The 37th IPP Symposium

Appliances: High-Performance, Low-Maintenance Systems to Address Real-World Problems

Jason Lango '98, IronPort Systems

Over the last 10 years, specialized systems companies have sprung up which produce special-purpose platforms running system software which is optimized for a specific purpose with a simplified user interface-an appliance system-in contrast to general-purpose operating systems. This presentation will explore the difference between general-purpose operating systems and appliance systems, from a programming and technology perspective, using the "C10K problem" as a case study: accommodating tens of thousands of simultaneous clients on a system built from commodity components. We'll explore some programming techniques designed to accommodate both large scale concurrency and rapid application development.