Colocation, normal and not very

Recently, I had a desire for curiosity to place my CubieTruck in a data center to check how it will behave under a combat load. And ... I did not get anything, because The data center I turned to is not yet ready to place such non-standard equipment. It was then that it dawned on me to make a very brief essay on what people might wish to place on a collocation.







Yes, in the photos of the Mac Mini, placed in the server rack. But more about that later.

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Desktops

In the first place in terms of placement frequency (after the classic rack servers, which I will not touch on in this article at all) - desktops. And although the colocation area of ​​desktop configurations with its elegance rather resembles some kind of garage or warehouse, this service is quite in demand.







Naturally, demand creates supply. Many small and medium-sized data centers without any problems will take your ordinary computer to your colocation. I observed two implementations from photographs: a warehouse (as in the photo above) and a rack, when a special 19 "tray is installed in the rack, on which the system managers are installed. Below and above this tray, conventional rack servers may be placed. The second implementation allows for better heat removal and extinguish the fire in case of anything. And the warehouse option burns very well ... By the way, some companies (we will not point fingers), which provide dedicated servers of economy class, also place their servers on a warehouse basis.

Mac mini

Placing the Mac Mini in the data center has not yet gained popularity (at least I have not heard of it). But in the United States there are entire companies that specialize in precisely this location. As with desktops, there are two options for placement. Placement in the 19 "rack you have already seen. And here is the placement in the rack:







I think the army of apple trees after this photo choke with saliva. For those who have not yet choked, control shot.







Either people working with Mac have a better sense of aesthetics, or just Mac seals does everything better, but it looks nicer than a desktop counter. Some companies that provide this service have even developed special racks for the size of the device.

Laptops

Yes, I myself am wondering how it looks. I did not find pictures, but on the forums I met questions where you can put a laptop on a kolo, as well as reviews of people who already did it. In particular, one person mentioned that his provider was very fond of his power consumption. But the demand is really small, so you should not go into details.

CubieTruck

Perhaps the newest and unpopular version is the placement of mini-computers (including those based on ARM architecture). ARM is mainly used for mobile phones and tablets. But the production of mini-computers, such as CubieBoard, is actively gaining momentum. And if Cubieboard 1 and 2 could be used mainly in DIY projects, the 3rd version is quite as good as a small VPS.



A young French startup NanoXion, specializing in various solutions for hosting and equipment placement, recently began to place CubieTruck (3rd version of CubieBoard) on its platform. Even developed a chassis for rack placement:







Actually, this is not exactly a colocation, the French do not need to send their Cubie. It is more likely to rent a dedicated microserver. However, those who wish to place their Cubie on a kolo may well be drawn up soon (for example, I) So far, this technology is only developing, but the developers have announced preparations for the release of a new model based on the 8-core UltraOctaA80 chipset. The SATA interface and Linux ported to ARM builds, and a host of other benefits, which I will discuss later on, allows us to consider this direction as quite promising.



On the field tests of my CubieTruck, I will somehow tell you in a separate article. If someone agrees to take him for a couple of months (preferably within Ukraine, to make it easier to send) for a combat test, I will be immensely happy.