Another thought - I priced out a maxed out machine with 16 cores and 128GB of RAM and 1.5TB of usable disk - $71,000. You could instead buy 8 machines that total 16 cores, 128GB RAM and 28TB of disk for $48,000, and it would be 16 times faster in scan rate, which is the most important factor for large databases. The size would be 16 rack units instead of 5, and you'd have to add a GigE switch for $1500. Scan rate for above SMP: 200MB/s Scan rate for above cluster: 3,200Mb/s You could even go dual core and double the memory on the cluster and you'd about match the price of the "god box". - Luke
Luke, I assume you are talking about useing the Greenplum MPP for this (otherwise I don't know how you are combining all the different systems).
If you are, then you are overlooking one very significant factor, the cost of the MPP software, at $10/cpu the cluster has an extra $160K in software costs, which is double the hardware costs.
if money is no object then go for it, but if it is then you comparison would be (ignoring software maintinance costs) the 16 core 128G ram system vs ~3xsmall systems totaling 6 cores and 48G ram.
yes if scan speed is the bottleneck you still win with the small systems, but for most other uses the large system would win easily. and in any case it's not the open and shut case that you keep presenting it as.
David Lang
