Hosting a company's sever in your private home to save money.

[RichardCoulter]

Some time ago, I heard something about a scheme where, to save on building costs, some companies do a deal where they put their servers in people's living rooms etc.

The benefit to the householder is that they generate a lot of heat, so they save on fuel costs.

I'm assuming that they sort out the insurance and power supply.

From what I remember, it has to be made fireproof in the event of a fire.

Does anyone know anything more about this scheme?

Are they noisy?

Do they use a lot of power (in case the householder is responsible for this)?

Thanks.

Sounds stupid enough to be true, but no, never heard of it.

It's the fire suppression systems that I would worry about, if you have a server in your living room...

[tweetiepooh]

And servers can be very, very noisy. Keeping cool is more important than noise for a device normally sited in a server room. Especially with many sites not now cooling like they once did as servers don't need that level of chill. Servers can be very "thin" with small. fast fans, space is an issue. Many powerful home PC's are in big cases with lots of space and big. slower fans.

[Uncle Peter]

As crazy as it sounds there is a Dutch company hosting distributed cloud computing servers in peoples homes which also double as radiators. Basically big data crunching cycles converted to sustainable heating.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03...cloud_servers/

There are a few other companies specialising in distributed ERP back-end systems amongst other things who host small form factor servers in residential homes in return for certain benefits like free or subsidised FTTH access. Not heard of anything like that in the UK yet though.

[pip08456]

Here's a direct link. http://www.nerdalize.com/

[RichardCoulter]

Thanks everyone.

It looks like it has environmental benefits too, shame we don't have it in the UK yet.

The noise would probably get on my nerves though, perhaps they're not actually situated in the living room and the heat generated can be distributed elsewhere??

I have a friend who has the servers for a dating website in his cellar.

I took a look a few years ago and can't recall it being particularly noisy, but there were a lot of domestic fans and a dehumidifying machine running 24/7.

---------- Post added at 17:13 ---------- Previous post was at 17:08 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

It's the fire suppression systems that I would worry about, if you have a server in your living room...

From what I remember (I think it was an article on Radio 4), I don't think they meant that you had to have a sprinkler system installed, it was some form of outer casing that protects it from fire should one break out in the property.

---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 17:13 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul M

Sounds stupid enough to be true, but no, never heard of it.

Well, i'm happy to host 'Current Affairs' as that probably creates the most heat on CF!

Trouble is, it's probably the one that creates the most noise too

Most server room fire suppression systems aren't sprinklers, as water and expensive servers don't play well together.

Modern FS systems are based on inert gases, mostly Argon/Nitrogen mixes, which work by depriving the fire of oxygen - this can have sub-optimal effects on the human respiratory system; you're not poisoned, you just can't breathe...

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Most server room fire suppression systems aren't sprinklers, as water and expensive servers don't play well together.

Modern FS systems are based on inert gases, mostly Argon/Nitrogen mixes, which work by depriving the fire of oxygen - this can have sub-optimal effects on the human respiratory system; you're not poisoned, you just can't breathe...

Not good to have in your own home then!

They didn't mention anything like that as I recall, just some sort of a cabinet to keep the server safe in the event of your home catching fire.

Come to think of it, they did say that the householder would be responsible for the cost of this apparatus.

No mention was made of who paid for the additional electricity. I've no idea how much servers use, but as a general rule of thumb they say that anything that heats up costs a lot to run.

Taking into account the costs of a fire guard and possible extra electricity, it may not be worth it, especially if it's unsightly or makes any noise.

I think that this is a bit much considering that they are saving on office costs, insurance, business rates etc.

I guess you would also have to be flexible as they may want to come and work on it from time to time.

You might even get a call to reboot it! Perhaps this can be done remotely though.

[tweetiepooh]

Looks like the devices could be passively cooled i.e. they are designed to lose heat to the environment where as normal servers are designed to be squeezed into racks so need fans to pump that heat out into a room that will then move that heat away - cooled server rooms are becoming less so where possible.
The interesting point to me is in summer they vent that heat outside suggesting it may need to fit to an external wall.

So a device designed to lose heat radiantly, using SSD could be silent, maybe a fan to kick in if needed just in case. Guessing it may have 2 ports at least, one for normal and a ILOM port for remote management if the server goes down and networking doesn't come back up. Securing the latter would be important, more so that the "normal". Also guessing it would need to have open ports to allow remote access. Again interesting on most domestic routers, especially ISP supplied.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Looks like the devices could be passively cooled i.e. they are designed to lose heat to the environment where as normal servers are designed to be squeezed into racks so need fans to pump that heat out into a room that will then move that heat away - cooled server rooms are becoming less so where possible.
The interesting point to me is in summer they vent that heat outside suggesting it may need to fit to an external wall.

So a device designed to lose heat radiantly, using SSD could be silent, maybe a fan to kick in if needed just in case. Guessing it may have 2 ports at least, one for normal and a ILOM port for remote management if the server goes down and networking doesn't come back up. Securing the latter would be important, more so that the "normal". Also guessing it would need to have open ports to allow remote access. Again interesting on most domestic routers, especially ISP supplied.

That's a point, I wonder if they have their own dedicated internet connection, or if they will use the persons domestic broadband connection??

I'm not sure how much bandwidth commercial servers use, if it's a lot, maybe it would interfere with your own internet activity?? Perhaps they could set it to do whatever it's tasked to do overnight??

Good point too about summertime, you wouldn't want extra heat in the warm weather, so it's good that it can go outside.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

That's a point, I wonder if they have their own dedicated internet connection, or if they will use the persons domestic broadband connection??

I'm not sure how much bandwidth commercial servers use, if it's a lot, maybe it would interfere with your own internet activity?? Perhaps they could set it to do whatever it's tasked to do overnight??

Good point too about summertime, you wouldn't want extra heat in the warm weather, so it's good that it can go outside.

It all depends on how many sockets the server is set up for. I was running a very small server (Single 16 bit CPU micro-controller, about 2 watts) with only 8 sockets ( 4 simultaneous users) as a demo unit for ages. BTW VM's T&C for a domestic setup exclude running any kind of serious server IIRC.

The sort of server you could run at home is almost certainly something you could run on any reasonable VPS quite cheaply.
Therefore, there seems little point in going to all the hassle of trying to run it in a private residence.