I wonder if they have heard of Beowulf - it allows you to cluster as many Linux servers as you want, to share the load and coputational power. You can pick how much power you need/want, and build the Linux nodes and network 'em together. I read an article about this 3 years ago, about a university that used 1 or 2 hundred old 'throwaway' pc's as the nodes, and ended up with one hell of a supercomputer. If one of them goes bad, they roll out a 'crash cart' with a spare PC and some parts on it, and get the node back in the cluster. Pretty cool use of old junker pc's when you think about it.
Note to self - learn how to type. Oh well, at least I didn't mis-spell it copulational power. Sheesh.