Rackable does cookie sheet servers Boutique data center server and storage maker Rackable Systems has unveiled an homage to Google's original home grown servers - which were essentially bare motherboards thrown on cookie sheets with rubber mats and stacked in bakery racks. You can't charge a lot money for Google's server design, so Rackable's CloudRack racks …
Blades that have the all the same advantages over traditional 1U servers as this design did not replace 1U servers for one reason: customers are wary of vendor lock-in. It is impossible to replace some of your blades with hardware from a different vendor. This cookie sheet design has the same problem. It's just about taking the worst from both worlds...
Eugene
I have often wondered how people who sell those transparent PC cases get away with it.
I assume that the front and back doors of these things have knittex gaskets? that the cables all run through a proper glanding plate at the bottom, with shield drain wires individually made off at the point of entry? That the filter cages on the blowers obey some "less than one wavelength" rule relative to the dominant clock frequencies?
Or do we just hope that all the master clocks are out of sync with each other and the RFI cancels in the far field?
I remember seeing something similar done years ago. Guy was building a cluster for some university students to use, and just slapped a load of motherboards (P3s) onto a load of shelves, then powered them up. Never realised Google started out with the same idea. Mucho cheapness to do, and fixing things is so easy it's untrue.
To be REALLY efficient, they should fit heat pumps to the racks and route the heat to an industrial oven. The only problem would be selling the resulting cookies to the masses that believe "all server generated cookies are bad, will track you and report all your behaviour to the missus" (yes, the same ones that believe ZoneAlarm is worthwhile rather than the resource hog it is).
I don't think anyone nips down to PC World to buy a 22U server and rack. It's not really surprising that they don't publish prices. Who on earth would look at thh HP or IBM website to price up their 22 servers, racking, etc.?
And let's face it, if you're setting up a 'cloud' server farm, you're probably going to be buying several racks.
At these levels, pricing is completely bespoke, even if the racks themselves aren't.
Remember, eveything is negoitiable...
Paris, 'cos she's open to negotiations...
Thats exactly what I need at home... Bet they're still +£1k per 'blade' though.
Its always struck me as a bit pointless enclosing kit in a metal box when its going into a airconditioned, dust filtered, earthed, secure data centre. What does the metal box do other than stop heat escaping and prevent the DataTrolls from elecrocuting themselves?
Er, isn't this just going back to the good old days when you had fridge-sized multiprocessor servers (anyone remember Pyramid?) with a card cage with - guess what - bare CPU and memory boards? OK, the technology and interconnect is different, but they designed it the way they did for a REASON, guys! :-)
Nope, though slightly better than the Grauniad :-)
Try:
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/hotel?view=uk
Where you will see that it is AN homage. (Note: This was the original challenge) Because homage is French and is pronounced omage, not Huhomage.
A hotel, an hotel, both are right depending on your pronunciation.
Who, other than grammar Nazis, gives a stuff really?
I think it started as a brand name for a style of fan that got popular. Like "Xerox", it became a generic term. Probably not well known by the general public, though. Try this:
http://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080517195135AAJ1UPZ
As for it being a pun, since when was El Reg above using perfectly good terms for such? There's no reason it can't be both. :)
In 2000, a client of mine had a cage between Hotmail and Hotmail's cooling fans. These cooling fans were large industrial HVAC units that blasted 50 degree air at 30 mph or so. Needless to say, we were in the wind-tunnel every time we had to work on our servers.
Why the tremendous HVAC? Well, the Hotmail engineers had torn all the covers off of their 2U servers to save heat.
It was a sight back in the day to see thousands of bare motherboards blinking in a cage...
Paris, Making hot air and staying cool.
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