RE: Scalability

> From: James Rich
> 
> Interesting.  Strictly hardware, then I would guess something like the
SGI
> Altix would take the crown.  Trouble is, how do you define hardware?
What
> about 100s of blades?

Actually, we're talking how to scale up an application.  Here's my
offline reply to Murali (the same argument applies to those of you who
try to argue a blade rack or a server farm):

It means that you can write an application on a small iSeries that
serves five users.  As your needs grow, you can upgrade the server to
larger and larger boxes and, without having to change the application,
support hundreds or thousands of users.

If you write a Unix application on a small box for five users and then
want to support more users it will go something like this: add ten or
twenty users, you can simply add RAM to the Unix machine and a faster
processor and some more disk, but you will probably have to add someone
to tune your database.  As you approach 100 users, you may need another
server, at which time you will have to worry about inter-machine
communications.  Your programming staff will need to make sure all
servers are running the same version of the code.  You'll also need
someone to administer the database and someone to make sure passwords
are synchronized between machines.  And since your database is now on a
different machine than your application, your performance will suffer
due to latency issues (as you well know).  As you grow towards 1000
users, you'll need to add more and more servers, and more and more
support staff to keep them running.  At this point backups and operating
system patches and application fixes become a nightmare.  Security is an
issue, and so is network throughput.

With the iSeries, it will still be just one machine, with simple backups
and easy management, no network issues and no database latency.  In the
most complex scenario, you will need an additional machine to support
high availability, along with a database mirroring package.  But you'll
still be able to survive with a very small support staff and not a lot
of time spent on system management.

Joe