Standard Servers
Although much of the underlying technology is similar, Intel processor-based servers (commonly referred to as "x86" or " x64" servers) are substantially different than a commodity PC. Support for additional RAM, multiple processor (CPU) sockets, high-performance fault-tolerant disk arrays and sophisticated remote management features are commonly available. Not to mention the 1" high, 19" wide, 3' deep shape of the common rackmount server these days - in a standard 42" high rack, factoring in the need for power and cooling, we can easily get 15 or more servers in a small amount of floor space. At the moment, CNS manages 40 physical servers, mostly located in Brothers College and the Learning Center, with a few servers in Pepin as well. In addition, CNS maintains an additional 55 virtual servers.
At Drew, we have standardized on HP (formally Compaq) Proliant servers using Intel server processors. Our "typical" server is a multi-core processor DL360 G5 with dual SAS (Serial-Attached SCSI) hard drives. We then add equipment (RAM, fibre channel cards for SAN storage, etc.) depending on the intended use of the server.
This standardization reduces the management overhead, and increases flexibility. While waiting for a hardware repair, a less-critical server could be taken off line and used to offer an application normally offered by a failed server.
To support certain applications, sich as our VMware ESX Server virtualization environment or the CBORD CS Gold card system database server, we buy slightly different Proliant hardware. We're using HP Proliant DL380 G5 systems as our VMware ESX server hosts. Similar to the DL360 servers above, the DL380 G5 allows for additional adapter cards and more local hard disk storage (eight disks), giving us additional space to store virtual server configuration files.
After 1995
The trend in the past decade has been strongly towards servers based around the Intel PC platform. Whether the processor is made by Intel or AMD, the functionality is similar. When you add good performance, low cost and reliability to the wide range of operating systems available for the x86 platform, it's hard to compete with it. Proprietary (single-vendor) servers have been steadily losing ground due to cost and the rising popularity of server versions of both the open-source Linux operating system and Microsoft Windows. Application vendors would like to support as few operating systems as possible to save development costs, and it's ultimately applications that sell servers and operating systems. In the 2006-2007 academic year, CNS worked with Administrative Computing to move their administrative software (AIMS) from AIX on IBM hardware to a SuSE Linux virtual server. As of January 2007, all production servers are running Windows Server, an enterprise Linux distribution, or NetWare 6.5.
Increased Reliability
New servers are far more reliable. An inexpensive $4,000 server not only outperforms a server that would have been $20,000 or more ten years ago, it's also far, far less likely to suffer any sort of hardware failure. Server hard drives, in particular, rarely fail now. In 1990, it wasn't uncommon for Drew to suffer significant hard drive failures that disrupted a campus service (academic work, email, etc.). We rarely went a year without such things occurring. It's very uncommon now, even though we have far more systems, and when it does, it's rarely disruptive.