According to an article from Information Week, Intel Manager Jason Maxwell, Intel’s general manager of its Server Platform Group, gave his viewpoint on cloud computing benefits and challenges.
The appeal of cloud computing is that it supplies “the illusion of infinite resources,” because only a handful of users will be trying to exploit large amounts of capacity at any given time. In the normal course of events, when they need multiple servers, they will tend to be available, he noted.
The existing cloud data centers are known to be cost-effective forms of computing. Servers amount to 50% of the expense of data center outlays, with electrical power and cooling for servers another 23%, said Waxman, according to careful studies of IT budget outlays.
Clouds work and achieve economies of scale because “they optimize (hardware and software) on many different levels,” he pointed out. Not only are servers more fully utilized as hosts to multiple virtual machines, but the software running in the cloud is optimized for its function there.
In the future, x86 servers will be designed with fewer components and fewer components in upright positions, impeding the flow of cooling air as it passes over the circuit board. Racks of servers will share a power supply and cooling fan, and all the parts will be allowed to run hotter without damaging components, he predicted. Intel is shooting for components that can run continuously at 40 degrees Centigrade or 104 Fahrenheit temperatures.
Improving voltage regulators on servers, allowing a two-way server to scale back to 60 watts when idling, would result in a savings of $6 million a year in electrical costs for a company running 50,000 servers, he said.
Building private clouds with servers that use flash drives instead of disks will contribute to cooler operation and 90% less electrical consumption that disk drives, he added. But the private cloud assembly will also need to have a high degree of manageability as well if it is to maintain its economies of operation. Failing to put the right elements together may defeat user expectations of large amounts of resources at low prices, making the private cloud an undertaking with inherent risks, he concluded.
Source: Information Week article by Charles Babcock
