Digicor preparing to release Supermicro Computer blades
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Digicor is preparing for the release of Supermicro Computer's first blade servers, saying the new products would strengthen its product line up and provide welcome competition in the blade server market.
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A competing chip from rival Advanced Micro Devices will likely arrive several months earlier.
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All together now Fujitsu has kicked off a major effort to see its 10Gbps networking gear make its way into blade servers from the likes of HP, IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems. More broadly, Fujitsu expects increased standardization in the blade market in the near future.â¦
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Intel said it was already starting to explore options such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires. Such materials will be needed to take chips below the 10 nanometer size, which is expected to occur early in the next decade.
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Foundry partner gears up for second-generation 90nm Efficeons
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Upcoming chips will lead to relatively inexpensive hardware, company says.
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The chip is expected to be unveiled Tuesday, in time to bump up the performance of game desktops before the holidays.
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Computers built with Advanced Micro Devices&#39; Opteron processor soon will be able to take advantage of the same power management technology the company has already built into its laptop and desktop microchips.
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The chip maker wants to pipe media to your home -- and within it.
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Dell on Monday&#160;added a new series of blade products to its PowerEdge server line, expanding its presence in a market dominated by rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard.The PowerEdge M-Series of blades includes the fastest-performing and most power-efficient blade servers the company has, said Mike Roberts, senior product planning manager for Dell.The PowerEdge M1000E, a 10U enclosure, will support the new Intel-based PowerEdge M600 and Advanced Micro Devices-based PowerEdge M605 blade servers, also announced Monday.The M1000E enclosure supports a range of network connectivity options, including modules for Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand connectivity. The enclosure allows customers to upgrade or stack up on network hardware to boost networking speed.The PowerEdge M600 blade server is a dual-socket server that supports up to two quad-core Intel Xeon processors, including processors in the Xeon 5400 series running at up to 3.16GHz. The dual-socket PowerEdge M605 servers support dual-core Opteron 2000 series processors running at up to 3GHz. Both blades support Windows Server 2003 and Linux OSes.Targeted at data centers, the PowerEdge M1000E enclosure is priced at $5,999, and the blades start at $1,849. The products will be available worldwide starting Monday.Dell&#39;s OpenManage systems management technology, which will be bundled with the blades, includes energy management tools. Capabilities include real-time power reporting and the ability to set power usage by blade.Power efficiency in blade servers is an important consideration for those looking to upgrade data centers, said Richard Doherty, cofounder and director of Envisioneering Group. Energy costs have become a big factor in considering hardware for data centers, and companies are taking a closer look at reducing their carbon footprints, Doherty said.&quot;Going greener can be a reason for an upgrade,&quot; Doherty said.The new blade server gives Dell an opportunity to catch up with HP and IBM blade products, especially in small data centers, Doherty said. Dell&#39;s PowerEdge M-Series will compete with IBM&#39;s BladeCenter H and HP&#39;s BladeSystem c-Class blades.In addition, the new blade servers will need strong management tools in order to succeed, Doherty said. Dell in the past has announced service and support initiatives that haven&#39;t panned out, and the company&#39;s OpenManage system management tools are not as strong as autonomic computing offerings from HP and IBM, Doherty said.System management is a big concern for data centers, and customers are looking for the ability to manage systems without the need for additional IT engineers, Doherty said.
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Chip maker plans for smaller, faster, less power-hungry processors.
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A new carbon-based nanoscale material could be used to make ultrafast computers.
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Slick CDs and portable DVD support, plus digicam choices and new security options.
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I.B.M. plans to announce that it will share the designs and technology for a fast-growing line of computers known as blade servers.
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As part of digital shift, electronics maker is planning device that will record HD DVDs, DVDs and CDs.
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Opteron to gain power preservation tech - and other goodies
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One nanotechnology researcher said supercomputers small enough to fit into the palm of your hand are only 10 or 15 years away."If things continue to go the way they have been in the past few decades, then it's 10 years," said Michael Zaiser, a professor and researcher at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering and Electronics. "The human brain is very good at working on microprocessor problems, so I think we are close -- 10 years, maybe 15."Zaiser's research into nanowires should help move that timeline along.For the last five years, he has been studying how tiny wires -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair -- behave when manipulated. He explained that each such miniscule wire tends to behave differently when put under the same amount of pressure. Therefore, it has been impossible to line them up close to each other in tiny microprocessors in a production atmosphere.Zaiser said he's now figured out how to make the wires behave uniformly. He separates the interior material of the wire into distinct groups so the wire can't react as a whole. That makes it much easier to control. "It's like crowd control," he added. "If they can all go one way, you have a big mess."These nanowires will go inside microprocessors that could, in turn, go inside PCs, laptops, cell phones, or even supercomputers. And the smaller the wires, the smaller the chip can be.Shrinking down the microprocessors is a big step toward shrinking down computers.Zaiser was quick to point out that his nanowire discovery won't immediately lead to the development of supercomputers that can fit in the palm of a hand or even shrink down to the size of a book of matches. In addition to smaller microprocessors, engineers will need to deal with thermal fluctuations that erupt at that size.But he does humbly admit that taming nanowires is a big step toward the goal of small supercomputers."This will enable chips to become much smaller," he said. "Think 10 years back. You could hold [a cell phone] the size of a telephone receiver and it didn't work so well. Today, you can fit what is a powerful computer onto a small device."Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT in Hayward, Calif., said that with advances like nanowire technology continuing to come along, Zaiser's predictions for tiny supercomputers may not be so far off. And that will be a huge step for the industry, considering that not so long ago supercomputers filled up enormous rooms or even entire buildings."Actually, what he's saying is not crazy," said King. "The wire problem was an important one. Solving that particular issue, one so fundamental, needed to be done. If he can solve that, a lot of people, a lot of companies, will appreciate that. The industry is aligning in a direction where we're going to be seeing continuing improvements and developments."Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz., said he definitely can see palm-size supercomputers coming out within 10 to 15 years, but he thinks they'll be based on the basic silicon technology used today. He added that the next generation of tiny supercomputers -- made with carbon nanotubes and nanowires -- may be as far off as another 30 to 40 years, though."You know, everybody says we'll get to a physical limit but every time we think we're going to hit it, we overcome it," said McGregor. "They end up being speed bumps instead of road blocks."King added that over the last 10 or 20 years, technology advancements have put smaller and more powerful computers into the hands of children and researchers alike. That leads him to believe that the shrinking of supercomputers is just ahead of us."We're at the beginning of some very exciting times in supercomputing," he said.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate