They will have to keep you around to maintain the complex web of indispensable, mission-critical systems you created, and only you know how to maintain.
And if you leave, or are outsourced, they will have to call and contract your services - for a premium hourly price, of course;)
Being in the Enterprise server business, it is difficult to gauge a manufacturer's press hype without seeing "real" data - power consumption is a major concern to businesses running more than a few servers. This type of usable data is typically only released by the manufacturer very near consumer release date, and sometimes real-world use data can only be gathered in real-world testing, regardless of what the manufacture states in press releases and white papers.
AMD far surpasses Intel, so far, in perfomance and scale per power power consumption. Our recent power testing shows that for similar spec Opteron vs. Xeon servers from big-name hardware manufacturers, the same power use would give us either 1000 Xeon servers to rack, or 1600 Opteron servers using the same amount of power. This is a no-brainer.
A recent WSJ article hit this on the head - posted in full here, since WSJ requires login (and the article appears to now be archived...).
---
Power-Hungry Computers Put Data Centers in Bind
Newer Hardware Guzzles Electricity and Spews Heat, Requiring Costly Alterations
By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 14, 2005; Page A1
The University at Buffalo installed a $2.3 million Dell Inc. supercomputer last summer, hoping to bolster its image as a research institution. Instead, the big machine came to symbolize an increasingly vexing problem for data centers world-wide.
Once the machine was delivered, university officials discovered they had only enough electrical power to switch on two-thirds of the system. They have temporarily responded by throttling back use of an older supercomputer, but a $20,000 electrical-system upgrade will be needed to run both systems at full capacity.
"The calculations that were done fell slightly short," says Bruce Holm, a senior vice provost at the school, which is part of the State University of New York. "The bottom line was that they missed."
More such misses are likely. That's because, in its long-running race to boost performance, the computer industry has hit a major hurdle: The newest hardware -- particularly the servers that run most business programs and Web sites -- draws too much electricity and generates too much heat.
The power-hungry machines, along with rising energy prices, are generating enormous utility bills and forcing changes on Silicon Valley technology suppliers that are akin to Detroit's struggle to improve gas mileage. (See related article1.) Though more-energy-efficient computers are on the way, it could be years before companies replace the systems they have already purchased.
In the meantime, bringing in more electricity and cooling is expensive and difficult in some data-center buildings. Organizations face unpleasant choices that include building new facilities, putting off server purchases or leaving costly space in computer rooms unoccupied to avoid overwhelming their air-conditioning systems.
Facilities planners at the University at Buffalo, for example, originally erred because they thought an older supercomputer would no longer be needed by the time their new machine arrived, Mr. Holm says. The need for both systems caused the university to consider spending as much as $150,000 to upgrade the current data center's air conditioning, just as the university was on the verge of moving the systems to a more modern computer room. "It's that kind of juggling act," Mr. Holm says.
If planners miscalculate, servers overheat, damaging circuitry or causing shutdowns that disrupt operations. The Uptime Institute, an organization that represents data-center managers, predicts that power-related problems this year will cause four of the 20 major failures typically experienced by members annually, up from two of 20 last year. "We are headed into a territory where there is no precedent," says Kenneth Brill, the group's executive director.
For years, no one worried much about power consumption.
Using DansGuardian with Squid is not a difficult to set up. The default blocks are quite comprehensive, and completely customizable. There are even gateway/firewall distros like Smoothwall and IPCop that have drop-in support for DansGuardian.
Now, if more people would just learn the need for a real firewall, and how to configure the darn thing...
My late post will likely go unseen, buried on page 2, but here it goes...
As many others have stated, Slackware is unadulterated Linux, and this is what cRaig means by, "Slackware matters because Slackware IS Linux."
Slackware was my first install of Linux about 1996, and I, too, have tried all the distros over the years, and have come to love Slackware. It IS easy to install and maintain, and I have no idea where some of the "Slackware is only for gurus" opinions originate. I work in a company supporting many "Enterprise" and free Linux distributions, as well as all of the BSD's and some commercial UNIX's. Slackware makes up a small number of our customers, but we never hear from them for support because the OS is so stable, and security updates simply don't break the server, as other distributions have been known to do. If a user wants bleeding-edge, then they can track slackware-current - or just track the stable versions. Updating and the package management tools work perfectly. Period.
I think the relatively small number of Slackware installs is simply due to marketing. Patrick does not dole out dollars for advertising or "push" for enterprise level adoption. BUT! Once users and Linux admins become aware of Slackware and try it out (and I mean *really* use it - not just bitch about, "I can't find..." and give up), I think there is only a tiny percentage that throw up their hands and resort to the big names. (I had a hard time, just now, writing 'big names' - Slackware has always been one.)
And not to just post a male-member extention, but it just keeps on ticking for me:
The pros and cons of various source control platforms, such as CVS, SVN, BK, arch, and darcs would be appropriate, as well as discussing all the "free" software licensing options. This could turn out to be a rather religious class;)
anyon has some good questions on building a web application, but once the thing works, it must be audited regularly and updated to secure poor coding. Perl and Python are excellent choices for this - build the front end in whatever you want, utilize the huge libraries of Perl and Python modules for back-end functionality, and keep tabs on updates to the modules to keep the application from being exploited.
"one reason Apple switched is because it said IBM could not keep up with Intel's power-consumption technologies"
A simple chart on power consumption of Intel/Itanium/AMD/AMD64/AMD_Opteron processors shows that Intel is far behind on increasing performance while stabilizing growth in power use in wattage. While I don't have data on PPC chips - AMD is clearly the leader in keeping power consumption down, while increasing processor performance.
The article comment seems a little backwards to me... If taken literally, yep, Intel is on top of sucking more and more watts with each release, and although Intel states they will stabilize power use by 2007, I don't see the trend today.
You are correct, however, this is news for Slackware and 64-bit processor support. Working for a large hosting company, we get many requests for Linux operating systems that are not "the big ones", and not listed on our typical build pages. Users want an OS they are comfortable with, not just what we advertise.
Thanks, Fred - a quick test install on my Opteron scratch box works as expected. (And it is Slack - not rpms or debs or ebuilds...)
This affects vendors choice of hardware to include in servers, for instance, which will eventually affect Adaptec's bottom line. Adaptec RAID controllers were dropped from Dell's PowerEdge line in favor of LSI controllers, with the introduction of the 1850/2850/6850 lineup.
Slashdot Mirror
They will have to keep you around to maintain the complex web of indispensable, mission-critical systems you created, and only you know how to maintain.
;)
And if you leave, or are outsourced, they will have to call and contract your services - for a premium hourly price, of course
Being in the Enterprise server business, it is difficult to gauge a manufacturer's press hype without seeing "real" data - power consumption is a major concern to businesses running more than a few servers. This type of usable data is typically only released by the manufacturer very near consumer release date, and sometimes real-world use data can only be gathered in real-world testing, regardless of what the manufacture states in press releases and white papers.
AMD far surpasses Intel, so far, in perfomance and scale per power power consumption. Our recent power testing shows that for similar spec Opteron vs. Xeon servers from big-name hardware manufacturers, the same power use would give us either 1000 Xeon servers to rack, or 1600 Opteron servers using the same amount of power. This is a no-brainer.
A recent WSJ article hit this on the head - posted in full here, since WSJ requires login (and the article appears to now be archived...).
---
Power-Hungry Computers Put Data Centers in Bind
Newer Hardware Guzzles Electricity and Spews Heat, Requiring Costly Alterations
By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 14, 2005; Page A1
The University at Buffalo installed a $2.3 million Dell Inc. supercomputer last summer, hoping to bolster its image as a research institution. Instead, the big machine came to symbolize an increasingly vexing problem for data centers world-wide.
Once the machine was delivered, university officials discovered they had only enough electrical power to switch on two-thirds of the system. They have temporarily responded by throttling back use of an older supercomputer, but a $20,000 electrical-system upgrade will be needed to run both systems at full capacity.
"The calculations that were done fell slightly short," says Bruce Holm, a senior vice provost at the school, which is part of the State University of New York. "The bottom line was that they missed."
More such misses are likely. That's because, in its long-running race to boost performance, the computer industry has hit a major hurdle: The newest hardware -- particularly the servers that run most business programs and Web sites -- draws too much electricity and generates too much heat.
The power-hungry machines, along with rising energy prices, are generating enormous utility bills and forcing changes on Silicon Valley technology suppliers that are akin to Detroit's struggle to improve gas mileage. (See related article1.) Though more-energy-efficient computers are on the way, it could be years before companies replace the systems they have already purchased.
In the meantime, bringing in more electricity and cooling is expensive and difficult in some data-center buildings. Organizations face unpleasant choices that include building new facilities, putting off server purchases or leaving costly space in computer rooms unoccupied to avoid overwhelming their air-conditioning systems.
Facilities planners at the University at Buffalo, for example, originally erred because they thought an older supercomputer would no longer be needed by the time their new machine arrived, Mr. Holm says. The need for both systems caused the university to consider spending as much as $150,000 to upgrade the current data center's air conditioning, just as the university was on the verge of moving the systems to a more modern computer room. "It's that kind of juggling act," Mr. Holm says.
If planners miscalculate, servers overheat, damaging circuitry or causing shutdowns that disrupt operations. The Uptime Institute, an organization that represents data-center managers, predicts that power-related problems this year will cause four of the 20 major failures typically experienced by members annually, up from two of 20 last year. "We are headed into a territory where there is no precedent," says Kenneth Brill, the group's executive director.
For years, no one worried much about power consumption.
tigerdirect has them in stock for $329.99.
Using DansGuardian with Squid is not a difficult to set up. The default blocks are quite comprehensive, and completely customizable. There are even gateway/firewall distros like Smoothwall and IPCop that have drop-in support for DansGuardian.
Now, if more people would just learn the need for a real firewall, and how to configure the darn thing...
My late post will likely go unseen, buried on page 2, but here it goes...
/etc/slackware-version
As many others have stated, Slackware is unadulterated Linux, and this is what cRaig means by, "Slackware matters because Slackware IS Linux."
Slackware was my first install of Linux about 1996, and I, too, have tried all the distros over the years, and have come to love Slackware. It IS easy to install and maintain, and I have no idea where some of the "Slackware is only for gurus" opinions originate. I work in a company supporting many "Enterprise" and free Linux distributions, as well as all of the BSD's and some commercial UNIX's. Slackware makes up a small number of our customers, but we never hear from them for support because the OS is so stable, and security updates simply don't break the server, as other distributions have been known to do. If a user wants bleeding-edge, then they can track slackware-current - or just track the stable versions. Updating and the package management tools work perfectly. Period.
I think the relatively small number of Slackware installs is simply due to marketing. Patrick does not dole out dollars for advertising or "push" for enterprise level adoption. BUT! Once users and Linux admins become aware of Slackware and try it out (and I mean *really* use it - not just bitch about, "I can't find..." and give up), I think there is only a tiny percentage that throw up their hands and resort to the big names. (I had a hard time, just now, writing 'big names' - Slackware has always been one.)
And not to just post a male-member extention, but it just keeps on ticking for me:
michael@aesop 17:00:05 ~ $ cat
Slackware 9.1.0
michael@aesop 17:00:07 ~ $ uptime
17:00:08 up 402 days, 16:05, 3 users, load average: 0.15, 0.12, 0.13
...they will start recalling the drives, due to rootkits found embedded in the firmware.
The pros and cons of various source control platforms, such as CVS, SVN, BK, arch, and darcs would be appropriate, as well as discussing all the "free" software licensing options. This could turn out to be a rather religious class ;)
anyon has some good questions on building a web application, but once the thing works, it must be audited regularly and updated to secure poor coding. Perl and Python are excellent choices for this - build the front end in whatever you want, utilize the huge libraries of Perl and Python modules for back-end functionality, and keep tabs on updates to the modules to keep the application from being exploited.
"one reason Apple switched is because it said IBM could not keep up with Intel's power-consumption technologies" A simple chart on power consumption of Intel/Itanium/AMD/AMD64/AMD_Opteron processors shows that Intel is far behind on increasing performance while stabilizing growth in power use in wattage. While I don't have data on PPC chips - AMD is clearly the leader in keeping power consumption down, while increasing processor performance. The article comment seems a little backwards to me... If taken literally, yep, Intel is on top of sucking more and more watts with each release, and although Intel states they will stabilize power use by 2007, I don't see the trend today.
You are correct, however, this is news for Slackware and 64-bit processor support. Working for a large hosting company, we get many requests for Linux operating systems that are not "the big ones", and not listed on our typical build pages. Users want an OS they are comfortable with, not just what we advertise. Thanks, Fred - a quick test install on my Opteron scratch box works as expected. (And it is Slack - not rpms or debs or ebuilds...)
This affects vendors choice of hardware to include in servers, for instance, which will eventually affect Adaptec's bottom line. Adaptec RAID controllers were dropped from Dell's PowerEdge line in favor of LSI controllers, with the introduction of the 1850/2850/6850 lineup.