Re: My take on ARC

From: Erann Gat (myfirstname.mylastname_at_jpl.nasa.gov)
Date: 10/20/03 

Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 13:52:22 -0700

In article <BbXkb.3303344$Bf5.452911@news.easynews.com>, Doug Tolton
<doug@nospam.com> wrote:

> > One of the premises of ARC's design is that speed doesn't matter because
> > today's machines are so fast. I don't accept this premise. Speed only
> > doesn't matter if you're not doing production work. If you're doing
> > production work speed does matter because as soon as you start to process
> > in volume your machine costs are directly proportional to your speed. If
> > you can process customer requests twice as fast you only need half as many
> > machines.
>
> Sorry, I very much disagree with this perspective. I do a *great*
> amount of production work, and very few problems require more machine
> speed. The largest cost of owning a machine and solving most business
> problems do not relate to machine speed, they are directly tied to
> programmer or operator productivity.

I think this depends on what kind of business you're in. In a marginal
business, like most Internet businesses are nowadays, this is probably
true. But once you start to achieve real success on the scale of a Google
or an Ebay then speed starts to matter more. Speed increases of a factor
of 2 can translate into annual savings running into many millions of
dollars. Even by Google's standards that's real money.

> Processing a customer request is almost always directly proportional to
> the amount of time it takes for the operator or programmer to do their
> task.

Only if there's a human in the loop.

> > Yes, hardware is cheap, but the cost of the hardware is only a
> > tiny fraction of the TCO of a machine. You have to find a place to put
> > it, pay for the air conditioning, pay a sysadmin to maintain it and
> > replace it every two years or so.
>
> If this is true, why don't you write everything in Assembly? Because it
> will take 50 times as long to get it done.

At some point in any optimization process you reach a point of diminishing
returns. But that does not mean that efficiency is irrelevant. Certainly
developer time matters also. But it's not the only thing that matters.

> I'm sorry, I just disagree with this conclusion. As time advances
> machine time is becoming less and less of a factor.

Then why does Google's server farm keep growing instead of shrinking?

E.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Read the stimulus package
    ... I will not, no matter how "good" the deal, patronise any business which sends ... Hopefully there will be hell to pay, and those idiots are forced to ...
    (alt.smokers.cigars)
  • Re: Note to Stephen Donatelli
    ... So my advice to you on this ... matter, which is none of your business in the first place, is to shut ... What "debts have I failed to pay up?" ...
    (rec.sport.boxing)
  • Re: Technical Animism
    ... within 'organised' matter, and that the matter then becomes an ... then the sun might even not be a good performer. ... First I never claimed a causal relationship between organized ... For example for a business, ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Tiffany v. Ebay - update
    ... business and has been investigated and convicted of such crimes, ... can use a governemnt agency to enforce their monopoly. ... that has nothing to do with their own property rights being ... Theft is theft, no matter who from.. ...
    (alt.horology)
  • Re: Brett Favre.. NFL Embarrassment this year
    ... "immediate" future it doesn't matter in the total scheme of things. ... This team lives and breathes Packers. ... I was at Lambeau Field yesterday for a business meetng (they rent out ... On Aug 13 2007 11:26 PM, Diane from Green Bay wrote: ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)