4 ms·

MicroSlice based servers

2 points by timf 18y ago

timf 18y ago
> physicalization takes a hardware-based approach to dividing those resources into independent, TCO-optimized, single socket compute nodes Anyone have any concrete idea about what they are talking about? Specialized VLAN + management platform? Vague press release... (what's new)
- wmf 18y ago
  They mean why bother splitting a large server into a bunch of small virtual servers when it is cheaper to simply buy a bunch of small servers? I don't think they provide any management tools other than the usual IPMI stuff, so what you do with all those servers is up to you. More details: http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/01/15/TheCaseForLowCostLowPowerServers.aspx http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/01/15/TheCaseForLowCos...
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    > why bother splitting a large server into a bunch of small virtual servers when it is cheaper to simply buy a bunch of small servers One word: flexibility. VMs can grow up to the size of the dedicated server they are on. These tiny hardware platforms cannot. They must resort to parallelism much earlier than more beefy servers would. (Not that I was accusing you of supporting the claim... merely pointing out that I think their idea is flawed... even if the hardware is neato!) Given a sufficiently parallelizable(is that a word?!) workload, these things could be total win though.
  - timf 18y ago
    Thanks, I felt with all the grand talk that maybe there was more going on...
jws 18y ago
Interesting packaging. 6 mini-itx boards, each with a 2.5" drive in a 1U form factor. 44U in a rack and you get their 264 servers number. It does not appear to have redundant power supplies. They talk about smashing the $500 per node price point for hardware, so there is plenty of room for profit in their model.
- timf 18y ago
  Ah thanks, I did not notice the itx part, somehow. That's cool. I had a 1U in colocation for a while and was thinking wouldn't it be convenient to put two mini-itx boards in there with a hub to have some real redundancy.

2 points by timf 18y ago

timf 18y ago

> physicalization takes a hardware-based approach to dividing those resources into independent, TCO-optimized, single socket compute nodes Anyone have any concrete idea about what they are talking about? Specialized VLAN + management platform? Vague press release... (what's new)

wmf 18y ago
They mean why bother splitting a large server into a bunch of small virtual servers when it is cheaper to simply buy a bunch of small servers? I don't think they provide any management tools other than the usual IPMI stuff, so what you do with all those servers is up to you. More details: http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/01/15/TheCaseForLowCostLowPowerServers.aspx http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/01/15/TheCaseForLowCos...
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  > why bother splitting a large server into a bunch of small virtual servers when it is cheaper to simply buy a bunch of small servers One word: flexibility. VMs can grow up to the size of the dedicated server they are on. These tiny hardware platforms cannot. They must resort to parallelism much earlier than more beefy servers would. (Not that I was accusing you of supporting the claim... merely pointing out that I think their idea is flawed... even if the hardware is neato!) Given a sufficiently parallelizable(is that a word?!) workload, these things could be total win though.
- timf 18y ago
  Thanks, I felt with all the grand talk that maybe there was more going on...

jws 18y ago

Interesting packaging. 6 mini-itx boards, each with a 2.5" drive in a 1U form factor. 44U in a rack and you get their 264 servers number. It does not appear to have redundant power supplies. They talk about smashing the $500 per node price point for hardware, so there is plenty of room for profit in their model.

timf 18y ago
Ah thanks, I did not notice the itx part, somehow. That's cool. I had a 1U in colocation for a while and was thinking wouldn't it be convenient to put two mini-itx boards in there with a hub to have some real redundancy.