> I'd like to add to Brian Stuart's comments the point that previous > specialization of various "boxes" is mostly disappearing. At some point in > near future all boxes may contain identical or very similar powerful > hardware--even probably all integrated into one "black box." So cheap that
The domination of the commodity reminds me a lot of the parallel processing world. At one time, the big honkin' machines had very custom interconnect designs and often custom CPUs as well. But by the time commodity CPUs got to the point where they were competitive with what you could do custom, and Ethernet got to the point where it was competitive with what you could do custom, it became very rare that you could justify a custom machine. It was much more cost-effective to build a large cluster of commodity machines. For me, personally, this is leading to a point where my home network is converging on a collection of laptops, some get used the way most laptops get used, and some just sit closed on shelves in the rack. The primary hardware differences between servers and terminals is that servers have bigger disks and the lids on terminals tend to stay open where on servers they tend to stay closed. It's getting farther away from the blinkin lights I miss, but it sure makes my office more comfortable in the summer both in terms of heat and noise. Now if I could just get that Cisco switch to be quieter... BLS
