250 servers X 20 Gigs of RAM X 4 cores = cool new thing

by on November 7, 2006

I just got a look at a new thing. I can’t talk about it until sometime tomorrow morning. I have video, of course. In the morning you’ll also read about it on TechCrunch and over on Dan Farber’s blog and probably a few other places — I compared notes with several other people who I trust and they say it’s the coolest thing we’ve seen so far this week (and that’s saying something because there’s something like five conferences going on in San Francisco this week).

But, I’ll tease you because the company who built it turned off all their servers, and upgraded the RAM tonight. Why? Cause the working set of what they are building takes 20GB’s of RAM. Whew!

And that’s just for a small part of their new service.

It is massively cool. I love teasing you.

Hey, it’s almost as much fun as Ze Frank on voting day — at the end he has his Vloggie acceptance speech.

Anyway, come back tomorrow to see what some smart developers can do with 250 servers.

Oh, and this wasn’t part of the Web 2.0 Summit that I was hanging out in (there were several other companies that presented there this afternoon. Richard MacManus has a list; Mike Arrington of TechCrunch has a report too). They weren’t cool enough to get invited to present their stuff.

I think John Battelle will be very interested in this particular 250-server app.

Oh, and their domain name is one word. The story around how they got that is fun too. But, that’s another tease. Yes, I’m like those jerks on TV who tease a show that’s coming tomorrow.

See ya then!

UPDATE: CNET and Rafe Needleman have a new blog called WebWare. Rafe ran into me in the lobby and says he’ll cover the “250 servers” story too.

  • It is obviously digg.com. What isn't obvious is what they did.

    I'm guessing something with the data visualization. Going out on a limb, I bet they've integrated that third-party 3D functionality which was dugg recently.
  • Why do you do this, man? I'm having a peaceful nite, watching the Sonics and I check my feeds and see that you have a subject like "250 servers X 20 Gigs of RAM X 4 cores = cool new thing." Then I have to run to the other room and see what you're talking about. Then I gotta wait until tomorrow.

    Your killin' me. ;)
  • Dude... you are making me stay up too late! Or get up too early! Hit me up man, and fill me in!

    Rex
  • Robert,

    Any chance your talking about:

    http://www.thegridlayer.com/

    ???? :)
  • Kevin: it's a site that doesn't yet exist. But will within a few hours.
  • I should point out that this thing runs on 250 machines. Each machine has 20GB of RAM and four cores. That's 1,000 processors. Whew!
  • I'm sure it must be the "Holy Grail" of spam servers, since my junk email volume has increased a lot in the last couple months. I'm sure they were just pre-alpha testing it.

    The good news is I have developed a new platform running DesqViewX on a '286/16 with a co-processor that can handle 18,000 incoming spam emails per decade - so I hope I can keep up with the sudden influx.

    Even better, I filed a lot of software patents on it, and will shortly sue Google, Microsoft, RIM, Palm, and Radio Shack for patent infringements (OK - I made up the Radio Shack part - they have enough trouble).

    But the really cool thing about this system (and I have to leave just this teaser until we run the full decade and have proven the system out) is that we have immediate feedback on the operation of the system. We can literally see Hulk Hogan kicking spam in the ass and throwing it into a dumpster. It really is emerging technology. (Note: "real-time" is poorly defined).

    We also use a LOT of AJAX. It was a simple decision to make - we have advanced metrics to monitor certain keywords, and after our analysis showed the embarrassingly high level of "dirty words" in spam email we just decided we needed to add some plain old SOAP to our application so we could remotely (and nearly instantaneously) wash the originator's mouth out. We do this remotely using VPN, SSL and some wire (we do not provide the wire).

    We chose AJAX because it is shorter than "Palmolive" (but we did have a long and heated internal discussion with the legal and "branding" teams - it seems a lot of people were pushing really, really hard for "Zest". Ultimately marketing and legal thought it rhymed with "breast" (which is another dirty word of course) - so we stuck with AJAX.)

    Robert - we'll be launching in 2011 in Alpha with a final public "beta" launch sometime in 2017 (and hopes of revenue in 2021). Can we trust you will be there to cover the Beta event?

    Hopefully we can schedule it so it doesn't interfere with the tenth anniversary of the Vloggies.

    Rob
  • Sorry Robert - just got more numbers in from the "numbers department". It seems if Google buys us we could be out of Beta by 2014 (but the revenue model is then pushed out nine more years. Oh well.)

    Just wanted to keep you up to ate.

    Rob
  • Rob: heheheh.
  • This must be the Natural language search, Powerset.
  • Zian
    Rob: You forgot Yahoo! and IPSec.

    Very funny, though. :)
  • Zian - I know - I was rushed. I also left out VoIP and PoE. But we really can't give any more information yet. Our angel investors insist we keep things very hush hush (of course, they are talking about it to all of their damn friends!)

    Rest assured - we will incorporate every contemporary acronym in our final product.

    Rob
  • akshat: guess again. I said it's something that IS NOT LIVE yet. Will be within hours. Come back after midnight.
  • I know who it is, it's like, totally obvious, come on.

    Although, if I'm wrong, I look like a fool.

    Andrew
  • Oh, I imagine it is a Microsoft thing - something they have spent those billions on. Something useful, like an online auction or something. Maybe some kind of distributed computing platform.

    It could be a new "social network" version of MSPaint though, because I think that's a direction Google hasn't pursued yet.

    But I bet it's Microsoft.

    Rob
  • I was right, thankfully, when I said, "I know who it is, it’s like, totally obvious, come on." ;)
  • Doesn't get me excited at all. Must be all that unconsumerist European sentiments.

    Also, "250 servers X 20 Gigs of RAM X 4 cores" falls squarely in the 'if you put big enough rockets under anything it'll fly' category.
  • I can understand why some people may not appreciate the limited (initial) selection of products this offering makes, but I really don't understand how anyone can not be impressed with the technology.

    I have a Seiko watch that has a unique form factor. I need a replacement, but couldn't find one. But I found one watch with a similar share, highlighted just that part of the watch and found several suitable choices to choose from.

    It's amazingly accurate when you are searching something they actually support now - and I know they will roll our more products/features in the future.

    For now I have seen enough of the technology to be impressed - and hopeful.

    I met some of the Riya team at When 2.0 in December 2005, and I know they are more than bright, and more than capable - they are passionate. And passion builds more than "just good programming".

    Rob
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