Comments on: Killing With Kindness: Death By Big Iron http://storagemojo.com/2006/05/23/killing-with-kindness-death-by-big-iron/ Data storage info & analysis Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:02:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Somewhere out there! » The Future is Online - Is the cost going to drive Microsoft out of business? http://storagemojo.com/2006/05/23/killing-with-kindness-death-by-big-iron/comment-page-1/#comment-258 Somewhere out there! » The Future is Online - Is the cost going to drive Microsoft out of business? Tue, 06 Jun 2006 00:44:39 +0000 http://storagemojo.com/?p=99#comment-258 [...] that their cost of services vs Google will make it much more difficult for them to compete, and ultimately might drive them out of business. [...] [...] that their cost of services vs Google will make it much more difficult for them to compete, and ultimately might drive them out of business. [...]

]]> By: Somewhere out there! » Google vs Yahoo - Analysis of IT Spending. http://storagemojo.com/2006/05/23/killing-with-kindness-death-by-big-iron/comment-page-1/#comment-109 Somewhere out there! » Google vs Yahoo - Analysis of IT Spending. Sun, 28 May 2006 08:26:07 +0000 http://storagemojo.com/?p=99#comment-109 [...] Clever analysis of IT spending between Google and Yahoo by StorageMojo » Killing With Kindness: Death By Big Iron The Bottom Line Google’s IT spend nets them at least a third more in revenue than Yahoo’s, and probably 50-60% more. I didn’t look at operating expense, but Google employs about 4,000 fewer people, too. So the autonomic GFS is probably saving money on the OpEx side as well. [...] [...] Clever analysis of IT spending between Google and Yahoo by StorageMojo » Killing With Kindness: Death By Big Iron The Bottom Line Google’s IT spend nets them at least a third more in revenue than Yahoo’s, and probably 50-60% more. I didn’t look at operating expense, but Google employs about 4,000 fewer people, too. So the autonomic GFS is probably saving money on the OpEx side as well. [...]

]]> By: Robin Harris http://storagemojo.com/2006/05/23/killing-with-kindness-death-by-big-iron/comment-page-1/#comment-66 Robin Harris Wed, 24 May 2006 06:23:01 +0000 http://storagemojo.com/?p=99#comment-66 Simon, Your points are well taken -- and I agree. In the review of GFS I concluded that it would NOT be a successful commercial product: it is too tightly tuned to Google's unique workloads. The "relaxed" consistency model would give any CIO hives as well. Yet from a future-tech perspective, as postulated in <a href=http://storagemojo.com/?p=20 rel="nofollow">Storage and Cosmology</a> the digital data universe is cooling. It has to as storage gets more affordable. Which means that the hot, transaction intensive storage that is the pinnacle of storage engineering,will find itself in a niche whose growth, relative to the total storage market, will lag. Think mainframes. To me the importance of Google is to show -- "he who has eyes to see, let him see" -- that for a demanding set of 7x24 apps it is possible to create a significant competitive advantage using IT. A few years ago Nick Carr wrote an essay titled "Does IT Matter?". Really, how could it NOT matter, unless we refuse to take risks? Google has taken a risk, and they are kicking it. Their marketing is pathetic in the extreme, so their hard-won advantage is at serious risk, but for now they are a shining avatar of what IT can and should aspire to. Simon,

Your points are well taken — and I agree. In the review of GFS I concluded that it would NOT be a successful commercial product: it is too tightly tuned to Google’s unique workloads. The “relaxed” consistency model would give any CIO hives as well.

Yet from a future-tech perspective, as postulated in Storage and Cosmology the digital data universe is cooling. It has to as storage gets more affordable. Which means that the hot, transaction intensive storage that is the pinnacle of storage engineering,will find itself in a niche whose growth, relative to the total storage market, will lag. Think mainframes.

To me the importance of Google is to show — “he who has eyes to see, let him see” — that for a demanding set of 7×24 apps it is possible to create a significant competitive advantage using IT. A few years ago Nick Carr wrote an essay titled “Does IT Matter?”. Really, how could it NOT matter, unless we refuse to take risks? Google has taken a risk, and they are kicking it. Their marketing is pathetic in the extreme, so their hard-won advantage is at serious risk, but for now they are a shining avatar of what IT can and should aspire to.

]]> By: Simon http://storagemojo.com/2006/05/23/killing-with-kindness-death-by-big-iron/comment-page-1/#comment-65 Simon Tue, 23 May 2006 23:00:17 +0000 http://storagemojo.com/?p=99#comment-65 This is a great stream on how Google builds out their architecture - lord knows it was hidden for so long. That said, it is dangerous to extrapolate the operations of web-based organisations like Google & Yahoo to "normal" enterprise-type businesses. Much like equating scientific proicessing to business processing is fraught with peril. GFS would not work in a corporate environment. The data access is primarily database-related, with a lower tier of file-type access. This is why the big iron is thrown at things. Sure, people like ORacle have tried to do some disrtibuted processing with RAC - but you want high OPEX? Let me introduce you to Oracle RAC on Red Hat Linux! Cheers, Simon This is a great stream on how Google builds out their architecture – lord knows it was hidden for so long. That said, it is dangerous to extrapolate the operations of web-based organisations like Google & Yahoo to “normal” enterprise-type businesses. Much like equating scientific proicessing to business processing is fraught with peril. GFS would not work in a corporate environment. The data access is primarily database-related, with a lower tier of file-type access. This is why the big iron is thrown at things. Sure, people like ORacle have tried to do some disrtibuted processing with RAC – but you want high OPEX? Let me introduce you to Oracle RAC on Red Hat Linux!

Cheers,
Simon

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