What Will the Servers of the Future Look Like?
What’s next for server design, and how do data center operators prepare for it? “Servers are going to be very different in the future than they are today,” said Google's Joe Kava. “I think servers will look dramatically different."
March 30, 2012
![What Will the Servers of the Future Look Like? What Will the Servers of the Future Look Like?](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt8eb3cdfc1fce5194/blt195ad38091d5d985/66211f9594750045bb155640/ITPAC-Servers-470.jpg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=95&format=jpg&disable=upscale)
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Serious Server Density: Packed racks of servers in an IT-PAC at the new Microsoft data center in Quincy, Washington (Photo: Microsoft Corp.)
First, there were massive mainframes. Then came desktop computers in “towers,” followed by rackmount “pizza box” servers, and ultimately blade servers. What’s next for server design, and how do data center operators prepare for it?
“The equipment is emulating the cloud,” said Don Beaty, the founder of DLB Associates, which built many of Google’s data centers. “It has no shape. It's constantly changing.”
The future shape of server technology was the focus of a panel at the recent DataCenterDynamics conference in New York. Beaty and other panelists noted that the pace of change is accelerating in the sector.
The drive towards more energy efficient equipment has altered the data center environment, Beaty said, with a focus on not only using less cooling, but managing it more precisely. That means data centers are operating at warmer temperatures, and using aisle containment and chassis design to optimize airflow to components that generate heat.