Latest Event
ISC 2024 | 13th - 15th May 2024, Congress Center, Hamburg
International Super Computing is a can't miss event for anyone interested in HPC, tech, and more.
The team over at lowpowerservers.com were on-site with a customer in Central London this week when a major power cut severely impacted the office building. IT services started to fail, traffic lights went dark, and local services were brought to a standstill, with some people even being trapped underground between tube stations!
The resulting blog of the experience raises some interesting questions and suggests a different way of approaching disaster planning, specifically regarding a complete loss of power.
What if they had been using an ARM® Server?
Inspired by the power cut we experienced in central London, the table below compares a traditional x86 server environment with an ultra-low power ARM®-based server showing how the Boston Viridis consumes as little 8.5W for over 7 hours!
| Servers Type | Number of servers/cores | Power Consumption | Lifetime on UPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel E5-2680 | 4 servers / 64 cores | 1560w | 38.4mins |
| Viridis Cortex A9 | 180 servers / 720 cores | 1530w | 39.2mins |
| Viridis Cortex A9 | 16 servers / 64 cores | 136w | 441mins / 7.3hrs |
This shows how the customer would have been able to continue delivering services for the duration of the power cut - but only if it was using the ultra-low power Boston Viridis.
Read more about the experience at lowpowerservers.com.
To help our clients make informed decisions about new technologies, we have opened up our research & development facilities and actively encourage customers to try the latest platforms using their own tools and if necessary together with their existing hardware. Remote access is also available
International Super Computing is a can't miss event for anyone interested in HPC, tech, and more.