Cloud Computing and Virtualization : Hardware Requirements

Computer Hardware in general has undergone a rapid increase in performance within a few year time line. Expectations and from the Server has increased too. The server performance has increased in the recent years too, where as the power consumption of server systems has dropped.

Cloud Computing and Virtualization requires to be specially adapted to the newer technology and offer reliability, scalability and easier management.

Previously we have published several articles on Cloud Computing and Virtualization .

Cloud Computing, Virtualization and Small and Medium Businesses business

Bigger Companies in the Server arena like Dell, IBM, Fijitsu, HP are typically thinking about the Cloud Computing and Virtualization hardware solutions for Small and Medium Businesses business.

HP BladeSystem Matrix integrates all necessary components for Cloud Computing and Virtualization : server storage, network hardware and management software and combine them together in a single housing.  Fujitsu has similar Cloud Computing and Virtualization compact housing solution.

Hardware  requirements for Cloud Computing and Virtualization

It is a gross list for hardware usually used by the Standard companies running Virtualization. Cloud Computing will require such multiple instances.

CPU Specification for Cloud Computing is Based on a Blog published by Amazon EC2.

CPU : Dual-socket Intel Xeon X5550 (Nahelem) 2.66GHz processors.

Intel Xeon X5550 processor has 4 cores and each core is capable of hyper-threading.

HDD :  1.5TB+ 7200.11 SATA  (minimum) + one PATA Boot Drive

Main Board : Intel BOXDG43NB series MB (minimum)

RAM :  4GB DDR2 800 RAM

These are basic requirements to build an infrastructure for running Cloud Computing and Virtualization. You will need Power Supply, Switch, and other basic components for Cloud Computing and Virtualization.

Estimated cost for ONE Computer that can run Cloud Computing Instance

As the prices are gradually decreasing it is difficult to predict price at one moment. For a complete setup minimum cost for a machine capable of Cloud Computing is about $ 8000. For Only Virtualization (one machine) cost can be as low as $1500. Cost of Monitor, checkup machine, Softwares either for Cloud computing or Virtualization is not included in the price mentioned. (updated August 2011).