By: rwessel (robertwessel.delete@this.yahoo.com), October 12, 2018 12:01 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Paul A. Clayton (paaronclayton.delete@this.gmail.com) on October 11, 2018 7:49 pm wrote:
> anon (spam.delete.delete@this.this.spam.com) on October 11, 2018 7:02 am wrote:
> > Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on October 11, 2018 4:06 am wrote:
> [snip]
> > > What prevents Cloudflare from ordering 1S servers with 1.5x or 2.x # of nodes
> > > per unit of volume relatively to their current setup (4 nodes per 2U) ?
> > >
> >
> > They'd have to completely redesign the sleds.
> > It's doable, half width, DIMM slots and socket in a row instead of next to each other,
> > PSU configuration will change, but doable. Considering the extra components it might
> > work out once you factor in the lower power consumption, but it's not great.
> >
> > The problem is right now they're using some standard Quanta
> > 2S boards and they don't offer anything like the
> > half width 1S boards they'd need. There's no market for it. No one in their right mind would pay for twice
> > the boards and PSUs they need since everyone except QC supports 2S, so all the high density options are 2S.
>
> Is there some fundamental reason why two computers could not share a single motherboard, power supply, etc.?
>
> Obviously such an arrangement would not be as useful as being able to share memory contents
> (even without cache coherence) and capacity as well as network (and other I/O) interfaces,
> but it would appear to address the density/form factor and PSU count issues.
You mean like the old Supermicro TwinBlades?
> anon (spam.delete.delete@this.this.spam.com) on October 11, 2018 7:02 am wrote:
> > Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on October 11, 2018 4:06 am wrote:
> [snip]
> > > What prevents Cloudflare from ordering 1S servers with 1.5x or 2.x # of nodes
> > > per unit of volume relatively to their current setup (4 nodes per 2U) ?
> > >
> >
> > They'd have to completely redesign the sleds.
> > It's doable, half width, DIMM slots and socket in a row instead of next to each other,
> > PSU configuration will change, but doable. Considering the extra components it might
> > work out once you factor in the lower power consumption, but it's not great.
> >
> > The problem is right now they're using some standard Quanta
> > 2S boards and they don't offer anything like the
> > half width 1S boards they'd need. There's no market for it. No one in their right mind would pay for twice
> > the boards and PSUs they need since everyone except QC supports 2S, so all the high density options are 2S.
>
> Is there some fundamental reason why two computers could not share a single motherboard, power supply, etc.?
>
> Obviously such an arrangement would not be as useful as being able to share memory contents
> (even without cache coherence) and capacity as well as network (and other I/O) interfaces,
> but it would appear to address the density/form factor and PSU count issues.
You mean like the old Supermicro TwinBlades?