Tag: Research and Theoretical Topics

Research and Theoretical Topics

Elephant with men

A Modern Look at Reliability, Availability, and Scalability

Computer manufacturers often stress performance and availability in their marketing literature. Yet, reliability (R), availability (A), and scalability (S) are the three pillars that support mission-critical applications, and they all need appropriate attention. The elements of RAS are complimentary measures, but they are not the same. This article looks at the three pillars from a...

MTTF formula

Improving Availability via Staggered Systems

The Connection, by Dr. Bruce D. Holenstein, Dr. Bill Highleyman, and Paul J. Holenstein
The reliability of a redundant system is optimized by minimizing the probability that both systems will fail...

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Improving Reliability via Redundant Processing

The Connection, by Dr. Bruce D. Holenstein, Dr. Bill Highleyman, and Paul J. Holenstein
One of the three pillars of mission-critical systems is data reliability – a significant concern in datacenters...

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The Benefits of Switching from Scale-up to Scale-out Architectures

Keeping up with user demand and managing a service outage or brownout is a significant challenge for IT departments. The traditional scale-up approach suffers from significant limitations and cost issues that prevent it from satisfying the ever-increasing workloads of a 24×7 online society...

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Scale-up is Dead, Long Live Scale-out!

The Connection, by Keith B. Evans and Paul J. Holenstein
Keeping up with user demand is a significant challenge for IT departments. The traditional scale-up approach suffers from significant limitations and cost issues that prevent...