6 ms·

> the power consumption of our disk drives and screens is rising Uh. SSDs use, what, 1/2 the power of a spinner? And LED screens use less than fluorescent, whi

• DiabloD3 10y ago
  Less than half. And SSDs are continually improving that by increasing performance (this maximizing the length of idle time (which on SSDs is a small fraction of a watt)).
• ams6110 10y ago
  I'm not sure VMs really changed that much. Before VMs, people just ran more services on the bare metal. You had your web server, database, email, etc. daemons all going. Hosting services separated things by accounts and filesystem permissions. VMs made a lot of things easier/more secure but the raw number of physical machines has still exploded. VMs are bottom line less efficient than bare metal due to virtualization overhead.
  • detaro 10y ago
    I think they have lead to consolidation. In many orgs it wasn't unusual to buy servers as new applications were required, and then those were replaced individually once they died. Traditional core services might very well have been on shared services, but if department X wanted application Y suddenly, it got it's own server. With virtualization, a lot of these setups got consolidated.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • closeparen 10y ago
    Maybe in the internet-focused UNIX sysadmin world. Your average small to medium business in meatspace has a closet running: - Windows Domain Controller - Exchange Server - File server - Accounting server - Several line of business apps from different vendors, each with an onsite server component (often just a distribution of MS SQL Server). - Card access control server (if there are more than the ~4 doors that fit on one beige-box-on-the-wall controller). - Security camera DVR. - Cisco, Avaya, or similar PBX. - HVAC system controller (if you're a large, modern building or complex). The DC, file, and Exchange servers, as well as desktop management and support, are probably handled by your primary IT contractor who sells you all your servers, network gear, and desktops. They'll tell you it's not good practice to colocate any of these services on the same Windows install, and resell you (with heavy markup) a different Dell/HP box for each one. Each line of business app has its own vendor, which created and manages your site's installation of its package. The door controls and security cameras are likely installed and managed by the same company that does your fire alarms. The two software packages likely state they should each have a Windows Server to themselves. The HVAC system controller is likely installed and managed by a company that knows barely enough IT to be dangerous, and also doesn't want to colocate. The PBX for your VoIP desk phones is likely installed and managed by the same company that ran the old DEC PBX for your analog desk phones in the 80s. They might have also done your ethernet wiring. None of these guys trust all of the others enough to share an OS instance. According to the old-timers, you previously you needed a separate server in the closet for each one. Now your Microsoft Partner is also a VMWare Partner and gives each other vendor their own little slice of an ESXi box. Oh, and there is probably no one on your payroll who understands this stuff or even has the passwords. Just the operations manager type who manages the relationship with each vendor and knows which one to call under what circumstances.
    • zeckalpha 10y ago
      This sounds like an opportunity for someone to combine all of these into one appliance and charge less.
      • Wohlf 10y ago
        Microsoft is trying with Office 365 and their other SaaS/PaaS options. If I was building out the infrastructure for a bootstrapped business today there would have to be a good business reason for me to not go that route.
      • closeparen 10y ago
        That's the opportunity VMWare capitalized on, and that Microsoft is trying to worm its way into with Hyper-V. A conservative nontechnical business is unlikely to invest in an unproven desktop management system, office suite, email/messaging, security, and building automation system just to beat virtualization overhead. They're even freaked out by Red Hat. If you're adventurous, you'll just use Macs/Chromebooks, the Google suite, and cloud-based "IoT" building automation (or you won't have a building automation problem because your office is small or nonexistent). You'll use Skype/Hangouts/Slack/Hipchat/cell phones instead of a PBX. If you're less adventurous, there's something to be said for widely used components, backed by tech giants who are likely to stick around for a few decades, which multiple interchangeable sales/support firms in your area know how to work with.
• masklinn 10y ago
  > Uh. SSDs use, what, 1/2 the power of a spinner? Less than that, though it depends on the exact drives you're comparing and whether you're comparing idle or working. Also note that an SSD will be able to idle more since it will serve I/O requests faster (in fact that was a common fuck-up in some old benches which would loop work but not take the amount of work in account when measuring power consumption: an SSD would increase power draw because it would be able to keep the computer significantly more busy than spinning rust).