Server Smallholdings.

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Server Smallholdings.

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Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 12 9:38 pm Post subject: Server Smallholdings.

I understand that if you run a load of servers together, then it is known as a "server farm", and I have been wondering about small server farms: server smallholdings.
I can see an obvious advantage of having a big farm, but I can also see a fairly big disadvantage: energy density.
A lot of power is required to run it, and a lot of heat needs to be dissipated.

If the farm was broken up and spread out, then that heat could more easily be put to good purpose: for example heating.

Just how big is the advantage of having them all together?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 12 9:47 pm Post subject:
Waste heat is low grade but if you wanted to recover it then it's more easily achieved in dedicated server facility where there is a concentration of servers.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 1:24 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

Waste heat is low grade but if you wanted to recover it then it's more easily achieved in dedicated server facility where there is a concentration of servers.

If what you want it for is heat, then you don't need to do a lot to recover it.

And there is not a great shortage of places wanting heat... especially in winter.

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4591
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 7:11 am Post subject:
I would guess it's for ease of maintanance, cabling, unplugging and reshuffling things, plus only the big operations have been able to afford the build the facilities?

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 9:56 am Post subject:

NorthernMonkeyGirl wrote:

I would guess it's for ease of maintanance, cabling, unplugging and reshuffling things...

Yes, I thought that. Those don't seem to me to be to be very difficult things: any reasonable technician could do that.

If I understand correctly, then most of the difficult work in running servers happens inside the box, and most of that can be done by an expert logging in from almost anywhere.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28118
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 10:07 am Post subject:
networking networking networking Basically you only are running a farm if the machines need each other, and then short fast network runs are vital.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 10:54 am Post subject:
Virtualisation. One powerful machine can do the work of several lesser machines. A.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 11:06 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Basically you only are running a farm if the machines need each other, and then short fast network runs are vital.

Obviously I defer to your expertise in this subject, but either I dispute your definition, or I don't believe that is entirely true.

Consider for a moment someone like Yahoo. They have massive buildings packed with servers. Much of their data is going in and out.
Does this mean they are not a server farm?

I do not doubt that there is also plenty of data shuffling between adjacent machines, but I would not have a clue to the proportions.

Paul Sill

Joined: 16 Jan 2009
Posts: 118

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 9:13 pm Post subject:
And security. cheaper to pay for 1 large secure area than several smaller ones.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 12 9:48 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

I do not doubt that there is also plenty of data shuffling between adjacent machines, but I would not have a clue to the proportions.

In a server farm a large proportion, if not most, of the traffic is inter machine performing replication, indexing, heartbeats and numerous other web farm stuff.

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4591
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 12 8:15 pm Post subject:
Would it be fair to compare it to a beehive? The bees are off out collecting, but the internal processes in the hive needs to be close to complement each other / be efficient?

Nature'sgrafter

Joined: 22 Feb 2012
Posts: 527
Location: Sanday , Orkney

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 12 9:20 pm Post subject:

Can I Also point out that in a server farm some are clones of each other so should a machine fail then its clone carries on running the tasks in this situation there is normally a dedicated link between machines (single cross over cable) or by something called a backbone link and for speed being local to each other is vital. plus a lot of large servers use network disk storage so they store data in a central repository again speed is a must.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 12 3:26 pm Post subject:

NorthernMonkeyGirl wrote:

Would it be fair to compare it to a beehive?
The bees are off out collecting, but the internal processes in the hive needs to be close to complement each other / be efficient?

A pretty good comparison.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 12 6:30 pm Post subject:
What's a server farmyard? A.

smokingdragon

Joined: 22 Aug 2009
Posts: 68
Location: Nr. Neath S.Wales

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 12 10:02 pm Post subject:

Barefoot Andrew wrote:

What's a server farmyard?
A.

The virtual area outside the RBS / NetWest server farm that their customers use and where RBS dump their sh*t.

We use the definition of a server farm as a group of servers that perform the same overall function, in my case a 300 Citrix server farm.

Cheers

Simon

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