

Dear Slashdot: You get what you pay for - lmacvittie
http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2009/04/17/dear-slashdot-you-get-what-you-pay-for.aspx

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smoody
The "you get what you pay for" argument is a weird argument to make. That
implies that 10 instances of the o3 solution are delivering the same value as
a single f5 box -- value in way you describe -- because, at that point, their
dollar cost is the same. If that's the case, then it doesn't really matter
which solution I choose, does it?

I hate to come off as a f5 hater, because I'm not -- they (you) make good
products, but your first argument is essentially dissing the predominant
architecture of the Internet -- chaining proxies, "cobbling together,"
physically separated servers, etc. and yet that general approach to getting
things done on the Internet seems to be working just fine -- not only working,
but winning out in a very big way. There are very good reasons why the
Internet is cobbled together and not running on a single mainframe computer
and one giant router.

And this sentence: "The author states: 'The system had no problems handling
over 26,590 TPS' which _seems to indicate_ it was not using the industry
standard 1024-bit key based on the core capabilities of the processors to
process RSA operations. In fact, 512-bit key certificates are no longer
supported by most CAs due to their weak key strength." (emphasis added by me)

So, you're not sure about something as important as the key length. Okay.
Fine. But the second sentence does not follow from the first. Instead of
starting the sentence with "In fact," it should start with "If they are, in
fact, using 512-bit keys (and I have no idea if they are or not), then that
might present a problem because..."

I'm going to end there because I need to go tell those pesky kids to get off
of my lawn. :-)

