Re: DB Buffer Cache Size

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:<412a8c87$0$8833$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>...

> Buying new hardware when it is not actually required strikes me as an
> unreasonable (as in, irrational) thing to do. It may not fix the problem up
> in the long-term, and is therefore not actually truly affordable.

and yet, this has been the mantra of hardware makers for the last 30 years. "Hardware is cheap, people are expensive" is the rule. The mantra was invented by IBM: wonder of wonders, a hardware maker.

It's as wrong as it can be: witness the enormous bottom lines and profits of hardware makers compared to consultant or contractor suppliers.

What the proponents of this "hardware is cheap" argument NEVER explain is that a hardware upgrade is NEVER cheap nor simple. In 99.99999% of the cases, it involves some very expensive additional upgrade (new motherboard, new memory, new chassis, new this, new that) and some serious disruption to the production stream (you can't just walk to a box and plonk a new chassis). And it requires heavy and expensive human resourcing.

All that somehow magically ends up disguised in a marketing dinner, or other suitable kickback to the idiot who authorises the hardware upgrade. Of course hardware upgrades are "cheap"!

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

>
> Even the lowest end of town must known that 10K today, plus 10K next year,
> plus 10K the year after is not a 'quick-and-cheap' alternative to paying
> 15K-right-now-and-that's-all.

Ah, but you see: the 10k here and there is already budgeted for and has been accepted as a way of life. People expenses however are cost-cutting items: that means they are never on budget, they are always extras. In the bean counter mentality, "extras := $$$$, budget != n*$$$$".

The whole thing is ridiculous. The amount of waste in IT with all this "hardware-centric" approach has only increased in the last 30 years. I had this very same discussion yonks ago in Canopus/Compuserve, when NT came out and the "tuning-du-jour" was: "add memory". Somehow, the true cost of adding that memory never was accounted for.

It's the way this stupid industry operates. Nothing we can do to change it. Other than find clients with half a brain and stick with them. The others, hopefully Darwin will take care of them. So far, it's worked.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam Received on Tue Aug 24 2004 - 01:38:34 CDT