B. Keith Murphy wrote:
>Here is the kicker. Each box was a top of the line Sun server that
>had 32 processors and 32 gigs of RAM. They could handle up to 64
>procs and 64 gigs. And each cost well over a million dollars for
>the hardware alone. Running Oracle on it must have cost over
>100,000 dollars for software licenses. Granted this was in 2001,
>but the licensing cost for Oracle haven't gone down any that I am
>aware of...and the hardware cost will still be quite steep to do
>this type of thing.
You youngsters may not realize that there were billing applications
serving millions of customers long, long before there were any kind
of database management systems. They employed concepts called "flat
files" and "batch processing". And they ran on machines far weaker
than anything any of you have on your desk today. Even under
something like MS Windows, it would be absolutely possible to
configure 3-5 high speed printers and knock out 100,000 bills per
hour from an Intel single CPU box. You really have no appreciation
of how much power you actually have at your disposal.
Barry Newton
