From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Jul 23 2:16:27 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail.palmerharvey.co.uk (mail.palmerharvey.co.uk [62.172.109.58]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B891314BF9 for ; Fri, 23 Jul 1999 02:16:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Dom.Mitchell@palmerharvey.co.uk) Received: from ho-nt-01.pandhm.co.uk (unverified) by mail.palmerharvey.co.uk (Content Technologies SMTPRS 2.0.15) with ESMTP id ; Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:54:10 +0100 Received: from voodoo.pandhm.co.uk (VOODOO [10.100.35.12]) by ho-nt-01.pandhm.co.uk with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2448.0) id PJ2VD4KZ; Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:54:11 +0100 Received: from dom by voodoo.pandhm.co.uk with local (Exim 2.10 #1) id 117b5a-000Pkc-00; Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:53:58 +0100 Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:53:58 +0100 To: Alfred Perlstein Cc: Francisco Reyes , FreeBSd Chat list Subject: Re: Will Ebay ever learn? Message-Id: <19990723095358.C98688@palmerharvey.co.uk> References: <199907230150.VAA14084@vulcan.addy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.6i In-Reply-To: ; from Alfred Perlstein on Thu, Jul 22, 1999 at 11:35:13PM -0400 From: Dominic Mitchell Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, Jul 22, 1999 at 11:35:13PM -0400, Alfred Perlstein wrote: > It's called stupid design syndrome, they have a super powerful > sparc system running the entire database. > > The (multi?) million dollar machine is at capacity and one > burp from it and they die for hours at a time. > > Large central points of failure tend to do just that, fail. Which is quite amsuing, because the entire starfire (Sun E10K) design is designed around *not* having single points of failure. However, it's all very well having all this redundancy built in if you don't configure it right. The starfire comes with multiple power supplies, but if you only have one incoming power supply, you're screwed when that goes. It's no good saying "it's a fault tolerant solution" if you don't *configure* it fault tolerant. > This is why clustering many, many machines is the right way > to do things (ie. hotmail) I fully agree. -- Dom Mitchell -- Palmer & Harvey McLane -- Unix Systems Administrator In Mountain View did Larry Wall Sedately launch a quiet plea: That DOS, the ancient system, shall On boxes pleasureless to all Run Perl though lack they C. -- ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. ********************************************************************** To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message