Re: More with Moore, more or less

Reuven,

I understand what you are saying, but I fear I must respectfully
disagree. In fact, I think you have it precisely backwards -- unless,
perhaps, you are specifically talking about Enomaly, as opposed to
cloud computing in general.

Moore's law is about larger numbers of transistors per device, per
system. Cloud computing, like clusters, farms, and grids, is about
using multiple systems. A key example is Google. As Paco's excellent
reference to "behind the scenes" at Google pointed out, Google is all
about using low-end systems. LOTS of low-end systems. Not the high-end
systems that are at any time the current best expression of Moore's
law. "Single machine performance is not interesting" (p. 4). I've seen
no indication they're the sligntest bit interested in virtualization.

While cloud computing can *use* virtualization to pack more separate
systems into a smaller volume (with lower power, etc.), it is the
virtualization alone that exploits more processors per chip, more bits
per RAM DIP, etc.

Enomaly's implementation may tame the management of virtualization,
making it simpler to use. But taming, or eliminating, or outsourcing
management of many systems is a significant part of cloud computing --
whether those systems are virtual or not.

(Postscript -- other issues: (1) It seems to me that you are
implicitly equating "number of transistors" and "performance." There
used to be a direct relationship between them, but no longer. Big
subject. (2) Intel is by far not the only company "driven" by Moore's
Law. Everybody in the computing industry has been, and is. Clusterers/
farmers/cloudies, however, are far less so because of the multi-system
aspect.)

--
Greg Pfister