There are approximately 20 nodes in use now. There have been no problems with file-service but there have been some tedious problems with client software. Applications support on NT is awkward, in particular there is no clean upgrade path. Similiarly, no clean OS upgrade path is apparent.
Lead time varies but is typically a week or two, depending.
The model seems to be 'contract with ECT to get hold of Xceed'. Several que-services are being investigated. Meanwhile, the worker3 node is available for 'interactive' submission of background jobs. Generally, it was agreed that batch processing would be a nice feature, but the interface should be simple. The theory group, and some others, have installed Linux on their desktop PCs.