RaspberryPi, Low Cost, minimal power usage, monitoring servers?

[Slaine]

Just wonder how many peeps have stumbled across the soon to be released Raspberry Pi before?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

It's a low cost (35$), very small PC with a 700mhz arm processor, 256k ram, ethernet port, hdmi & rca video output and 2 USB ports.

It runs off a 5v micro usb power adaptor, which means power usage is minimal and can run arm based linux distro's. Debian and Fedora seem to be the front runner in supporting this OS wise

Now allthough the primary aim of these are meant to be to help get kids into programming, I wonder what use these could be used for in a datacenter, possibly as a cheap monitoring server checking connectivity etc?

With the cost of electricity ever rising, these micro pc's could be handy for any tasks that dont need the power of a standard pc/server and use a fraction of the footprint.

It's just a thought, but i'd like to hear any ideas on how these could be used in a DC, as I aim to get a few of these when they are more widely available for both home and work.

[graham]

I agree with you Slaine, it does sound like a good option for monitoring systems. I think probably live stats like power consumption per rack, total power, temperature, fan speeds, server loads,etc. Basically the vital ones can be displayed, probably with a little coding smart analytics can also be generated at a cheaper cost.