[Info-vax] Where to locate software

[Paul Sture]

On 2016-06-11, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> lawrencedo99 at gmail.com wrote:
>> On Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 2:05:05 PM UTC+12, Kerry Main wrote:
>>> However, I would argue shared nothing architectures (Windows, Linux, 
>>> UNIX) in distributed db's require much more up front planning because 
>>> how you split up your Apps servers and especially data is critical. If hot 
>>> spots occur due to unexpected loads in a few areas, then it becomes very 
>>> difficult to address because you either increase that specific server size 
>>> (and its designated backup) or re-partition the data or provide error 
>>> messages to the client - the proverbial "server busy - please try later".
>> 
>> Cluster filesystems, map-reduce, all that kind of thing. There was an
>> article from a few years ago, from when Google only ran about 460,000
>> physical servers, about how they manage it all.
>> 
>> Does your «insert name of favourite proprietary product here» scale
>> to that level?
>>
>
> Google is not going to be purchasing hardware from anyone, they build
> their own. This sort of implies they would never be a customer.  So,
> why attempt to build something they could use.

That's an excellent point.  I've come across an awful lot of this
line of thinking over the last few years:

	- Google is a successful company
	- Google does stuff this way
	- therefore we should all mimic Google

If we look at search engine technology or advertising, both are
areas where statistical analyses can be very useful.

Here's one example of a statistical method (I don't know whether
Google currently use this one or not):

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method>

"Monte Carlo methods (or Monte Carlo experiments) are a broad class of
computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain
numerical results. They are often used in physical and mathematical
problems and are most useful when it is difficult or impossible to use
other mathematical methods."

Which is fine for search engines or advertising, and probably for
financial forecasting, but not applicable to accounting standards,
to name just one area of business which is regulated.

One size does not fit all.

> It's one company.  VMS needs to be usable by many companies, and entities.

Correct.

> My favorite proprietary product scales quite well.  Have never had a capacity 
> problem.

:-)

> I really don't feel your question is meaningful.  How many Googles are
> there, or will there be?

The other side of the coin is that there is an awful lot of pressure
to use Google's services.  To quote one "Business Guru" from a couple
of years ago "Every pound I spend with Google gives me 7 pounds of
sales".  Yes, in his business I can well believe that, but we can't
all be in his line of business (selling business startup packs).

One size does not fit all.

-- 
There are two hard things in computer science, and they are cache invalidation,
naming, and off-by-one errors.