IBM Watson: Overprovisioned “Big Iron”?

Re:IBM Watson: Overprovisioned “Big Iron”? by gojomo on Thursday February 17, 2011 @12:30AM (#2229909)

If another IBM engineer walked in on the Watson team and showed them his single-server (32 core, 512GB RAM) alternative that performed on par with the Big Iron approach, do you think IBM corporate's reaction would have been:

• "Great, now we can haul the unit to Jeopardy's Burbank studios for a showdown ASAP!" ...or...

• "Hold that thought for the future, we've already frozen the datasheets and shot lots of footage of the server room that's perfect for the show and B-rolls."

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Re:IBM Watson: Overprovisioned “Big Iron”? by spitfire on Thursday February 17, 2011 @02:18AM (#2230181)

I agree with you. Don't change horses midstream. I think the choice to go with power was flawed to begin with. But for better (financially) or worse they decided to do that.

Mind you, several racks worth of computer always looks cooler. You'd be a bit disappointed if Alex Trebek opened the rack door to find a 1u Dell inside.

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Re:IBM Watson: Overprovisioned “Big Iron”? by mcav on Thursday February 17, 2011 @10:37AM (#2231261)

I'm sure IBM would rather sell Watson-sized devices to businesses than a single server.

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