So a sys admin, an architect and a project manager walk into a bar… so I wish this was a beginning of a good joke, but essentially that was the story last weekend and I want to share the delicous morsel of wisdom I have learned from the architect.

The project manager was asking the system admin to explain what is more important and what brings more performance improvement - server memory or faster CPU.  The system admin was doing a great job providing a technical explanation when unexpectedly the architect stepped in and provided a beatiful explanation.

In terms of server performance, the CPU is like the stove, and memor is like the having more pots.  Both can increase performance in a unique way.

Think about it.  Is there a better analogy out there?