From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:29:09 -0400
To: 9fans@9fans.net
Message-ID: <d4326ba89cf844245e5686d41ee0bbf2@coraid.com>
In-Reply-To: <20090417171154.GA2029@polynum.com>
References: <21493d85b69b070fed0a4f864eb5325a@proxima.alt.za>
	<57928816a76e769327ca134d7e28bd06@bellsouth.net>
	<20090417171154.GA2029@polynum.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [9fans] VMs, etc.  (was: Re: security questions)
Topicbox-Message-UUID: e268113a-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

> In some sense, logically (but not efficiently: read the caveats in the
> Plan9 papers; a processor is nothing without tightly coupled memory, so
> memory is not a remote pool sharable---Mach!),

if you look closely enough, this kind of breaks down.  numa
machines are pretty popular these days (opteron, intel qpi-based
processors).  it's possible with a modest loss of performance to
share memory across processors and not worry about it.

there is such an enormous difference in network speeds
(4 orders of magnitude 1mbps dsl/wireless up to 10gbps)
that it's hard to generalize but i don't see why tightly
coupled memory is an absolutely necessary.  you could
think of the network as 1/10th to 1/10000th speed quickpath.
it may still be a big win.

> even today on an
> average computer one has this articulation: a CPU (with a FPU
> perhaps) ; tightly or loosely connected storage (?ATA or SAN) ;
> graphical capacities (terminal) : GPU.

plan 9 can make the nas/dasd dichotomy disappear.

	import -E ssl storage.coraid.com '#S' /n/bigdisks

- erik