~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: "Andrew" <andrew at humanbehaviour.co.uk> Subject: [thelist] amazon model : Have any you guys had the fortune to work on the : amazon's site architecture and backoffice? : : If so I'd be intersted to learn exactly how 'automated' : the model is in controling stock and what language : was used? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I can't help you with the ins and outs, but according to: http://www.wintercorp.com/vldb/2003_TopTen_Survey/TopTenWinners.asp Amazon.com runs a 34 TB Oracle database on HP hardware. A lot of their internal machines run Linux, but the main data warehouse runs HPUX (I believe) on Superdome (Intel Itanium-based) servers. There are few documents on the HP website that may be useful. http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/downloads/Amazon_success.pdf http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/msg/corp/htmlamazon.html I imagine that pretty much everything is automated, in order to deal with the volumes they have. Cheers Ken