Re: Laptops as servers?

[James Smith <jsmith () dxstorm com>]

I had an "retired" Thinkpad running DNS.  They definitely have less power
comsumption that most other things, but I think the problem is mission
critial redundancy.  So they'd only be good for things like DNS and SMTP,
that have fall backs built into the protocol, or for web servers
clusters.  It would be interesting to see a laptop with hotswappable
motherboards, etc.

--
James Smith, CCNA
Chief Network/System Administrator
DXSTORM.COM

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On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Bennett Todd wrote:

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> This whole rolling-blackout thing inspires me to ask: anybody tried
> using laptops as servers for core functions? I'm thinking
> infrastructure stuff like DNS and DHCP and Radius and so on, maybe
> backup SMTP, whatever else can be shoehorned into it. Who knows,
> maybe even Zebra one of these days. Logging servers. Firewalls.
>
> Sure, if a server job absolutely requires a big farm of fast disks
> spread over a bunch of controllers, there's no point in looking at a
> laptop. But many server jobs don't. Enough to maybe make some
> blackouts hurt less? I'd _Sure_ rather provision UPS support for a
> rack full o' laptops than an equivalent amount of compute horses
> provisioned with traditional rackmount server gear.
>
> They've got their own internal UPS, making 'em insensitive to
> switchover blips, and their running load is way less than normal
> server. 'Specially when their little lids are closed and their
> backlights and LCD drivers are all asleep:-).
>
> Seems like it might even be worthwhile investigating the possibility
> of running 'em directly off e.g. 12VDC; I wouldn't be surprised if
> the standard power supplies for use in cars didn't end up being more
> efficient (spending less watts in the conversion) than the wall
> warts.
>
> Hearing about the Google farm made me think, you know, it might be
> slicker to tuck 4 or maybe even 8 laptops into a U than just a pair
> of shallow rackmount servers. But then I'm weird:-).
>
> - -Bennett
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