IPC Rackmount / Server Case
2U, 6 Node Server Systems
Compact, Flexible, and Cost-Effective for Data Centers
Recently, because the rise of the small-scale data centers, the need of the adroit computing and storage systems is growing. Many enterprises start to search for a more economic and flexible solution besides the blade system. The node system is becoming the trend because it has at least 3 advantages over the blade systems: compact size, easy installation, and flexible cost.
Usually, the node size of the node system is smaller than the blade system, so it can be realized in 1U, 2U server chassis, rather than the 6U or 8U chassis which is commonly used in the blade system. The room for the servers can be reduced and be more efficient, especially when only few computing nodes is required in small business. More additional room can be used to expand the storage servers or additional node servers when they are required.
The compact size also brings the mobility and convenience when moving or settling the machine. You can easily transfer the machine to other rack without help. Best of all, the cost can be controlled. Owners don’t have to buy a big, multiple slots blade server when they only need few computing nodes. A few 2U 4 nodes systems or one 4U 8 nodes systems can satisfied the duty in the most time. They can decide to expand the computing center later when their business grows by adding more machines. Because of the high flexibility in size and mobility, the node systems are commonly used as the core of the emerging hyper-converged systems.
Requirement
In this case, our client asked for a customized node system. It requires 18 HDD bays, but need to contain 6 node system, each owns 3 HDD resource and is empowered by one 2U redundant power supply. This configuration is really hard to be realized by the standard chassis on the market.
Realization
In the design stage, we first check the size of the components to see if they can be included in. Soon we found the problem: though the motherboards of the 6 nodes from our clients is smaller than other companies, they can only be put in the rear side when there’s no power supply. The redundant power supply is the barrier.