minis.
In Section 6 it was recommended that staff be provided to assess user needs for application packages and to mount the selected packages on the relevant machine. This function is logically combined with a general one of advising the Engineering Board, its committees and the proposed Engineering Computing Facilities Committee on various matters. Examples of this are: provision of information for the audit of management and usage of facilities provided through the central service, advice on grant applications involving computers and computing, identification of appropriate minis for expansion to multi-user systems. These functions will require staff of broad knowledge and experience. The staff will need to spend a great deal of time at user sites. A staff of 6 is proposed.
It is assumed that the whole of the responsibility for the provision, implementation and operation of the central facility and the overall responsibility for those facilities provided at UMIST, Edinburgh and elsewhere in the universities will be the task of a senior member of the Rutherford Laboratory. As such he will be required to participate in the management of the Rutherford Laboratory and to represent there the views of the user community.
The service offered by the staff at Chilton to engineers in universities will present difficulties from several points of view. First, the facilities needed by different areas of research will be different and staff at the Centre will need to understand these differences. Secondly, the needs of the research workers may change from time to time and it will be important that the service offered is sufficiently flexible. Thirdly, it may be impossible in some circumstances to supply exactly what is desired by the research worker and effort will be needed to produce the nearest approximation to his needs that is possible. All of these difficulties will require a good deal of tact if friction is to be avoided. The management of the interactive service therefore needs to be in the hands of a man who has some experience in engineering research, preferably in a university environment. He must have a wide knowledge of interactive computing, extending if possible to interactive graphics. He must be able to deal with difficult and conflicting requirements requested by users. To find such a man will not be easy, but an unsuitable appointment for this position could easily jeopardise the success of the service.
The total direct staff recommended at Chilton is 36. It is assumed that the staff build up will start in 1975 and will reach the proposed level in 1978. The assumed build up is given in Section 6.4.3. It is assumed that it will remain constant at 36 beyond 1978 (See Section 6.5).
It is assumed that the UMIST and Edinburgh systems will be operated from 9.0 am until 10.0 pm on Mondays to Fridays. A single operator is assumed resulting in a staff of 3 for operations plus a service manager. User support staff of 2, a systems programmer and a person to deal with communications are also recommended. This is a total staff of 8 at each centre which is about the current level provided through the existing grants to the Universities. Recommendations on the management of the facilities and the possible mechanisms for the support of them are discussed in Section 8.
It is difficult to assess the staff requirements for the 5 local multi-user minis until the systems to be enhanced are identified. For planning purposes an additional staff of 5 is shown.
A summary of the staff recommendations from Sections 6.4.1 and 6.4.2 are given in Table 6.4.
Function | Chilton | UMIST | Edinburgh | 5 multi-user minis |
---|---|---|---|---|
Service manager | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
Operations | 9 | 3 | 3 | |
User support | 6 | 2 | 2 | |
Systems programmers | 3 | 1 | 1 | |
Communications and networks development |
6 | 1 | 1 | |
Application advice to Boards and Committees and audit function |
6 | |||
Multi-user minis development |
4 | |||
Division Head | 1 | |||
TOTAL | 36 | 8 | 8 | 5 |
The assumed build up of direct staff for the period 1976-78 is given in Table 6.5. Projections for beyond 1978 are given in Section 6.5.
Site | 1976 man years |
1977 man years |
1978 man years |
---|---|---|---|
Chilton | 12 | 30 | 36 |
UMIST | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Edinburgh | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Local minis | 1 | 2 | 5 |
TOTAL | 29 | 48 | 57 |
Provision has to be made for the following items in estimating recurrent costs:
A summary of the recommended capital expenditure for the period 1976-78 together with the staff and recurrent costs proposed is given in Table 6.6.
1976 | 1977 | 1978 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
|
CHILTON | ||||||
Computer hardware | 700 | 300 | ||||
Mimi time-sharing systems | 80 | 80 | ||||
Network development | 15 | 15 | 20 | |||
Direct staff | 64 | 159 | 191 | |||
Overheads | 64 | 159 | 191 | |||
Maintenance | 8 | 71 | ||||
TOTAL | 95 | 128 | 795 | 326 | 320 | 453 |
UMIST | ||||||
Computer hardware | 160 | |||||
Direct staff | 42 | 42 | 42 | |||
Overheads | 42 | 42 | 42 | |||
Maintenance | 30 | 30 | 43 | |||
TOTAL | 0 | 114 | 160 | 114 | 0 | 127 |
EDINBURGH | ||||||
Computer hardware | 220 | |||||
Direct staff | 42 | 42 | 42 | |||
Overheads | 42 | 42 | 42 | |||
Maintenance | 30 | 30 | 48 | |||
TOTAL | 0 | 114 | 220 | 114 | 0 | 132 |
UPGRADE OF EXISTING SRC MINIS | ||||||
Computer hardware | 40 | 60 | 60 | |||
Direct staff | 5 | 11 | 27 | |||
Overheads | 5 | 11 | 27 | |||
Maintenance | 3 | 8 | ||||
TOTAL | 40 | 10 | 60 | 25 | 60 | 62 |
GENERAL | ||||||
terminals | 120 | 220 | 200 | |||
Terminal Maintenance | 0 | 10 | 27 | |||
Communications hardware | 150 | 250 | 220 | |||
Communications maintenance | 0 | 12 | 32 | |||
PO line rentals | 10 | 60 | 60 | |||
Other (software rental etc) | 5 | 25 | 50 | |||
TOTAL | 270 | 15 | 470 | 107 | 420 | 169 |
GRAND TOTAL | 405 | 381 | 1705 | 686 | 800 | 943 |
TOTAL CAPITAL IN ROUND TERMS = £3.0M
TOTAL RECURRENT IN ROUND TERMS = £2.0M
GRAND TOTAL = £5.0M
The hardware provisions recommended in Section 6.2 (see Table 6.2) fall a long way behind the user needs identified in Section 5.4 (See Table 5.7). Table 6.7 compares the need and the recommended provision and identifies the shortfall.
1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Processor power needed (Atlas units) | 7 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 24 | 28 |
Channels needed | 126 | 144 | 162 | 180 | 180 | 180 |
Terminals needed | 252 | 288 | 324 | 360 | 360 | 360 |
Processor power available (Atlas units) | 2 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
Channels available | 30 | 50 | 90 | 125 | 125 | 125 |
Terminals available | 50 | 90 | 170 | 250 | 250 | 250 |
Processor power shortfall (Atlas units) | 5 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 17 | 21 |
Channel shortfall | 96 | 94 | 72 | 55 | 55 | 55 |
Terminal shortfall | 202 | 198 | 154 | 110 | 110 | 110 |
It is clear that considerable further provision is necessary particularly in processor power. It is difficult to make specific recommendations on how to meet the needs for the following reasons:
The Technical Group strongly recommends that a further review be made in 1977/78 to assess what future provisions be made. By then
There is clearly a need to provide a budget estimate of what provision should be made for capital and recurrent expenditure for the period 1979-81. To do this it is necessary to assume a model solution. The assumption is made that multi-user minis will be provided from 1977-81. An overlap is taken with the period already considered (1976-78) because it is expected that the two minis provided for development can be installed in selected universities in 1977/78 and additional systems can be bought from 1978 onwards as the picture develops and the case is made. It is assumed that averaged over the period 1978-81 a multi-user mini of 1 Atlas power together with necessary file store and terminals will cost £50K. (At current prices it would cost about £lOOK). If this assumption is true and provision is made for 20 units the capital requirement for computers and terminals is £lM. Additional capital will be required for network hardware and this is assumed to be £150K over the 3 years. The communication equipment already purchased will still be required for connection into the network.
The recurrent costs are even more difficult to estimate but assuming the staff at the centre remains fixed at 36 and the staff in the universities increases by 20 over the period the recurrent costs are estimated to reach £1.3M per year by 1981.
Table 6.8 provides a breakdown of these additional estimates between 1978 and 1981 and Table 6.9 combines the costs with those given in Table 6.6. The total capital cost is £4.0M and the recurrent totals £5.6M giving a grand total of £9.6M for the period 1976-81.
1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
|
Provision of further multi-user minis and terminals | 100 | 300 | 300 | 300 | ||||
Capital for networks and communications | 50 | 50 | 50 | |||||
Staff costs at Chilton |
included in Table 6.6 for period 1976-1978 |
191 | 191 | 191 | ||||
Staff costs at universities | 143 | 175 | 212 | |||||
Overheads at Chilton | 191 | 191 | 191 | |||||
Overheads at Universities | 143 | 175 | 212 | |||||
Maintenance | 299 | 327 | 355 | |||||
Rentals and line charges, including network charges | 120 | 130 | 140 | |||||
TOTAL | 100 | 350 | 1087 | 350 | 1189 | 350 | 1301 |
1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
Capital £K |
Recurrent £K |
|
Computers and terminals | 240 | 1440 | 660 | 300 | 300 | 300 | ||||||
Communications and networks | 165 | 265 | 240 | 50 | 50 | 50 | ||||||
Staff costs at Chilton | 64 | 159 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | ||||||
Staff costs at universities | 89 | 95 | 111 | 143 | 175 | 212 | ||||||
Overheads at Chilton | 64 | 159 | 191 | 191 | 191 | 191 | ||||||
Overheads at universities | 89 | 95 | 111 | 143 | 175 | 212 | ||||||
Maintenance | 60 | 93 | 229 | 299 | 327 | 355 | ||||||
Rentals and line charges including network charges | 15 | 85 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | ||||||
TOTAL | 405 | 381 | 1705 | 686 | 900 | 943 | 350* | 1087 | 350* | 1189 | 350* | 1301 |
* The low capital included in this period is dependent on price reductions of a factor of 2 by 1980 for mini computers.
Total Capital in Round Terms = £4.0M
Total Recurrent in Round Terms = £5.6M
GRAND TOTAL = £9. 6M