It was a showcase for Digital's high-end Alphaservers.
"The Hardware Behind AltaVista
AltaVista: AlphaStation 500, 256 MB memory, 6GB disk.
AlphaStation 500's handle all external traffic to the site.
They run a custom multi-threaded Web server which sends
queries to the Web indexer and News indexer.
Web Indexer: AlphaServer 8400 5/300, 10 processors, 6 GB
memory, 210 GB RAID disk. This model is the most powerful
computer built by Digital. These servers run the query
engine. The Web index is larger than 40 GB, but most
requests take less than a second.
Scooter: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 1.5 GB memory, 30 GB RAID
disk. The super-spider runs from this machine. It fetches
pages from the Web and sends them to Vista, our primary web
indexer.
Vista: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 2 processors, 2GB memory,
180GB RAID disk. This machine indexes Scooter output and
serves as a central distribution point for new index data.
News Indexer: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 13 GB
disk. This machine keeps an up-to-date index of the news
spool: since new articles appear and old articles expire all
the time, it is in fact quite busy, even though the index it
serves is much smaller than the Web index.
News Server: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 24 GB RAID
disks. It maintains a current news spool for the News
Indexer. It also serves the articles via http to those of
you who don't want to know about news servers but want to
read news. "[0]
'Tru64' would likely date this as being after Altavista's hayday, when it'd still have been called 'DEC Unix', or more usually 'OSF/1' if you were differentiating from Ultrix.
A comment on another post linked to oldweb.today, and the first thing I tried visiting was Altavista. I loved Altavista so much, and I want to believe that the fact Altavista inspired Oldavista means there are more people who did.
It was a showcase for Digital's high-end Alphaservers.
"The Hardware Behind AltaVista
AltaVista: AlphaStation 500, 256 MB memory, 6GB disk. AlphaStation 500's handle all external traffic to the site. They run a custom multi-threaded Web server which sends queries to the Web indexer and News indexer.
Web Indexer: AlphaServer 8400 5/300, 10 processors, 6 GB memory, 210 GB RAID disk. This model is the most powerful computer built by Digital. These servers run the query engine. The Web index is larger than 40 GB, but most requests take less than a second.
Scooter: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 1.5 GB memory, 30 GB RAID disk. The super-spider runs from this machine. It fetches pages from the Web and sends them to Vista, our primary web indexer.
Vista: AlphaServer 4100 5/300, 2 processors, 2GB memory, 180GB RAID disk. This machine indexes Scooter output and serves as a central distribution point for new index data.
News Indexer: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 13 GB disk. This machine keeps an up-to-date index of the news spool: since new articles appear and old articles expire all the time, it is in fact quite busy, even though the index it serves is much smaller than the Web index.
News Server: AlphaServer 600 5/333, 896MB memory, 24 GB RAID disks. It maintains a current news spool for the News Indexer. It also serves the articles via http to those of you who don't want to know about news servers but want to read news. "[0]
[0] https://groups.google.com/g/comp.unix.tru64/c/aB_z5YXwNMI
'Tru64' would likely date this as being after Altavista's hayday, when it'd still have been called 'DEC Unix', or more usually 'OSF/1' if you were differentiating from Ultrix.
Probably. I don't remember when Altavista's "heyday" was.
Tru64 was after Compaq bought DEC in 98.
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A comment on another post linked to oldweb.today, and the first thing I tried visiting was Altavista. I loved Altavista so much, and I want to believe that the fact Altavista inspired Oldavista means there are more people who did.