On Oct 30, 2006, at 10:13 PM, Greg Earle wrote:
>>> its sad, but you're entirely right. x86 won.
>>
>>   ...in some areas, like desktops.  Real server work, however, is  
>> typically done on real computers.  You just don't see very many  
>> serious datacenters full of PCs.  Some, sure...complete with a  
>> constant revolving-door of repair parts, etc.  But for the most  
>> part, that world is actually populated by UltraSPARCs, RS/6000s,  
>> and big HPs.
>
> Hah.  Get out much?  Apparently not.  Or did this post bubble up  
> from 5 years ago?

   Nope, I don't get out much; I work from home because my uptime  
allows me to.  I manage four datacenters now, one with well over a  
thousand machines in it, and have been doing so for a good long  
time.  The closest is about 1100 miles away, I've seen it twice this  
year.

   YOUR datacenter may be different.  See below.

> I work at a U.S. Government Lab, and trust me, our 'serious  
> datacenter' is
> full of "PCs".  1U, 2U, even 3U configurations.  Giant RAID boxes with
> multiple terabytes.  We just installed a 2U 7.5TB box with quad  
> Xeon 5160's
> the other day.  Since the CPUs are all Hyperthreaded, it looks to  
> the OS
> (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, if you had to ask) like 8 CPUs.  It  
> screams.
> While we also still have some Suns (mostly V240's and V210's), the  
> vast
> majority of our in-house systems are now RHEL 3 and RHEL 4 x86  
> boxes.  It's
> just far more cost-effective and bigger-bang-for-the-buck than Suns  
> are.
> You can't fight City Hall ...

   Well, if "bang for the buck" doesn't include downtime or  
throughput, I guess not.  I learned some time ago that I couldn't  
fight City Hall...when I realized that was an industry which believes  
glossy Dell ads in business magazines over the word of experienced  
professionals, I let them go twist in the wind of downtime of  
Microsoft toys, throwing good money after bad, and left for greener  
pastures.

   Did I say "there are no datacenters in the world that are full of  
PCs"?  No, I didn't.  But I assure you, where throughput and uptime  
are important considerations...such datacenters are the exception,  
rather than the rule.

> Sun hardware might be pretty solid and good for us home users  
> (heck, my e-mail
> server is an 11-year-old SPARCserver 20, which someday will be  
> replaced by
> my Ultra 60 when/if I can ever find a couple of dreary days to  
> devote to
> the task - kinda hard to come by when you live in Southern  
> California),
> but let's get real here - out in the real world where I live, "x86  
> won".

   *ROFL*  That's pathetic.  I have some standards regarding who I'll  
work for...perhaps you should too.

                -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL