Server farm
A server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers, usually maintained by an organization to supply server functionality far beyond the capability of a single machine. They often consist of thousands of computers which require a large amount of power to run and to keep cool. At the optimum performance level, a server farm has enormous financial and environmental costs.[1] They often include backup servers that can take over the functions of primary servers that may fail. Server farms are typically collocated with the network switches and/or routers that enable communication between different parts of the cluster and the cluster's users. Server "farmers" typically mount computers, routers, power supplies and related electronics on 19-inch racks in a server room or data center.
Applications
Server farms are commonly used for
Server farms are increasingly being used instead of or in addition to mainframe computers by large enterprises. In large server farms, the failure of an individual machine is a commonplace event: large server farms provide redundancy, automatic failover, and rapid reconfiguration of the server cluster.
Performance
The performance of the largest
Performance per watt
The EEMBC EnergyBench, SPECpower, and the Transaction Processing Performance Council TPC-Energy are benchmarks designed to predict performance per watt in a server farm.[5][6] The power used by each rack of equipment can be measured at the power distribution unit. Some servers include power tracking hardware so the people running the server farm can measure the power used by each server.[7] The power used by the entire server farm may be reported in terms of power usage effectiveness or data center infrastructure efficiency.
According to some estimates, for every 100 watts spent on running the servers, roughly another 50 watts is needed to cool them.
See also
References
- ^
Mitrani, Isa (January 2013). "Managing performance and power consumption in a server farm". Annals of Operations Research. 202 (1): 121–122. S2CID 12276102.
- ^ "What is a render farm". GarageFarm. 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- doi:10.2200/S00193ED1V01Y200905CAC006. Retrieved 2012-09-20.)
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- ^ "TPC describes upcoming server power efficiency benchmark – Server Farming". Itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com. 2009-02-19. Archived from the original on 2012-02-20. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
- ^ "TPC eyes energy consumption and virtualization benchmarks". Searchdatacenter.techtarget.com. 2008-11-06. Archived from the original on 2009-09-30. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
- ^ Rich MillerApril 1st, 2009 (2009-04-01). "Efficient UPS Aids Google's Extreme PUE". Data Center Knowledge. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
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- ^ "Finland – First Choice for Siting Your Cloud Computing Data Center". Fincloud.freehostingcloud.com. 2010-12-08. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
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- ^ Wheeland, Matthew (2010-06-30). "Swiss Carbon-Neutral Servers Hit the Cloud". GreenBiz.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.