
How Google Spawned The 384-Chip Server - coolrhymes
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/seamicro-and-google/
======
brandon
_Today, Mozilla is using SeaMicro’s older 512-core machines to handle
downloads of its Firefox browser_

Can anyone comment on the accuracy of this? "Handling downloads" is pretty
vague, but still it seems like a pretty braindead job, and I know Mozilla is
leveraging lots of mirrors and probably CDNs for this.

~~~
wmf
"Today, when an end user running Firefox wants to download an update, addon or
persona, the browser sends a URL request to Mozilla’s download cluster. The
servers running Linux, Apache, and PHP run a query to the backend
database/memcache cluster and return an HTTP Redirect URL (also called an HTTP
302 return) back to the browser so that Firefox can fetch the desired file
from the network of donated download resources."

[http://www.seamicro.com/sites/default/files/MozillaCaseStudy...](http://www.seamicro.com/sites/default/files/MozillaCaseStudy.pdf)

~~~
Retric
Let me get this strait, it's basically (request)>(redirect) for a few MB's of
data. That seems like the kind of thing where a single CPU could handle
~100,000 requests per second. I know the Firefox team is not exactly well know
for writing fast code, but there must be more to it than that.

~~~
th0ma5
This could be journalistic laziness and muddling of facts, but there is also
something to be said for understanding the sub-millisecond performance
considerations of a large professional effort, which may need an assured
throughput even with known possible failures, and instantaneous hand off of
each packet in as near real time as tuned with other devices, so as to not gum
up the works subtly both down and up stream.

~~~
moe
_and instantaneous hand off of each packet in as near real time as tuned with
other devices, so as to not gum up the works subtly both down and up stream._

Wow. You make static HTTP-downloads sound like rocket science.

Honestly, this is as trivial as it gets in terms of scaling. No "512 core
machine" needed whatsoever, unless they've started to fold proteins along with
their downloads...

~~~
th0ma5
So you're saying Amazon S3 runs on a single CPU? :D I think we're talking
about different things.

~~~
Drbble
Network cards and storage adapters the limiting factors, not CPU, that is the
point.

~~~
Retric
You have less than 1kb requests and less than 1kb responses on average.

Let's see how many requests a 1gb net card can do? Well it's bit's not bites,
but it's also a full duplex so you have 1gbit up and download. 1gigabyte / (8
kiliobit) = 1,000,000 / 8 = 125,000 requests per second. Granted full TCP/IP
has a fair amount of overhead, but if you use UDP you can get vary close to
this.

Yet, they don't need to get anywhere near that performance, for every 100
million clients updating every four hours using a random second to connect is
around 10k connections a second.

------
hga
Note, as of yet due to its dependency on Intel's Atom line SeaMicro on only
can't offer much memory per chip but they also can't offer parity or ECC,
which is a much bigger deal killer for me.

------
a9
So all those folks who always say "memory is cheap" and who make fun of others
who write small conservative programs might not be so smart after all.

Because they can't run their "feature-rich" unconstrained applications on
wimpy nodes. And thus they can't cut their employer's energy and real estate
costs.

Why did Google abandon its plans to supply its own energy?

~~~
nknight
> _So all those folks who always say "memory is cheap" and who make fun of
> others who write small conservative programs might not be so smart after
> all._

Your first hint that an opinion comes from a neophyte is that they make fun of
others. Your second hint is that they have an un-nuanced worldview.

> _Why did Google abandon its plans to supply its own energy?_

They didn't. They shut down part of their alternative energy R&D efforts, then
turned around and dumped about $100 million into new solar projects. And
they've never stopped putting PV panels on their datacenters. Mass media
somehow misinterpreted this as an abandonment of some grand strategy by
Google.

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jacques_chester
My favourite in this field was SiCortex, who were killed by a cashflow
interruption at the start of the GFC.

------
icefox
Anyone else find it odd that seamicro.com doesn't give you any way to actually
_buy_ their product?

~~~
Someone
Not really. This product is aimed at large enterprises. The more or less
expected behavior is:

\- you call them, fill in a form, or meet them at an expo.

\- their sales team contacts you to discuss whether you can 'help each
other'/'find a win-win scenario'.

I have heard that second step described as "they figure out how much they can
charge you for their product"

In some sense, this is the epitome of "do not price your stuff at what it
costs, price it at what it is worth".

~~~
fierarul
Kinda like asking $1000 for a glass of water from the man almost dying of
thirst but accepting $3 from the man that's jogging and wants a sip.

The problem is I've always seen explanations where pricing is set my _the
market_ demand. I'm curious how an economical model would look when there is
no market, just this sort of individual negotiations with zero transparency.

Edit: This reminds me of the "how much is your time worth" sales question.
Imagine how much a billionaire pays his maid.

~~~
kijin
As soon as another vendor tries to negotiate with you, there will be a market.
Just because it's less convenient for the casual shopper doesn't mean that
it's not a market.

~~~
fierarul
What if they are selling an unique product and there is no other vendor? Is
there a market when the same product is negotiated at a different price with
each customer?

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mjwalshe
384 isn't that much you can easily get 500+ full fat cores in a full cab for
HPC systems and that is leaving 2U for the infiband tor switch

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Roboprog
Is nothing: in Soviet Russia, 384 servers chip YOU!

(I am so gonna get dinged, now :-))

~~~
Roboprog
Seriously, though, they might need to look at getting chip manufacturers to up
the low-power-core count on each chip to make these packages fit together more
efficiently.

