The Personal Cluster: Coming To A Desk Near You

“To their credit, Intel and AMD have managed to deliver
multi-cores without requiring an associated increase in power.
(i.e. a current quad-core chip requires the same amount of power as
a dual-core chip, it may run a little slower, however). This result
has allowed the core densities in both rack mount and blade servers
to increase dramatically.

“For instance, consider the IBM BladeCenter S system. It is a
server closet (rack mountable), but because it is designed for
power efficiency could easily sit on or next to a desk. It is
powered by standard 110-220 volt electrical service and can hold up
to six blade servers (up to 48 cores total). The system even has
integrated storage built into the chassis (12TB SATA and 12TB NL
SAS are available) and does not require chilled air. It also has a
Office Enablement Kit that allows for mobility (wheels) and
protection from the office environment (dust, dirt, coffee!).
Another nice feature of the Blade Center S is the low acoustic
signature — a must for office use. Similar systems with various
feature sets can be had from HP, Dell, and Supermicro.

“Another entry in the departmental arena is the Cray CX1
“Supercomputer.” The CX1 can be thought of as a blade systems on
wheels. Mobility is nice with this size unit. (Which should be
taken as a hint to the other blade vendors). It can support up to
64 Intel cores and can be configured with InfiniBand as well.
Similar to other blade systems, it can use storage blades and works
with standard office electrical service.”

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