> In some sense, logically (but not efficiently: read the caveats in the
> Plan9 papers; a processor is nothing without tightly coupled memory, so
> memory is not a remote pool sharable---Mach!),
if you look closely enough, this kind of breaks down. numa
machines are pretty popular these days (opteron, intel qpi-based
processors). it's possible with a modest loss of performance to
share memory across processors and not worry about it.
there is such an enormous difference in network speeds
(4 orders of magnitude 1mbps dsl/wireless up to 10gbps)
that it's hard to generalize but i don't see why tightly
coupled memory is an absolutely necessary. you could
think of the network as 1/10th to 1/10000th speed quickpath.
it may still be a big win.
> even today on an
> average computer one has this articulation: a CPU (with a FPU
> perhaps) ; tightly or loosely connected storage (?ATA or SAN) ;
> graphical capacities (terminal) : GPU.
plan 9 can make the nas/dasd dichotomy disappear.
import -E ssl storage.coraid.com '#S' /n/bigdisks
- erik
