Purchase of medium and high-end servers with no money (1)

Traditionally, servers can be divided into many types based on different criteria. For example, different processors and architecture can be divided into x86 servers, GPU servers, CPU-level computers, and large hosts. Based on different performance levels, it can be divided into entry-level servers, working group-level servers, department-level servers, and enterprise-level servers. Based on the appearance of the chassis, it can be divided into Tower servers, rack-mounted servers, blade servers, and rack-type servers; different operating systems can be divided into Windows Server, Linux server, and UNIX server. In addition, we can also divide them according to the application field, main functions, number of CPU cores, and other indicators.

However, with the development of the times, the division and selection of servers have become less simple than before. On the one hand, technologies and applications are constantly integrated. For example, today's UNIX servers run not only UNIX operating systems, but also Linux or even Windows; for example, a 4U rack-mounted server may have higher performance than a 42U rack-mounted server. On the other hand, many new technologies and application loads have emerged, such as Web2.0, virtualization, and cloud computing. They have also put forward many new requirements for servers.

These factors make today's server selection, especially the selection of mid-and high-end products more complex than ever before, and many users are faced with one or more puzzles, for example, how should we select technology for high-end IT systems? How to measure the cost effectiveness? How can we grasp future technological trends? What kind of partner can we choose to avoid future risks? And so on.

We know that today's mid-to-high-end server market has a large number of competitors, including ibm power, HP anteng, Oracle/Sun, Fujitsu iSCSI, in addition, x86 servers, represented by Intel's new generation Xeon 7500, also began to try to enter. Therefore, I have summarized some experiences and suggestions from the perspectives of application feature analysis, product technology selection, cost-effective analysis, and ecosystem comparison, it is helpful for users and friends to purchase such products, especially non-x86 architecture servers.