On 11/4/06, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Bob La Quey wrote:
> Does one simply roll an IBM z/series box into a room, plug it into a
> fat TCP/IP pipe, power and a cooling system, turn iton and go to
> work? I am truly ignorant of what logistics surround these z/series
> beasties. It seems to me that reducing all of the peripheral
> logistics is the main point of the container approach. No reason why
> IBM could not put z/series into a container as well.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH! <sniff> Sorry about that.
What makes you think one of the Sun boxen is that easy?
Data centers are all about "peripheral logistics". For the servers to
be your bottleneck:
A) Your internal cabling has to be GigE or better
B) Your routers have to be GigE+ *and* configured properly
C) Your storage has to *need* RAID. For writing, it better be one of
the mirrored RAID levels rather than striped.
D) You application has a high parallelism and makes use of it.
That set of characteristics pretty rarely happens.
Sun is not just talking about putting servers in the box.
Rather putting all kinds of subsystems in the box. My own
perspective is that the box is just a bigger rack. So the
question boils down to whether a bigger rack and say a
dozen or so modules (boxes specialized to specific functions,
e.g. storage, routing, computing, power generation, etc.)
makes sense.
Plug these things in like even bigger Legos.
> Is building expensive buildings, which it seems most data centers
> are, really the best way to package this stuff?
Huh? This doesn't fix *anything* to do with the building. You still
need redundant power. You still need generators. You still need
multiple backbone connections coming out of opposite sides of the
building. You still need fire suppression systems. ...
And all of those things are just (actually only a few) modules. More
simple boxes. I dunno. Maybe there is some advantage to on site
engineering a lot of this stuff but I don't see it and it is damn sure
expensive.
> AT&T has just built a new data center literally across the street
> from my house. They spent at least two years building a fortress at
> what had to be huge costs. I don't see the point of it.
To prevent people from finding the NSA feed ...
Err, sorry, only serious ...
Telecom works on a no downtime schedule. These boxes don't even get
close to that. Telecom uses a lot of Tandem boxen (sold to DEC -> sold
to Compaq -> split in a hostile giveaway to HP/Intel). Those boxes have
redundant processors running the same code at different deltas and then
vote on result correctness. The optic fiber feeds are redundant. The
batteries are huge. The build can withstand probably anything short of
being the epicenter of a 7.0.
A bunch of modular containers in a parking lot covered by a tin shed would be
even more earthquake resistant. I have no problem with having Tandem boxen
in the modular containers. They are just big racks and by having them
assemebled at a factory one can gain advantaes in quality control.
Tin sheds like this http://www.olympiabuildings.com/gallery.html
The thing I find interesting is _not_ the Sun innards but the physical
packaging in standard intermaodal containers. Like I say just bigger
racks. But racks for which we already have an entire system for delivering
and placing them. And the modular containers are themselves really
cheap, like $3,000 for a new one.
Instead of the architect/builder/contractor model with all of the local
screw ups and flakiness we have a module assembly (maybe a dozen
modules total) to build a data center. I think the quality issues are
better controlled back at a factory where the modules are built.
BTW, not that it is relevant, but I was in the same electrical engineering
class with Danny Treibig who founded Tandem. Interesting story. He was
working as a marketing/sales guy for HP. He found that there were companies,
mostly telecom (and military) that absolutely had to have 100% up time.
He said, "Just give em two." HP was not interested so he went to his VC
buddies (He had an MBA from Stanford) and the rest is as they say "history."
BobLQ
-a
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