[LINK] HP servers, 91 kilowatts to 9 kilowatts

[Tom Worthington]

On 02/11/11 23:05, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> H.P. Builds Servers With Cellphone Chips  ...

HP are using Calxeda's version of the ARM processor: 
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111101xa.html

Something similar is possible with the Intel Atom processor, but has not 
proved popular, so far.

Since a web server does not have to do not very complected operations, 
but a lot of them, you can use a lot of cheap low power chips to do it. 
The same sort of complex interconnection schemes used in scientific 
super-computers can be used to get the chips to work together.

The catch is that if the processors are not compatible with the software 
you are used to using, it can be a problem.

Perhaps a similar level of power-saving could be achieved at data 
centers by optimizing the web applications. It used to be that you could 
not use an interpreted language like Java for heavy duty applications, 
as it was too slow. But run time optimizations fixed that. Perhaps a web 
application could be subject to similar analysis. Most of the web sites 
I see are full of obvious errors and possible speedups.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/