One of the most important features of a gaseous plasma as found in tube-lights or Plasma Televisions is that even though its highly ionized they remain electrically neutral. What it means is that if I take a portion of a gas out from the tube, the ions realign themselves in such a way that they maintain an overall neutral charge. On the other hand if I add more gaseous plasma to an existing volume they still maintain electrical neutrality because of an automatic realignment. Imagine if its possible to stick in a finger inside a tube-light while gaseous plasma is formed, we won't feel any electric shock. As 99% of the visible universe is in a form of Plasma, this behavior is extremely important to study. A behavior to maintain a core property irrespective of changes in its atmosphere. Now lets jump a hoop. If we compare these particles in gaseous plasma to nodes in a (Oracle) Coherence cluster we will find some stark similarities. A true cluster as in Coherence too always maintains electrical neutrality. This means that if a few nodes are removed from the cluster, cluster re-balances itself to keep the finite state. A realignment in plasma is similar to repartitioning of data that happens in a coherence cluster. Adding new nodes to the cluster still does not change the behavior as repartitioning of data keeps the cluster in a neutral state. Even though each node in a cluster are electrically charged i.e, storing and managing data in its heap but together they maintain a single system image to any external application as the finger sticking inside the gaseous plasma.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
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