Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft's video accidentally reveals that they have only ~200k servers

istartedsomething.com

11–13 of 13 posts

Re: Microsoft's video accidentally reveals that they have only ~200k servers

#11
post #3

Here's an interesting statistic: Based on 148357 servers consuming 72500 kW of power, Microsoft's average server is using 488 W of power at any point -- so clearly Microsoft is not following Google's approach of using smaller servers which each draw 200W or less. Is the Windows kernel better at using large boxes than the linux kernel? Is Microsoft worse at managing clusters than Google? I'm sure there's some reason w…

They can get away by using fewer servers because those servers do less work. Microsoft's on-line operations are a fraction of the size of Google's.

It's unlikely any OS is significantly better on resource management than any other. OS design books are quite old by now. I remember reading Tannembaum's MINIX while on college, some more than 20 years ago. And, during those 20 something years, desktop computers and x86 servers evolved pretty little. Quite frankly, when compared to what RISC promised in the late 80s and early 90s, it's quite disappointing.

Re: Microsoft's video accidentally reveals that they have only ~200k servers

#12
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't make any assumptions about Google's servers. Public info is generally some mix of inaccurate and out-of-date.

Public info is generally some mix of inaccurate and out-of-date. I was working based on this paper written by Google researchers in June 2007, which refers to one of Google's "typical" servers having a theoretical peak power of 213W and an actual peak power of 145W: http://research.google.com/archive/power_provisioning.pdf While I agree that in general information about Google's systems is a mix of inaccurate and out…

Or you probably could trust Paul, who seemingly worked on Googles servers since just about near the beginning...

Re: Microsoft's video accidentally reveals that they have only ~200k servers

#13
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't make any assumptions about Google's servers. Public info is generally some mix of inaccurate and out-of-date.

Public info is generally some mix of inaccurate and out-of-date. I was working based on this paper written by Google researchers in June 2007, which refers to one of Google's "typical" servers having a theoretical peak power of 213W and an actual peak power of 145W: http://research.google.com/archive/power_provisioning.pdf While I agree that in general information about Google's systems is a mix of inaccurate and out…

145W is the heat generated by the box, including the work necessary to get the heat out of the box.

How much power does it take to get that heat out of the building?

I ask because the utility company numbers include both, while the "machine power" numbers only include the former.

Post reply on HN