University of Glasgow builds Raspberry PI Cloud Server

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&#x27;t had the time yet.<p>I&#x27;m now trying to get Docker running on the raspberryPi, if you want to help, checkout my notes here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;kencochrane.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;running-docker-on-a-raspberrypi&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;kencochrane.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;running-docker-on-a-rasp...</a>

I wonder how the performance (absolute and per watt) would compare to equivalently cheapish x86 server. Quick look at dell&#x2F;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).<p>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.

It&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>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: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.mythic-beasts.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;20&#x2F;raspberry-pi-self-hosting&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.mythic-beasts.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;20&#x2F;raspberry-pi-self-h...</a>. The tl;dr from that is this line:<p>&quot;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.&quot;

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 (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xaprb.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2010&#x2F;06&#x2F;01&#x2F;under-provisioning-the-curse-of-the-cloud&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xaprb.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2010&#x2F;06&#x2F;01&#x2F;under-provisioning-the-...</a>). 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.<p>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&#x27;d be happy to be corrected.

Very cool. I believe there is a market for really tiny VPS&#x27;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&#x27;s law, so while currently these instances seem very underpowered, in a few years they would gain some muscle.

1)I&#x27;m extremely excited for pi and what it means to education, 2)kids won&#x27;t do this...sorry 3)this is old news...sorry 4)I upvoted.<p>Edit: typo