sly789@yahoo.com (sg) writes:
I agree with Bruce.
The author is a " a 20 year veteran", yet hasn't figured out that more hardware doesn't necessarily mean more performance.
Yes. The bits that caught my eye were
| Althought the Alpha is a 64-bit processor, NetApp's operating | system was just 32-bit, so they were not exploiting the power | of their design.
and
| [...] one could argue that moving down [sic] from the Alpha to | the Intel CPU was a significant technology and performance step | backwards, but [...] For instance, there are far more operating | systems based on Intel than Alpha, as well as applications | software for these operating systems.
One wonders whether the author has any idea how a NetApp box looks to the outside world. Does he really think that the architecture of the filer CPU is significant to its clients? Or that NetApp run MicroSloth applications on their (Intel-based) filers?
Now if he had made some serious points about NetApp's implementation being dependent on cost-effective fast uniprocessors, and what the future prospects for such beasts might imply (as compared to systems that can make better use of multiprocessors), rather than wittering on about irrelevancies like the above, maybe the article would have been worth reading.
Chris Thompson University of Cambridge Computing Service, Email: cet1@ucs.cam.ac.uk New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG, Phone: +44 1223 334715 United Kingdom.