[GRLUG] large systems performance

[Tim Schmidt]

On Nov 16, 2007 1:15 AM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> So would you guess that even more
> processors would help?  With your
> load profile that is?

We'll see...  :)

> It's not impossible that even a desktop
> will have hundreds of CPUs one day.
> I have no idea whether Linux could
> support that.

Yup.  It can.

>  But with the concept of
> one process per processor, without much
> swapping while in typical use,    one
> would see even more improvement.
> Swapping always creates overhead,  so
> the best way to reduce overhead is to not
> swap where possible.  Including letting
> other jobs wait in some circumstances
> if they are not real time.

Ah...  you're thinking pre-emptive multitasking.  Swapping, in this
context, would refer to moving a page from memory out to a block
device in order to free some memory to satisfy an allocation.

> I just bought 4GB of memory for $100
> recently.  For someone with deep pockets
> a 100GB or more of memory could be
> practical today.  As soon as anyone makes
> a motherboard to enable this anyway.

They've been around for a while...  for instance, this system supports
128Gb:  http://tyan.com/product_barebones_detail.aspx?pid=348

They're just getting cheaper :)

--tim