In late February 2001, Rebel.com released the first server based on a Transmeta Crusoe chip, originally designed for laptops?a chip that consumes approximately one-fourth the power of a similar Intel processor. This is a significant issue for companies running rooms filled with servers.

While not as touchy about temperature as old-world mainframes, traditional servers often still require cooling systems to deal with their heat and avert potential meltdowns. But low-power servers, such as the NetWinder, allow enterprises to safely cram more servers into a space, again helping to reduce costs. And other vendors are quickly following suit: FiberCycle Networks is using Transmeta pro-cessors for its WebBunker thin server, as will RLX Technologies when its products ship later this year.

Staying Thin?

Despite their advantages, thin servers need to expand their offerings beyond the simple chores they now perform if they intend to keep expanding their markets. But that should begin to happen soon.

"We’re going to see more ISVs [independent software vendors] targeting the appliance architecture, and developers looking to these applications and developing to the appliance," observes Quandt. Significant trends will open up the servers’ architectures and application program interfaces, expanding options for CIOs looking into thin server technology. This could mean that IT departments will have their development teams writing software for thin servers and that software vendors, such as Microsoft and IBM, will write software for specific thin clients.

Next-generation technologies could make these servers even more appealing, according to Crawford del Prete, senior vice president for hardware research at IDC (a sister company to CIO’s publisher, CXO Media). Several server makers?including Intel spinoff Ziatech in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and San Jose, Calif.-based Force Computers?have already borrowed the "blade" form factor from routers (ultra-thin rack-mountable slices that contain complete systems) and can now stuff a half dozen or more processors into a space formerly taken up by two CPUs. And while today’s thin servers are built with a single, immutable purpose in mind, del Prete says future versions will act as adaptive pools of computing resources, able to switch among a variety of tasks.

Such systems, however, are a few years off, however. Today, even the devices’ boosters raise a note of caution. For organizations that say they want to "do database and sales" and "run a couple hundred clients on each machine," thin servers are not only appropriate but also appealing, Bayliss says. But, "there are still jobs where thin servers will not compete," he says. If you want to host a Yahoo or an extremely large site, this isn’t the place to look, he adds.