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Date:      Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:53:58 +0100
From:      Dominic Mitchell <Dom.Mitchell@palmerharvey.co.uk>
To:        Alfred Perlstein <bright@rush.net>
Cc:        Francisco Reyes <francisco@natserv.com>, FreeBSd Chat list <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Will Ebay ever learn?
Message-ID:  <19990723095358.C98688@palmerharvey.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990722233147.27774K-100000@cygnus.rush.net>; from Alfred Perlstein on Thu, Jul 22, 1999 at 11:35:13PM -0400
References:  <199907230150.VAA14084@vulcan.addy.com> <Pine.BSF.3.96.990722233147.27774K-100000@cygnus.rush.net>

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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.
-- 
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