If there was an AA equivalant for those of us addicted to technology, that’s how I’d have to introduce myself after my wife enrolled me. And she’s right, I do love gadgets.

Still, I was dumbfounded this morning while booting a new computer when the BIOS messages flew by. You remember those don’t you? Well, if you’re like most people, you don’t, but trust me, they’re there. This morning, though, I saw something that astonished me, the BIOS was reporting not only RAM and processor type, but also the CPU fan speed and core voltage. What? I bought this particular machine to run nothing more than a browser, putty, and screencam, but the manufacturer figures I need to know the CPU core voltage. What, I wonder, am I expected to do with this data?

Remember, I’m a confessed gadget geek. I openly admit I used to overclock motherboards, had a digital
camera when the resolution was 320×240, and possibly worse, I take pictures of water droplets. My first computer required a soldering iron and a casette tape deck, I still have an 8 inch winchester
in my garage that holds the code to my first database, I was a beta tester for Microsoft in the 80′s and for @Home in the 90′s. Well, you get the idea.

So, where am I headed in my ussual rambling way. Simple, as we move toward complete virtualization and utility computing there
will be times when it’s tempting to take comfort in the physical. Jonathan Schwartz mentions a great story about a potential customer for the Sun Grid trying to negotiate the gauge of the chain link fence Sun used to secure the servers. While my own experiences aren’t so dramatic, I am often asked how to ensure certain software runs on the “right” type of server on the grid. “How can I find out what kind of disk each server has so I can determine where to run my database” is a typical question.

I’ve struggled for a few months with how to shake people of the notion that it’s a good thing to tweak server performance and now my new computer manufacturer has given me the correct answer. “Well” I’ll tell them, “that depends on the CPU fan speed. If it’s below 3000RPM . . .”

Charlie Bess, an EDS fellow, recently wrote in his blog about a new option for pricing utility computing and it got me thinking about 3tera’s pricing model. When we were deciding how to charge for our service we specifically tried to stay with a model people understood, servers, instead of introducing a new metric. As we prespare to go to market I still think that was the right decision and I’ll share a bit about why.

Although people have been talking about utility computing for years, what’s really been sold is a bundling of services; hosting, contract engineering, business consulting, and support. That is, until recently. Sun and a number of startups, including 3tera, have begun to roll out services that allow you to actually purchase computing power without the labor component. Further, several startups are building hardware and software systems that, for the first time, are designed purposefully to enable utility computing. No two of these systems look even remotely alike. Given that variety, I feel safe in saying that utility computing as a catagory is about to undergo a transformation. Not just the billing metrics, but the very nature of what’s sold and how it’s used will change. Therefore, I believe trying to predict what the ultimate billing metric will be before seeing what’s being cooked up in the labs and how customers use it is pointless. Or worse, it could be very detrimental.

How? I’ll explain with an example. About a decade ago I was with a networking company acquired by a phone switch manufacturer. My company had been building data communications gear that was used in the enterprise, so billing for traffic, of course, was not an issue. I’d never even seen a phone switch at the time and after the merger I befriended the “voice” side of the business and was astonished at what I found. The systems were massive, but had little relative throughput. Worse, their cost per bit of throughput was orders of magnitude higher than ours. The dirty little secret, as I learned, was that the built-in billing system costs more than the switching technology that made the call possible. That’s right, it cost more to bill for the call than to provide it. A decade later, AT&T still sends me a five page itemized statement to collect their $7 from me each month. What a waste!

So, while I’ll keep revisiting the billing decision periodically, my thoughts are focused on how best to provide utility computing and how to drive the cost of the service down.

Ed Sim recently wrote about how a new startup of his, Greenplum, would ease scaling issues for web 2.0 services with their new scalable database. Unfortunately, his theory essentially boils down to “it’s a cheaper alternative to Oracle.”

Although having another database choice is certainly a good thing for developers, I think Ed has missed the point if he feels that’s all that’s hampering web 2.0 companies. Still, I hit the Greenplum website for a little more education. When I found that getting their white papers required a name and number, I provided real ones, and a rep called me within an hour.

I explained I’d simply been looking for info but asked if there was a way to try on online demo of their Bizgres MPP system. The rep told me he’d love to be able to accomodate, but that I’d have to download the software, buy hardware, do the install, load data, etc. I’ve made a couple of sales calls in my career and it seemed taking the step from a description on a web page to requisitioning hardware and building a test system is a huge leap of faith. Being generally curious, I asked the rep if the effort required to try the system hampered his sales efforts. “Oh yeah!” was his response.

So, I have a message for Ed. If you really want to understand scaling, then ask yourself why Greenplum can’t provide that simple online demo. Perhaps that’ll help you understand why an affordable scalable database, while interesting, isn’t the whole solution to scaling a web 2.0 service.

Oh, and if you’d like to offer that demo give me call – we can help you with that!