For Olaf Manczak, it starts with the numbers. He looks around and sees there are thousands of mainframes, millions of servers, and billions of consumer devices.
Then it becomes a question of complexity. To operate a datacenter you have to be highly educated and well trained. Consumer devices, on the other hand, are easy to use.
This is true, Manczak notes, even though consumer devices -- mobile phones, wireless routers, TV set-top boxes, and more -- contain embedded computers running some pretty sophisticated software. In fact, the operating system inside is often the same as (or derived from) what you'd find in many servers.
"Yet, with all these consumer gadgets one never has to go through the tedious process of installing software, creating configuration files, or applying updates," he says. "At most, one has to upgrade the firmware."
You see where this is going, right? Manczak wants to bring some of the simplicity of consumer electronics to datacenter servers.
And he's getting a little closer every day. More
