North American Network Operators Group
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Cooler servers for the Internet

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Mon Apr 23 08:45:10 2001 
IBM is announcing several new servers today.  One interesting feature
of the press release is a new focus on power consumption and cooling.

IBM directly targets the high heat generated by the SUN servers.  Compared
to a Sun Server, the new IBM servers have 1/3 the heat dissipation, based
on the published specifications.  IBM eServer p660 is 3,294 BTUs/hr compared
with 9,420 BTUs/hr for a Sun Fire 3800.

Of course, these numbers are pretty bogus.  Most computer manufacture
specification sheets are useless for accurately forecasting the power
consumption of the equipment.  I suspect, after Sun's PR people realize
they are getting beat up, they will go back and better calculate the power
consumption figures for their servers.

I'm not very interested in who really has the coolest, most efficient
computers.  I am interested in getting accurate information for planning
purposes.  If this leads to computer vendors publishing more accurate
information, great.  I'm afraid instead, the pendulum will swing the
other direction and vendors will begin understating their true power
requirements.