Re: [9fans] VMs, etc. (was: Re: security questions)

[blstuart@bellsouth.net]

>> Absolutly, but part of what has changed over the past 20
>> years is that the rate at which this local processing power
>> has grown has been faster than rate at which the processing
>> power of the rack-mount box in the machine room has
>> grown (large clusters not withstanding, that is).  So the
>> gap between them has narrowed.
>
> This is a geek attitude ;) You say that since I can buy something more
> powerful (if I do not change the programs for fatter ones...) for the
> same amount of money or a little more, I have to find something to do
> with that.

I'm not sure I follow.  The point where I would do something
special to get a more powerful system are several years past.
For example, a little over a year ago, the hinges on my work
laptop broke.  When ordering a new one, there was no need
to get a quote for one more powerful than the coporate standard
ones.  The ones in the "catalog" were powerful enough to do
pretty much anything I needed.  This is partly because the
performance has grown faster than my need and because the
performance gap with larger systems has closed.  In '89, a
desktop box would be something along the lines of an early
SPARCstation.  There was a pretty large gap between its
power and that of a large SGI machine one might use for a
CPU server.  Today, the difference between a base-model
machine and a single machine CPU server isn't as big as it
once was.

> My point of view is: if my terminal works, I keep it. If not, I buy
> something cheaper, including in TCO, for happily doing the work that has
> to be done ;)

I don't disagree.  For that matter, pretty much all the machines
I use here at home are ones that were surplus and I rescued.
But once you get to the point where the cheapest one you can
find has more than enough capability, performance ceases to
be a motivator for a separate CPU server.

Again, that's not to say that there aren't other valid motivators
for some centralized functionality.  It's just that in my opinion,
we're at the point were if it's raw cycles we need, we'll have
to be looking at a large cluster and not a simple CPU server.

BLS