[Search-l] "depends on having something to work with"

[Nathan Braun]

On 5/9/07, Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com> wrote:
On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 03:06:13PM +0000, Fred Bauder wrote:
>The role we will play depends on having something to work with,
> at least a minimum system being up and available.


>         I agree with you, but since funding seems to be such a tough
> issue, and nobody has been hurt by vaporware announcements, I'm
> inclined to be very charitable on that topic. I could imagine
> Valleywag or some other snark-blog doing a "Show Me The Servers!"
> post. But, myself, I'd rather just let it alone and wait for anything
> to happen, than go through a "Kabuki" of "soon ... deal's in the
> works ... big things on the horizon ... the sun'll come out tomorrow ..."


(Speaking of sun...tomorrow...snarkiness...funding...&, esp., 'Show Me The
Servers!' in terms of "a minimum system being up and available"):

I don't know why Sun (or a similar org) doesn't donate one (or 2) of their
shiny new Black Boxes to Wikia/Search:
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/
?!

It would be good advertising for them (obviously, and Solaris- if we chose
to run it on that) and the product's still in development/yet-to-be-released
anyway:
"*Release date*: expected in July 2007"
http://datacenterlinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/sun-blackbox-tour.html

This would solve a lot of our _initial_ problems ('in one fell swoop' as it
were)!  and generate the appropriate amount of publicity for the interested
parties (namely mostly Sun and Wikia Search-  we have to name it first
obviously!!)...

Also, in terms of internal hardware (the boxes inside), it wouldn't be too
hard, hopefully, to setup, and even maintain:
a) they would not have to be Sun hardware (obviously), unless Sun wanted to
donate that also, which would make sense; and,
b) (more importantly) it would not have to be "fully-loaded" at first of
course:  It could be loaded - gradually if need be - with boxes as the
project evolves, obviously - and/or as they were donated.
(- The best part of it is that its modular and highly extensible, even
internationally, etc. by the very versatile infrastructure Sun provides..)

Jimmy could probably just ask for one and get it!*:
They already have one or two of these "on the road," touring, and full of
"fully-baked" hardware & devices: the full functionality..!
I think we would find it surprising amount of hardware donated , ie how much
hardware we could receive by donation (if we asked).

"Ask and ye shall receive"... right? :)

Anyway, if Sun didn't do this..they'd just be missing a phenomenal
opportunity to market, test, and experiment with their ..admittedly
phenomenal(-looking) new technology...

In fact, I don't think they could find a bigger or better potential
customer/client/partner...if (and only if) of course they were so-inclined.

NB

*PS Some specs(/free advertising for Sun), for the technically inclined:

 What can go inside:
* One Blackbox could hold 120 Sun Fire CoolThreads T2000 servers
* One Blackbox could hold 250 Sun Fire CoolThreads T1000 servers
  with 2000 cores and 8,000 simultaneous threads
  - 250 Sun Fire CoolThreads servers support 4x the number of web
  users and provide 5x the efficiency of a Blackbox full of Dell
  Xeon-based servers.
  - Customers will save about $1000 per Sun Fire T1000 or T2000
  server per year in energy cost, plus the cooling advantage of the
  container over whatever their datacenter is doing.
  - In addition, customers in Northern California qualify for energy
  rebates of up to $250,000 if they upgrade to Sun Fire CoolThreads
  servers in Project Blackbox from Xeons (rebates are $700-$1000/server).
* One Blackbox could provide as much as 1.5 petabytes of disk storage
* One Blackbox could provide as much as 2 petabytes of energy-efficient
  tape storage
* One Blackbox could hold 250 x64 servers with 1,000 cores
* One Blackbox could manage and support up to 10,000 simultaneous
  Sun Ray desktop users - without administrators.
* One Blackbox could host a configuration that would place it among
  the top 200 fastest supercomputers globally.
* One Blackbox could provide 7 Terabytes of Memory
* One Blackbox will have sufficient power and cooling to support
  200kW of rack mounted equipment

An example is the prototype Project Blackbox which is populated with
245 Sun V20z servers (35 per rack across 7 racks) configured for grid
computing. The eighth rack contains network switches, a dehumidifier,
a thermal management computers, alarm controls, and EPO controls.

http://www.sun.com/events/st/index.jsp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/attachments/20070509/c2e74c0e/attachment.html