RE: Trivia: Processor MHz

Jim,

I bow to your experience.

But what I've heard of, in the scientific community, is computers which
harnesses THOUSANDS of parallel processors.  AFAIK (and ICBW) this is done
primarily on *nix.  Again, AFAIK, this is also somewhat similar to Grid
computing (but haven't had much time to follow this recent enhancement
and/or buzzword...;-)

I can look into the Blue Gene and ASCII White projects some more, later, if
you're interested.

jt

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Jim Damato
| Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 11:54 AM
| To: 'midrange-l@midrange.com'
| Subject: RE: Trivia: Processor MHz
| Importance: High
|
|
| > jt:
| >I didn't intend to imply that Unix is MORE capable or better suited to
| >parallel processing.  Just that it's more widely implemented on the box.
|
| I've implemented a fair number of large and small Unix-based business
| applications and I just don't see it.  Maybe this type of multi-stream
| technology is out there in the scientific community, but it's
| definitely not
| there for our segment of the market.  Technology such as Oracle Parallel
| Query can only do so much, and I don't see the business world using Unix
| systems as a parallel processing powerhouse.  Not to the degree
| that one can
| really say "That's one area the *nix (and maybe PASE?) just kicks the crap
| out of OS/400".
|
| As a large retailer one of our persistent business concerns is concurrency
| because of our high volumes of transactional data.  With every app we
| implement, Unix, NT, or AS/400, we find that parallel processing is not
| built in to the software or inherently a part of the underlying
| technology.
| Modifications to facilitate multiple streams of data loads, or to
| concurrently handle a single process have required major architecture
| changes from the database and up.
|
| I would say that the iSeries and Unix have similar capabilities
| for parallel
| processing, and similar pitfalls and limitations.  Most of the work that I
| see on either platform equates to greater numbers of concurrent user
| connections or reduced contention among concurrent single-stream
| batch jobs.
|
| -Jim
|
| James P. Damato
| Manager - Technical Administration
| Dollar General Corporation
| <mailto:jdamato@dollargeneral.com>
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