Scaling is like memory management (Scripting News)

Dave says:

Technology will go forward and scaling won’t be a black art, it’ll be something built into the software you license

Scaling is like memory management (Scripting News)

Very good point. And it’s something that already exists to a small extent, though not as automatically as Dave expects. For example various “On Demand” models from HP, IBM and SUN all focus on this very issue. But “On Demand” is a hardware based model while Dave is talking about the software side.

Here Dave is 100% on track.

Scaling capacity up and down in an “On Demand” universe requires software that recognizes its changed circumstances and adjusts accordingly, automatically. Some of this is there now or will be this year. For example, SQL Server 2008 can be expanded to run on additional processors if they’re made available. Supposedly without restarting the instance. (It already can adjust to available memory on its own.)

I pay attention to larger server platforms than Dave usually does, but the story of scaling covers everything from a small site to the largest enterprises. Even the smallest companies have exponentially growing application performance and storage needs – especially if they’re on the WWW./

Should employees be able to really use technology?

I’ve been working with technology vendors as an analyst and as an engineer for years. Lately, most of my contacts have been with marketing and sales oriented folks, but my observations below don’t let the geeks off the hook.

It may be just me as I love learning how to use the software on my PC and to understand the servers, switches, routers and software we use to run our business. And by learn, I don’t just mean the steps required to perform a task, but also to learn about how a product was designed to work and where applicable, the science behind that functionality. When I observe how people use their computers, though, I’m surprised to see that many people don’t seem able to used them with the efficiency and comprehension I see in other aspects of our communications.

I know, using a computer efficiently is not their job. Building a marketing plan, or closing a sale, or writing some code or configuring a firewall is their job. But isn’t everyone today supposed to be able to use computers? Especially the recently graduated?

I’m not talking about difficult stuff – like configuring multiple IP addresses on a desktop or setting custom port settings on a firewall or writing a bash script. I’m talking about things like keyboard shortcuts such as Command-C for copy or pressing the Windows key to bring up the start menu. How about putting shortcuts to frequently used network (or web) folders into their “My Documents” folder? I won’t even get into complicated things like using styles in Word.

I guess I’m a curmudgeon.