BEAS is INTC's partner in this endeavor for two reasons (1) INTC is competing with SUN and IBM, so not going to use iPlanet or WebSphere, (2) BEAS has the best clustering technology in the market. Clustering is a software program that allows many servers to work as one, and enables you to add or subtract servers, as needed in a plug 'n play environment. This clustering technology allows a firm to say buy 3 cheap INTC servers, and cluster them so as to avoid a single point of failure, and also to allow easier and greater scalability (all at less cost) then say having to buy one large SUN or IBM server, with its relatively high cost, single point of failure, and much more difficult cost to scale if you want to add additional servers. As such, BEAS clustering technology is the key enabling technology to enable IBM to pursue the commoditization of server strategy to ebusiness.
Tinker,
Great Post. But I have some concerns about this idea of commoditizing servers I've seen yourself and others toss around. A large cost for the service providers, co-los, web hosters, etc. is people to manage servers. In the data center today, for each additional x number of servers added, one new person is needed to manage these servers. The value of x is usually a constant. So the data center must add many more lower performing commodity servers and thus more administrators when scaling. This increases the total cost of ownership greatly. I don't see a movement towards commodity lower performing 1U servers from position in the industry. Instead, in the data center, I see a move to higher performing, small form factor servers that can reduce the TCO by eliminating the high cost of management.
Can you tell me what you've seen differently that points to the move to commodity based servers?
Also, does BEAS clustering technology allow for the addition of hardware without a linear addition of necessary management? What I mean is, do they have single point of management software that allows the administrator to throw a Dell PowerEdge in a rack with WebLogic preinstalled and manage it with little effort?
Darryl |
