Comment by jasonwatkinspdx
3 hours ago
> At the point that Google's "bunch of cheap computers" was new
It wasn't even new, people just don't know the history. Inktomi and HotBot were based on a fleet of commodity PC servers with low reliability, whereas other large web properties of the time were buying big iron like Sun E10K. And of course Beowulf clusters were a thing.
And as far as I know, google's early ethos didn't come as some far sighted strategy, but just the practical reality of Page and Brin building the first versions of their search engine on borrowed/scavenged hardware as grad students and then continuing that trajectory.
The “bunch of cheap computers” approach was being studied and implemented at the National Labs years before Google showed up. Revisionist history?
Not revisionist I think just more that a lot of people first encountered the concept with the story of Google and don't know it had plenty of precedent.