[Info-vax] AltaVista background information

[MG]

On 17-10-2011 13:34, dsnyder wrote:
>  From the archives, a bit of info on AltaVista:
>
> The Hardware Behind AltaVista
>
>
>     AltaVista: AlphaStation 500, 256 MB memory, 6GB disk.
>     AlphaStation 500's handle all external traffic to the site.
>     They run a custom multi-threaded Web server which sends
>     queries to the Web indexer and News indexer.
>
>
>     Web Indexer: AlphaServer 8400 5/300, 10 processors, 6 GB
>     memory, 210 GB RAID disk. This model is the most powerful
>     computer built by Digital. These servers run the query
>     engine. The Web index is larger than 40 GB, but most
>     requests take less than a second.
>
>
>     Scooter: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 1.5 GB memory, 30 GB RAID
>     disk. The super-spider runs from this machine. It fetches
>     pages from the Web and sends them to Vista, our primary web
>     indexer.
>
>
>     Vista: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 2 processors, 2GB memory,
>     180GB RAID disk. This machine indexes Scooter output and
>     serves as a central distribution point for new index data.
>
>
>     News Indexer: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 13 GB
>     disk. This machine keeps an up-to-date index of the news
>     spool: since new articles appear and old articles expire all
>     the time, it is in fact quite busy, even though the index it
>     serves is much smaller than the Web index.
>
>
>     News Server: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 24 GB RAID
>     disks. It maintains a current news spool for the News
>     Indexer. It also serves the articles via http to those of
>     you who don't want to know about news servers but want to
>     read news.
>
>
> Those aren't typos, either -- those are machines with many, MANY
> megabytes
> of RAM, and they're hooked up to some of the fastest random-access
> backing
> store in the world with capacities in the many, many gigabyte range.
> AltaVista is fast because DEC threw some phenomenally capable
> resources at
> the problem.

Thank you very much, this is exactly the kind of information I was
looking for and interested in!  I'm also glad you stuck with the topic
at hand, that's quite a rare nowadays.  Anyway, I'm very grateful.

  - MG