Peter Clarke, EETimes
7/21/2010 8:29 AM EDT
LONDON – Next year will be the year of the low power server, according to Mike Bryant, an analyst with Future Horizons. However, it will be based on Intel processors, possibly mixed in with some from rival Advanced Micro Devices, but will not include significant numbers of ARM processors, he said.
Speaking at the mid-year semiconductor market forecast organized by Future Horizons (Sevenoaks, England), Bryant said: "Google has over 1 million servers; Amazon and Microsoft over a quarter of a million; IBM, eBay, YouTube, BBC, online games companies and many others often have over 50,000 servers."
He added that the power consumption expended by these machines is then increased by the power consumption of air conditioning equipment to keep server farms from overheating, so that reducing power consumption has a strong leverage and is a high priority