Hardware

wags007

RHEL + IBM = Performance Computing

Red Hat and IBM have teamed up to make some high performance Nodes.  These systems can be either Power or x86 systems.  IBM also recently announced their Pure Systems and Pure Application lines of systems.  These are pre-built systems with everything built, tuned and ready for your applications.  You get the benifit of having IBM’s team of specialist build up and tune the systems for you which is great for time crunched projects.  IBM of course charges a premium for the systems but they configurations are very flexible. You can check more on the PureSystems here.

wags007

Building a low power home server for less than $80….

So my friend Walt was looking for a way to store his media on his network.  He had been running a freeNAS box for years but really wanted to turn off the loud power hunger 10 year old machine in the corner.  So he started researching and first converted a $30 PogoPlug to ArchLinux.  This worked but while surfing he found out that a GoFlex could also be converted to run ArchLinux.  As he discusses this gives him two advantages.  The first is internal 1GB SATA disk is going to be faster than any USB drive.  The second is by having an internal disk he can assign a real swap space.  It also will let things comiple faster in Arch.  Check out his articles and let us know what you would do with the server.

wags007

We now have Cotton Candy and Pi ready….

That’s right Rasphberry Pi has become a reality.  Well the model B version did at least.  That is the one that is $35 and has 2 USB ports, 256MB of memory and an ethernet jack.  If you were one of the folks lucky enough to live in the UK and get one we are seriously jealous.(OK Brian is, Joe and Corey say they have enough projects.)  You had to order  literally in the first minute they were on sale because they sold out that quickly.  There are more being made and not one but two different vendors will be taking orders for the next round.  If you check out the Rasphberry Pi Project website you can find the links to get on the waiting list. (WARNING: they are doing a server migration on 3/7/2012 so there may be issues getting to the site that day.)

 

There is another small form factor but more expensive machine called Cotton Candy that is the size of a USB Thumb Drive.  It comes with more memory, a quad core Samsung ARM processor, and wifi.  The cost of these features however pushes the price up to $199.  Still a good deal if you need to keep a computer in your pocket.  Check out the details on both machines here.

wags007

Do you want 288 Cores in a 4U rack?

Let’s just say that we do.  Talk about being able to get your VM’s on.  Serverwatch.com has an article about Calexeda and HP have announced that HP will be using their ARM based processors in a new line of lower power high performance computers.  While these are aimed at hitting your heavy processing tasks they will work amazingly for most web site type loads where you have a whole lot of users making somewhat simple requests.  These workloads make great use of multiple cores no matter what their speed.  The one question we have is how much memory are we going to be able to put into the machine?  For more of our comments check out the podcast.

wags007

We want some Raspberry PI….

According to this interview on Electronics Weekly the devices not only are real, 50 prototypes have been delivered, and are already running Debian.  They will come in two versions to start.  One will be a 128MB machine with no network and only one USB port and cost @$25.  The second will have 256MB of RAM, a network port and 2 USB ports and cost @$35.  Both will have a 700MHZ processor, Stereo Sound Output through a standard Headphone jack, HDMI and the old composite connection for hooking up to your TV.  All of this will end up on a package the size of a credit card.  The goal for the developers is to inspire the next generation to want to tinker with PC’s like the current generation did.