centers, with their potentially massive computing requirements, but
Microsoft Corp. is experimenting with doing just that -- and it's
finding that doing so may lead to cost savings.
A netbook processor uses one-fifth or one-tenth the power of a typical
server processor, offers about one-third the performance and is
cheaper than server processors, said Jim Larus, director of software
architecture for data-center futures, a unit within Microsoft
Research. That means that even though a data center would require
three times as many netbook processors, the power requirement would
still be lower than that of a setup with typical server processors.
At TechFest, an annual demonstration of some of the technologies that
Microsoft researchers are cooking up, Larus showed off a typical
data-center cabinet stocked with off-the-shelf netbook processors.
At TechFest, an annual demonstration of some of the technologies that
Microsoft researchers are cooking up, Larus showed off a typical
data-center cabinet stocked with off-the-shelf netbook processors.
The cabinet doesn't require the large fans that are typically built
into such containers. The processors produce less heat because they
consume less power, in part because they offer less performance but
also because they were designed to require as little energy as
possible so as not to quickly drain the battery of a laptop, Larus
noted. The cabinet, which contained 50 dual-core processors, can be
plugged into a standard electrical outlet, he said.
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