Re: Intel vs. special purpose FW-1 servers

["Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com>]

David Lang wrote:
> as others have said, find out what your real performance requirements are, and keep the future in mind.


I'd like to comment on the "future" issue. Keep it in mind, but don't waste
your money on extra capacity. The cost of capacity will drop and technology
will track the growth in capacity over time. Buying something that has a
future is pointless for 3 reasons:
- The future will be different than you think it will be
- The company you buy a "future proof" product only has a 50/50 chance of
        having a future, itself
- The future will be cheaper than the present - and in the VERY RARE case
        where it's not the same thing that makes it more expensive will also
        make your capacity upgrade more expensive so it'll be irrelevant

With technology today I recommend (in general) never buying maintenance
and expecting to turn a product over ever year or 2 - or keep it indefinitely
as long as it works. I tend to do scorched-earth hard disk upgrades every
2 years (yay, digital photography) but I am still using Office '95 and it runs
just great on my 2Ghz machine.

So, yes, think about the future - but think about it from the standpoint
of "most of this stuff DOESN'T HAVE A FUTURE."

mjr. 

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