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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: fad computing
Message-ID: <1989Nov26.204924.24209@world.std.com>
Date: 26 Nov 89 20:49:24 GMT
References: <89Nov25.051946est.2233@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <10446@encore.Encore.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 79
In-Reply-To: jdarcy@pinocchio.encore.com's message of 25 Nov 89 14:05:00 GMT


The real robustness people are concerned about is not how much their
system goes down (these days things don't go down a whole lot, unlike
a few years ago), it's "policy" robustness that's the concern.

If I compute on a main facility then I live with *your* rules on
things like disk storage or computing resources and even whether or
not I can use the computer at all.

If I get my own system then I can make up my own rules.

Non-critical use of centralized systems is of course always safe, I
don't mind reading news or grabbing PD software from *your* system,
other things, but lines are drawn.

C'mon, what are the major obsessions at every centralized facility?

Who gets disk space, who gets an account, who loses their account
because they were naughty, who shall live and who shall die. The
next-level obsession is implementing software to enforce the first set
of obsessions.

Who cares if it's up all the time if I'm limited to a few MB of disk,
get nagged or threatened if I ever actually use some CPU to the
system's discomfort or waste some printer paper, etc?

Medium-sized processors (like you mention, Vaxes, Multimax, Symmetry,
MIPS/SUN/SGI servers etc) are wonderful things because they can
provide the services mentioned within workgroups who have common
interests. That's not really what's being discussed. I guess I'm
mostly referring to single systems over $500K.

What's being discussed are the *central* services that cross workgroup
lines and, hence, are usually administered by a third-party entity
who's only justification for existence is to manage the resources.

That's the real problem, the first thing you notice about central
services is that the people involved actually have no real use for
computers other than to beat others over the head with them. Hence
there's typically no sympathy for someone trying to actually get some
work done with the computers, the *rules* are what's important, and
some incredibly unremarkable people end up as sheriffs.

Why is this relevant to comp.arch?

Because I am arguing that the decline of the large, centralized
machine is real and being driven much more by organizational politics
than technological considerations. But the trend has technological
requirements.

To put it into another framework, sure a centralized photocopy service
center is more efficient and has faster, fancier, larger copiers which
are better maintained than anything you're likely to find in your
office.

But you still want a copier in your office because who wants to deal
with the bureaucracy, the policies or the inability to get your hands
on the machine when you're not quite sure how you want to do a job?

As the smaller machines get "good enough" (good enough is not what a
techie thinks of as "good enough" any more than a race car driver
understands how anyone could consider a 10-year old Volvo "good
enough") the centralized, shared facilities will wither away (large
machines will tend to be huge "personal computers" politically, 3090's
etc which are used by a very few people directly to get some specific,
large jobs done, like payroll or billing.)

That's why it's important to tear down the last few architectural
constraints of smaller systems (smaller probably means under $500K in
relatively smaller numbers of units, under $100K in large numbers and
under $10K in huge numbers.)

I think it's all organizational and political trends crying out for
architectural solutions, not the other way around.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade         | bzs@world.std.com
1330 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 | {xylogics,uunet}world!bzs


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