I actually wasn't thinking of social sites when I said "certain workloads".
It's true that every server extra has a bit more overhead because of stuff like caching / load balancing / whatnot, but the amount extra can be tiny even at very large scale. For certain workloads that are parellelizable.
(It'd be fun to talk in details from personal experience instead of in general terms, but you know those pesky NDAs...)
It's true that every server extra has a bit more overhead because of stuff like caching / load balancing / whatnot, but the amount extra can be tiny even at very large scale. For certain workloads that are parellelizable.
(It'd be fun to talk in details from personal experience instead of in general terms, but you know those pesky NDAs...)