Multicore may not be so scary

The article implies we could hit 48-cores in 5-8 years before problems (memory contention) set in. After that I guess something new needs to come along. Also that might get us close to when Moore's Law itself ends, when something beyond integrated circuits needs to step in.

I wrote about multi-core and Moore's law recently: http://www.kmeme.com/2010/09/clock-speed-wall.html

When 48+ cores becomes standard Linux, as it is currently won't be relevant. When large multicore and distributed computing becomes more of a norm bolting on distributed parts to Linux won't be sufficient or will be so convoluted that simply creating something new will be easier. This is already happening with union mounts, lustre, ceph and linux checkpoint and restart.

So wait, it's not scary because we will invent things in the future that make it easier?

By the same logic, Columbus crossing the Ocean wasn't scary. I mean, look at how easy it is now!

We have to deal with multiple processors -today-.