Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!ncrlnk!emdeng!hrich
From: hrich@emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM (George.H.Harry.Rich)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Single user vs. shared (was Re: Killer Micros and vectorized code)
Message-ID: <295@emdeng.Dayton.NCR.COM>
Date: 22 Mar 90 13:31:40 GMT
References: <51771@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <100598@convex.convex.com> <52661@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Mar18.023523.4034@ultra.com> <52817@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Mar19.220617.26370@world.std.com> <500@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <268@van-bc.UUCP>
Reply-To: hrich@emdeng.UUCP (George.H.Harry.Rich)
Organization: NCR, E&M Dayton
Lines: 31

In article <268@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>In article <500@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> ian@sibyl.OZ (Ian Dall) writes:
>>In article <1990Mar19.220617.26370@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>>>
>
...
>Personally I'd much rather get a guaranteed 2% of a KMMM(TM) with the
>potential of using it *all* when no one else is around than to get 100% of a
>much smaller machine.
>
>-- 
>Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca ubc-cs!van-bc!sl 604-937-7532(voice) 604-939-4768(fax)
My experience in shared environments is that I can't get that guarenteed
2%, no matter how good the scheduler is.  There is always maintenance, system
failure, etc., etc.

My relatively slow desktop workstation takes care of the small job I have
to get done in the next 10 minutes much more reliably than any shared system;
in the event of a system failure, or maintenance, both of which occur on
the desktop, I have redundancy -- i.e. borrow the desktop on the next desk.

I'll have to admit that with a different kind of work pattern, I might prefer
the really fast shared system, but for most environments availability
rather than compute power is the issue.

Regards,

	Harry Rich

Disclaimer:  Again, my ideas on this subject are my own, and not necessarily
	those of my employer.