Facebook Shares Green Data Center Designs But Keeps x86

Facebook is a wonder of our age. With many than fractional a billion users, the fact it serves elaborated and personalized pages to every exploiter–within a second or two of them asking for it–is emotional.

To achieve this feat, Facebook operates warehouses full of server computers, famous American Samoa data centers. One of the biggest questions organism asked recently, based connected rumors, is whether Facebook has abandoned traditional x86 server computing that's been around since the 1970s for low-power unsettled computing chips–the same used in jail cell phones and tablets.

The answer? No, they seaport't. Facebook is still x86 on the server.

We know this because Facebook has decided to "open source" the designs for its data centers for some interested party to use. This is a rarefied move because information center configurations are ordinarily bespoke and therefore offer a direction for one company to get a competitive advantage o'er others.

Reduction power consumption within data centers is a nascent region and Facebook is leading the spunky therein expanse. Its various tricks include evaporative chilling systems that use water and air to get eliminate heat energy, rather than traditional air travel conditioning; reuse of heat generated by the servers to maintain neighboring offices cozy during winter; and a special uninterruptible major power supply that will keep the information eye running during a power cut in a way that reduces powerfulness usance by up to 12 per centum.

Recently there's been much of discussion about servers using Sir David Low-power chips to further the ecological parkway. The technology is ready, just close to: Sea-Little has released a twin of servers based happening Intel's Atom wandering chips, for exemplar, while Calxeda recently got funding to green groceries ARM-based servers.

According to the Register Website, which got the answer immediately from Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of bailiwick operations, despite the Sir David Alexander Cecil Low power credentials of mobile chips, Facebook uses traditional server offerings such from Intel's Xeon or AMD's Opteron range. However, although he wouldn't embody worn on exact details, it appears Heiliger and his team are at least evaluating mobile technology for expend in the data nitty-gritty.

Although mobile chips are nowhere stingy as powerful as even out the slowest desktop x86 chips, they're perfectly able to handle the small, jerky transactions typically involved in serving Web pages to cease users. If performance is sounded against the electric power necessary to achieve it, mobile chips win every prison term.

The biggest block on mobile chips in the data center right now is the quantity of memory they keister address. Either by deliberate manufacturing choice, A with Intel's Atom chips, or simply because they're 32-bit, as with ARM's current lineup of designs, most ambulatory chips shinny to muckle with more than 4GB of memory. This is far below what most data center software requires, which typically runs into double gigabyte figures.

Although Weapon system's latest chip designs feature server-friendly features much as virtualization, Subdivision Chief operating officer Warren East has stated the companion is in no rush to introduce 64-bit designs. However, the ARM Cerebral mantle-A15 project features 40-chip computer memory addressing, which allows the chip to access up to 1TB of remembering–more than enough for most data centers both now and in the future.

There's immature doubt that a party like Facebook embracing ARM chips could trigger a revolution in the glide path to information centers, specially if they percentage their designs and software with the rest of the domain, A seems to beryllium their new strategy. No uncertainty several people at ARM home office have their fingers very tightly intercrossed.