4 ms·

"If you compare Sun to their competitors at the time: IBM, DEC, SGI, HP, and even Microsoft. Sun was way ahead on distributed systems." Careful now, you're on

"If you compare Sun to their competitors at the time: IBM, DEC, SGI, HP, and even Microsoft. Sun was way ahead on distributed systems." Careful now, you're on thin ice: Sun Microsystems might have been a pioneer in distributed cloud computing, but nobody did it better than SGI: once they had the NUMALink technology from CRAY, they invented cluster routing in hardware which would linearly scale with added router modules. I had Origin 2000's hooked up and scaled them linearly thanks to NUMALink, the hardware routing bricks and the crossbar switch on the motherboard. And IRIX 6.5 was aware of it all and used it! I'd hit the power button on one server and the other one would come up; after the systems booted, each having 8 GB of memory and 8 processors, I logged into a single IRIX instance with 16 GB of RAM and 16 processors. The only company to come even close to that was DEC, years prior, but nobody perfected it so throughly like SGI engineers. What CRAY started, SGI engineers finished. Sun only came with hardware which had the crossbar switch after SGI, and they never had their own hardware router bricks. By router I don't mean network router, I mean cluster scalability router which had nothing to do with TCP/IP networking.

cbsmith 7y ago
That's not the distributed computing that the OP was referring to. Explicit reference was made to WAN-style networking that makes the crossbar switch effectively seem like motherboard traces.
- Annatar 7y ago
  Doesn't matter (and I don't care) what they referred to, only the end result counts: SGI designed and implemented cloud computing in hardware. Color me impressed. Haven't seen anyone successfully do it since, hardware- or software-wise (and everyone is sure as hell trying!)
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    Cloud computing in hardware is oxymoron.
    - Annatar 7y ago
      SGI did in hardware what people are now trying to hack together with shoddy software implementations which can't survive an outage nor protect against data corruption.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Explicit reference was also made to NFS, which has nothing to do with WAN-style networking. The local Sun mafia are trying really hard to claim credit for distributed computing at all scales, and there's nothing off-topic about addressing one part.
  - Annatar 7y ago
    "Sun mafia"? That's really uncalled for. Why are you angry with those people? What did they do, in your view, that makes them deserve such an insult?
    - notacoward 7y ago
      Many many things over the years, going all the way back to 1990 when I was at Encore dealing with all the dirty tricks they played to hobble competing NFS implementations, but that's not the point. My real issue with them is hubris. There's a certain cadre of Sun alumni, highly visible on forums such as this, who would have us believe that they were absolutely always doing the best work on the most important problems. I think that denies credit to others who were doing work just as good on problems just as important, at companies which weren't driven into Oracle's arms by all the waste. Having known many of those people over the years - it's not for me to judge whether I'm one of them myself - I find that offensive. Sun just wasn't all that and the sooner we shed that particular piece of idol worship the better the industry will be.
      - Annatar 7y ago
        You know why Sun engineers are all that? They made all these technologies they invented wildly popular in professional, elite IT circles. There are still many people who have no clue who Bryan Cantrill or Jeff Bonwick or Matt Ahrens or Nicholas Droux are because they're not in that elite or enthusiast circle of IT professionals dealing with those technologies, but for us who understand what they do and their importance to the overall computer industry, yes, we appreciate them for inventing them. Those people came forward, blogged and documented their work over the span of ten years, did you? I didn't read anything from you until yesterday, and it's not for the lack of trying, let me assure you. They made videos, presented at conferences, a lot. So yes they're popular, as they should be and they get credited, as they should. It's like watching an Amiga demo: one has to understand how hard it was to code the effect to appreciate it -- a normal person off of the street just sees some graphics and hears some music. Sun engineers not only did great things well, but they popularized them too because they wrote intimate diaries in the open about their work over the span of ten years. They raised an entire generation of IT professionals and taught them what it takes and what it means to be an engineer. I wish I knew who the engineer(s) behind SGI inst(1M) is(were), but unfortunately I don't because they never put names and faces on their products.

cbsmith 7y ago

That's not the distributed computing that the OP was referring to. Explicit reference was made to WAN-style networking that makes the crossbar switch effectively seem like motherboard traces.

Annatar 7y ago
Doesn't matter (and I don't care) what they referred to, only the end result counts: SGI designed and implemented cloud computing in hardware. Color me impressed. Haven't seen anyone successfully do it since, hardware- or software-wise (and everyone is sure as hell trying!)
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  Cloud computing in hardware is oxymoron.
  - Annatar 7y ago
    SGI did in hardware what people are now trying to hack together with shoddy software implementations which can't survive an outage nor protect against data corruption.
notacoward 7y ago
Explicit reference was also made to NFS, which has nothing to do with WAN-style networking. The local Sun mafia are trying really hard to claim credit for distributed computing at all scales, and there's nothing off-topic about addressing one part.
- Annatar 7y ago
  "Sun mafia"? That's really uncalled for. Why are you angry with those people? What did they do, in your view, that makes them deserve such an insult?
  - notacoward 7y ago
    Many many things over the years, going all the way back to 1990 when I was at Encore dealing with all the dirty tricks they played to hobble competing NFS implementations, but that's not the point. My real issue with them is hubris. There's a certain cadre of Sun alumni, highly visible on forums such as this, who would have us believe that they were absolutely always doing the best work on the most important problems. I think that denies credit to others who were doing work just as good on problems just as important, at companies which weren't driven into Oracle's arms by all the waste. Having known many of those people over the years - it's not for me to judge whether I'm one of them myself - I find that offensive. Sun just wasn't all that and the sooner we shed that particular piece of idol worship the better the industry will be.
    - Annatar 7y ago
      You know why Sun engineers are all that? They made all these technologies they invented wildly popular in professional, elite IT circles. There are still many people who have no clue who Bryan Cantrill or Jeff Bonwick or Matt Ahrens or Nicholas Droux are because they're not in that elite or enthusiast circle of IT professionals dealing with those technologies, but for us who understand what they do and their importance to the overall computer industry, yes, we appreciate them for inventing them. Those people came forward, blogged and documented their work over the span of ten years, did you? I didn't read anything from you until yesterday, and it's not for the lack of trying, let me assure you. They made videos, presented at conferences, a lot. So yes they're popular, as they should be and they get credited, as they should. It's like watching an Amiga demo: one has to understand how hard it was to code the effect to appreciate it -- a normal person off of the street just sees some graphics and hears some music. Sun engineers not only did great things well, but they popularized them too because they wrote intimate diaries in the open about their work over the span of ten years. They raised an entire generation of IT professionals and taught them what it takes and what it means to be an engineer. I wish I knew who the engineer(s) behind SGI inst(1M) is(were), but unfortunately I don't because they never put names and faces on their products.