Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Balanced system - a tentative defin
Message-ID: <28200188@urbsdc>
Date: 13 Aug 88 22:29:00 GMT
References: <794@cernvax.UUCP>
Lines: 36
Nf-ID: #R:cernvax.UUCP:794:urbsdc:28200188:000:1656
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Aug 13 17:29:00 1988


>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

Well, I asked the original question, and my response to this proposed
definition is that it may well be a good definition - but I would
seldom plan to build such a "balanced" system.

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.

Maybe incremental cost should enter the definition? Ie. improving the
performance of any single part would not increase the overall 
performance of the system _at_ _an_ _acceptable_ _price_/_performance_
_ratio_. This gives flexibility to the defintion - if I can focus
on one component, and find a way to reduce the incremental cost of
improving its performance, I can improve the system changing only one
component.


Andy "Krazy" Glew. Gould CSD-Urbana.    1101 E. University, Urbana, IL 61801   
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