Re: Scaling noise

[Larry McVoy]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 01:07:03PM -0400, Brown, Len wrote:
> Fortunately seek time on RAM is lower than disk;-)  Sure, parallel
> systems are a waste of effort for running a single copy of a single
> threaded app, but when you have multiple apps, or better yet MT apps,
> you win.  If system performance were limited over time to the rate of
> decrease in RAM latency, then we'd be in sorry shape.

For a lot of applications we are.  Go talk to your buddies in the processor
group, I think there is a fair amount of awareness that for most apps faster
processors aren't doing any good.  Ditto for SMP.

> Back to the original off-topic...
> An OEM can spin their motivation to focus on smaller systems in 3 ways:
> 
> 1. large server sales are a small % of industry units
> 2. large server sales are a small % of industry revenue
> 3. large server sales are a small % of industry profits
> 
> Only 1 is true.

How about some data to back up that statement?

Sun: ~11B/year and losing money, heavily server based
Dell: ~38B/year and making money, 99% small box based

If you were gambling with _your_ money, would you invest in Sun or Dell?
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/