ArcNet and the Pursuit of Multiple Topologies

From: r. 'bear' stricklin <red_at_bears.org>
Date: Tue Oct 9 17:18:52 2001

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Absurdly Obtuse wrote:

> I know someone who measured the bandwidth and latency of himself carrying
> a backpack full of floppies across the campus of Clarkson.

Don't laugh...

I worked at Amazon.com when they bought Alexa Internet in mid-1999. In
order to transfer the Alexa data to Amazon.com facilities, a 747 was
packed with DLTs and flown from San Francisco to Seattle. Quite simply it
represented the solution with the greatest bandwidth (by far) for the
dollar, where latency was not an issue.

We actually received more than one shipment of tapes, for updates, until
the Alexa collections were running fully out of the Amazon.com data
facility.

Now that I think of it, my current employer flew one of my co-workers
halfway across the country with an IBM 3490 and a suitcase full of tapes
to do the initial data replication for the pilot effort of our "business
continuity" initiative.

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a Volvo full of tape."

ok
r.
Received on Tue Oct 09 2001 - 17:18:52 BST