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Distributed Computing Economics

Posted by simoniker on from the get-your-flops-cheap dept.

machaut writes "In a ClusterComputing.org article, Jim Gray, director of Microsoft's Bay Area Research Lab, provides an interesting economic analysis for building distributed systems. When do you choose a grid over a cluster or a supercomputer? When does it pay off to move a task to the data vs moving the data to the task? He takes current hardware and networking costs into account to answer those questions."

5 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Warning: by pecosdave · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ungodly numbers of "Beo-Wolf" cluster jokes arriving now!

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    1. Re:Warning: by tuber · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, there's the first one.

  2. Whassatnow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    When do you choose a grid over a cluster or a supercomputer?

    When you have a really high-paying job where you are paid to make such decisions.

  3. One dollar. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, what a world. $1 will now buy:
    1 GB sent over the WAN
    10 Tops tera-CPU instructions
    8 hours of cpu time
    1 GB disk space
    10 M database accesses
    10 TB of disk bandwidth
    1 large beverage
    1 of everything in the $1 store
    1 unlimited phonecall from some 10-10-### phone company.
    5 packets of cool aid
    10 packets of generic cool aid
    2 cans of coke

    When I was a child, data was expensive, and food was cheap...

  4. SETI is Extrememely Costly by yintercept · · Score: 5, Funny

    We only look at the cost of SETI from our perspective here on earth...but if you ever consider the enormous cost space aliens have to incur to make their secret communications appear as background noise, then I think more people would oppose the project.