Advertisment

The Spirit of Teamwork

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

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.

Sanjay Majumder



Issue Editior for this Month

Advertisment