Fast Array of Wimpy Nodes - FAWN Netbook Cluster
Apr 19th, 2009 by admin
Using a cluster of netbooks researchers have created a powerful server architecture that draws less power than a lightbulb.
Each FAWN node has a single 500-megahertz AMD Geode processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, and a single four-gigabyte compact flash card. The largest FAWN cluster built to date consists of 21 nodes.
Power is responsible for up to 50 percent of the cost of operating data centers. For example Facebook use up to $1 million a month in electricity
Due to the FAWN combination of relatively slow processors and flash memory, rather than data stored on disk, the architecture performance per watt of energy is a hundred times better than that of traditional servers. FAWN could certainly replace a a web Architecture like Apache / MemcacheD / Database which is what sites like Facebook run on now.
More about Fawn can be found here.
