I've been wondering about the minimal h/w you'd need for a cpu server and whether it exists in a compact blade-like form. Conceivably all a plan 9 cpu server needs is cpu, ram, pxe ethernet and all the gunk necessary to get it to boot, i.e., no video, no i/o ports, no disk controllers etc. that otherwise just burn power. I'm imagining something small enough that four blades could fit into a standard size tower chassis that you could stick under your desk and not worry about it electrocuting your kids (although fan noise might be an issue). The likes of rackable just seem to sell full-blown servers in a blade form-factor, for a premium.
Given that you can buy a motherboard w/ all the bells and whistles, 4 gb of ram and a nice multi-core 64-bit cpu for $300, the raw material for such a board in theory should cost less. I think the mainstream market is there in applications like image processing or rendering animations--although presumably not so much in the finance sector nowadays--where the data lives on dedicated file servers. If the price was low enough it could even be attractive to hobbyists running pov-ray or what not. But if such a thing existed it would also be the basis for a nice plan 9 cpu cluster. Any recommendations? John
