The Spirit of Teamwork

With this issue of PCQuest we bring a complete buying guide and a 'first of
its kind' shootout of servers. This is truly a 'first' of sorts as no other
magazine has ever published such an exhaustive comparison of the different
brands of servers available. While I was not directly involved in reviewing
them, I could see the entire PCQuest team working for innumerable nights to come
out with the best possible reviews. A word of special praise for Anindya Roy,
the team leader, Swapnil, Saurangshu and Vijay, the other team members, who
worked hard to make this shootout a success. Once the sourcing of servers was
over, the team started figuring out what new benchmarks could be devised to
stress them. It took nearly two months of research and discussions to come up
with our own set of benchmarks. Anindya and Swapnil conducted a trial run of
these benchmarks to check whether these benchmarks would stress the servers to
optimum levels. We used these along with the regular industry benchmarks in our
reviews. Once the trial run was successful, our joy knew no bounds. We
celebrated this success by having a hearty dinner at one

of our choicest
hangouts. Back in office, Vijay had already done the initial groundwork for
testing the servers by putting all supporting equipment in place. The stage was
set to start the mammoth process that we knew would require a great deal of
doing. Each server takes about a couple of hours for each of these eight tests.
However, the catch is that even if a single test fails, you need to kickstart
the process for all the eight tests again. This can be quite irritating at times
but you need to stay patient throughout. Swapnil got so much engrossed in these
tests that he even started dreaming about them (whenever he found time to
sleep)! Vijay was the one responsible for configuring servers for each test, so
imagine how hectic would it have been to configure ten servers, each for eight
different tests. But even after going through such strenuous testing procedures,
I never saw signs of depression on anyone's face. Black circles around weary
eyes were in start contrast to the wide grin that all of our team members
carried throughout these tests. Another interesting conundrum was the 100s of
decibels of humming sound generated when all of these servers started
simultaneously. This really put us in embarrassing situations with other Labs
employees complaining of constant headache and pain in ears. But everyone
gradually took it in their stride and we enjoyed maximum co-operation from all
and sundry. These were just a few sidelights from what was otherwise an eye
opener for us albeit all the effort and energy that went into making this
shootout a success. However, nothing would be more satiating than the help you
would derive out of it for making your purchase decisions. So, go ahead and
enjoy reading all the action starting from pg 94. And give your feedback at
pcquest@cybermedia.co.in.