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What Web 2.0 Means for Hardware and the Datacenter
Tom's Hardware has a quick look at the changes being seen in the datacenter as more and more companies embrace a Web 2.0-style approach to hardware. So far, with Google leading the way, most companies have opted for a commodity server setup. HP and IBM however are betting that an even better setup exists and are striking out to find it. "IBM's Web 2.0 approach involves turning servers sideways and water cooling the rack so you can do away with air conditioning entirely. HP offers petabytes of storage at a fraction of the usual cost. Both say that when you have applications that expect hardware to fail, it's worth choosing systems that make it easier and cheaper to deal with those failures."
Web 2.0 is about a thousand layers above hardware, it does not in any manner, approach.
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Oh, I get it. This is Web 2.0 hardware setup because users can add and modify servers as they see fit! Wait, the users have no control over the hardware?
Sounds pretty stupid, but maybe Tom's hardware guide has a good explanation...wait, there's no link to the article, or anything at all! At least we'll get some good discussion going because this is Slashdot, right?
This is probably the worst article I've ever seen on Slashdot.
WTF is TFA link?
But from the summary, it seems that "Web 2.0 servers" are like "Web 1.0 servers" but they would need more
1. storage (for user comments)
2. I/O (less caching, more throughput)
3. processing power
But then that is just common sense. Regardless, "Web 2.0" is clearly a misused term to fullest extent possible these days. Might as well be "web enabled" and "linux" at end of the 90s.
For New Buzzwords...
.5U servers, for what can be done on a modified Xbox.
Web 2.0 is gonna be better then Web 1.0 Just like Vista was WAY WAY better then Windows XP!
Though I mean common seriously, this stuff is getting a bit dicey. Web 2.0 isn't really even a standard of OTHER standards. It's a term for how much java, shockwave, and ads you cam JAM INTO A WEBSITE!
What Web 2.0 means for hardware, is that a bunch of companies late to taking in the $$$ from Web 1.0 are gonna not miss the next gravy train. Overselling to data centers a rack of watercooled 128 core
Then again thats just my opinion.
P.S. Don't mod troll me, I am fragile like an IPO for a search engine.
No one RTFA anyways so what does it matter?
Try slashdotting my server http://127.0.0.1/
So called "Web 2.0" means JavaScript. JavaScript is run on the client side.
I fail to see why this requires supercooled servers, and until now I didn't even think it was possible to use the "Web 2.0" buzzword on hardware.
There is no direct link to the story because there's no direct link between Web 2.0 and redundant hardware setups.
What?
Web 2.0 really has nothing to do with 1u, or 2u servers being configured in any specific manner, nor the layout in the racks to be "sideways", upside down, or water-cooled. Web 2,0 is about moving the complexity required to support an application from the physical hardware into the application stack. This happens when an application provider builds resiliency and redundancy into the application and then the application utilizes the compute power of a series of systems merely as a process station. If a node goes offline, or fails, the application moves to the next logical set or online node. This really is nothing new to the industry, other than the capability now being available in the x86 platform. The hardware provider that will win in this space will be the provider that can build, design, and architect the highest possible compute spec while utilizing the least amount of both space and power. It's not virtualizing applications, or operating systems. It's about squeezing as many processing units into the smallest amount of space while utilizing as little power as possible and the application being architected in a manner that will utilize that. Gone are the days of needing to build fault tolerant hardware platforms, with back-up power-supplies, clustering,etc. Today we have smart applications that see that additional processing power is required, or that a process node is down, and the application fails over to the next node in line. This is really not new, what's new is the capability being available in the X86 space. that's a beautiful thing. that means the customer/consumer wins.
So, basically all we're doing is taking some mainframe tech and moving it to x86 servers. Add in some hardware-based virtualization (say, to run old code on different physical processor technology), mix it with virtualizing the rest of the hardware, and give it a proper hypervisor and you have....
A Z9 mainframe.
Maybe IBM should just make some nice REALLY low-end mainframe-type PC servers with a "clustering" port.
Mainframe tech is great, except it's just too damn expensive, especially when you're not doing enterprise-level data crunching.
Merely that the companies are the ones tinting the situation for their benefit. 'Web 2.0' has become a bit of marketeering, since the original definition doesn't help a lot of those companies sell more crap.
;) It's sort of ironic that the core meaning of Web 2.0 really allows it to not retain the meaning at all.
.com, come and buy your servers and services before it's too late!' after all the marketing groups got a hold of it. O'Reilly made the mistake of coming up with too catchy a phrase that accurately described aspects of key popular sites, and the only thing the business types see are the aspects that correlate to money.
However, to an extent, fighting for the original spirit/meaning of 'Web 2.0' to an extent is like fighting for correct usage of 'begging the question', while you may be in the right, the masses still adopt the common usage. And in Web 2.0 in the true sense of the word, the most popular opinion tends to win, and thus Web 2.0 isn't that anymore
Web 2.0 has deteriorated to mean 'second coming of
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.