[geeks] Big Blue Smoke

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2002 at 07:57:00PM -0400, alex j avriette wrote:
> On Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 07:29 PM, Eric Dittman wrote:
> 
> >>>Okay, let me rephrase that:  How many thousands of individual
> >>>web servers can you run, without slowdowns, from a group of
> >>>Netras that cost the same as the z800?
> >>
> >>how much does a z800 cost?
> >
> >$375,000.
> 
> retail, netras are $3000. we get 40% off that, for various reasons. so 
> we could get 208.33 netras for that price. they come with two 100mbit 
> nic's. youre telling me that your z800 is more cost effective? i just 
> cant see it. i _know_ it hasnt got 208 cpu's... i _know_ it hasnt got 
> 416 disks... i _know_ it hasnt got 416 nic's....

What are the power requirements of 208 netras, versus 1 z800?  I'm guessing
that that many netras are going to require more power by far.

And personally, I suspect that the management cost would be higher.  For 
instance, 208 IDE drives isn't asking for high reliability.

If your web server farm actually requires the CPU power of 208 netras, then
it is  probably a better deal, but what if what you want is a machine per
client, but no client comes near maxing their machine?  Can Solaris do that?
(No really, I want to know, since it could be handy if it could).
 
> there are situations when a mainframe is the way to go. web serving is 
> not one of them.



-- 
Joshua D. Boyd