

University of Glasgow builds Raspberry PI Cloud Server - vegasbrianc
http://raspberrypicloud.wordpress.com/blog/

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KenCochrane
This is cool stuff, I have also been trying to get LXC containers running on
the RaspberryPi. I used their guide and it went pretty well. I want to create
a downloadable image so that you can skip over all the begining steps, and get
into the fun stuff quicker. Just haven't had the time yet.

I'm now trying to get Docker running on the raspberryPi, if you want to help,
checkout my notes here: [http://kencochrane.net/blog/2013/05/running-docker-
on-a-rasp...](http://kencochrane.net/blog/2013/05/running-docker-on-a-
raspberrypi/)

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zokier
I wonder how the performance (absolute and per watt) would compare to
equivalently cheapish x86 server. Quick look at dell/hp shows a basic
16-thread server with 32G ram costing about $3000, which places it in the same
performance and price-range (vs. 56x$35=$1960 just for the rpis).

edit: I realize that this is an educational project and as such the
performance does not matter that much compared to the educational value
provided by running largish number of nodes.

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jameshart
It's tempting to think that raspberry pi makes sense as a sort of commodity
blade server system, racking up loads of cheap, tiny CPUs... but it turns out
that that might not be the case.

UK hosting company Mythic Beasts has a history of playing with unusual hosting
devices to maximize hosting capacity versus cost - both hardware and power;
they provide a hosting offering that runs on racks of Mac Minis, for example.

Now, they also took a look at the raspberry pi - and they set one up and
running as a mirror of the Raspbian Linux apt repository. This was their
write-up: [http://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2012/07/20/raspberry-pi-
self-h...](http://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2012/07/20/raspberry-pi-self-
hosting/). The tl;dr from that is this line:

"Is this sensible? We’ve had a few customers ask us if the Raspberry Pi would
be a sensible device for hosting on as it’s very cheap and very low power.
Unfortunately it’s also very slow for this kind of application and the
supporting hardware is very bulky."

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MoOmer
To be fair, the Mac-mini rack has real purpose:
[http://hackaday.com/2012/12/09/160-mac-minis-one-
rack/](http://hackaday.com/2012/12/09/160-mac-minis-one-rack/)

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mwcampbell
I think the real promise of combining single-board computers into a grid like
this is the potential to provide utility computing starting at a low cost
without the curse of underprovisioning
([http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2010/06/01/under-provisioning-
the-...](http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2010/06/01/under-provisioning-the-curse-of-
the-cloud/)). I envision a rack full of single-board computers with
specifications such that a hosting provider can rent out whole computers with
specs and prices similar to a 1 GB Linode.

To achieve this goal, I think one would need a single-board computer with
roughly these specs: a SoC that scores at least 1000 on Geekbench; at least 1
GB of RAM; at least 8 GB of flash storage competitive with SSDs from a few
years ago; 100 Mbps Ethernet; sized such that a 2U enclosure can hold 32 of
them plus an Ethernet switch; priced around $100. If any of my expectations
are way off, in either direction, I'd be happy to be corrected.

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IgorPartola
Very cool. I believe there is a market for really tiny VPS's assuming the
costs can be kept low. Things like remote monitoring, or VPS come to mind.
Also, it would be interesting to see if RPi follows Moore's law, so while
currently these instances seem very underpowered, in a few years they would
gain some muscle.

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Already__Taken
They won't because the foundation doesn't want to make RPi's They want to get
into teaching a huge number of people about hacking on electronics. They
needed the pi because there was nothing suitable to do that on for around £20.

The founders has said it would be a long time, if ever before considering
making a Raspberry Tau.

If competitors spring up and make ever more powerful units they might not have
to. They don't want to get into competing with arduino for example, that's not
what they are for.

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IgorPartola
Currently, yes. However, what happens as components get cheaper? A year from
now, will there be a RAM chip that is the same price as now but with 2x the
RAM? One can hope I suppose.

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michaelxia
1)I'm extremely excited for pi and what it means to education, 2)kids won't do
this...sorry 3)this is old news...sorry 4)I upvoted.

Edit: typo

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vegasbrianc
Hi michaelxia, this project has been in the works for awhile but, the updated
post from today shows some really interesting potential on the Management
layer as well as the project's current status. Really cool stuff!!

