Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Balanced system - a tentative defin Message-ID: <11857@steinmetz.ge.com> Date: 15 Aug 88 19:44:15 GMT References: <794@cernvax.UUCP> <28200188@urbsdc> Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY Lines: 28 In article <28200188@urbsdc> aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM writes: | | >Someone a while ago asked what a "balanced system" is. I propose | >the following definition for debate/flaming: | > | >"A balanced system is one where an improvement in the performance | >of any single part would not increase the overall performance of | >the system, and where the degrading of any single part would de- | >crease the overall performance." | > | > Hubert Matthews | This sort of balanced=saturated system would mean that, to improve | the performance of the system, I would have to improve the performance | of all components simultaneously. That is an expensive thing to do. Sounds like a great definition to me. I suspect that what you mean is "a system with equal bottlenecks in all portions, such that doubling the performance of any one part will produce an equal improvement in performance." A balanced system (matthews definition, not mine) is a very *inexpensive* implementation, in that no part has unused capacity which has added expense without adding performance. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me