Barton's Blog

Light weight servers have been gathering steam recently.  Targeted at focused markets like  hosting and Web 2.0 they feature the old school architecture of placing one CPU per server and running one OS/application on that server.  The new twist here is that they can pack up to 12 servers per one 3U enclosure.

Below, Dell Data Center Solutions chief architect Jimmy Pike takes us through a short whiteboard discussion on how Moore’s law has driven us to multi-core architectures and virtualization and how, in the case of very focused applications, that same law is bringing us back to the future.

Some of the points Jimmy makes:

• Given Moore’s law its implausible to continue to drive higher and higher clock rates.  This has given rise to multi core architecture.
• Native demand of  applications on servers hasn’t kept paced with Moore’s law.  This has resulted in virtualizaton, allowing you in effect to run multiple servers on a single system.
• This same law is also driving us in the opposite direction, to light weight servers which feature a simple one server/one OS  architecture in a very energy efficient, cost effective manner targeted at focused applications.

Extra-credit reading (more Jimmy Pike):

• PC World: Willy Wonka and the Dell Factory
• GigaOm – Exclusive: Dell Shows Off a Data Center — In a Briefcase!
• The Register –  Dell chief stuffs data center into suitcase

Pau for now…

This entry was posted on Friday, September 10th, 2010 at 7:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.