OEMs IBM, Dell, HP, Hitachi and others unveil systems based on Intel’s new chips, which offer 80 percent more performance and 50 percent better energy efficiency.
Intel executives unveiled their much-anticipated family of
Xeon E5-2600 processors for servers designed to handle the demands brought on
by the rapid growth of such technologies as virtualization and cloud computing
in the data center.
At a Webcast event in San Francisco March 6, Dianne Bryant,
vice president and general manager of Intels Datacenter and Connected Systems
Group, outlined the advances offered in the new chip line that she said will
deliver 80 percent more performance and more than 50 percent better energy
efficiency than the previous Xeon 5600 chips, as well as improved networking
and security features.
The Xeon E5-2600 chips,
which offer up to eight cores, will enable data centers to handle a world where
there will be more than 3 billion Internet users with more than 15 billion
connected devices by 2015, per numbers compiled by Cisco Systems. And all those
users and devices will be connected via servers in data centers, whether
theyre cloud environments, telecommunications companies or data centers,
Bryant said.
Using the Xeon E5 chips gives us the performance we need,
the scalability we need, the I/O throughput and ¦ the security, she told
reporters and analysts at the event.
Systems makers seemed to agree, with such major players as
IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, SGI and Hitachi all unveiling new and upgraded
products leveraging the Intel technology. HP officials introduced the enhanced
systems in February, rolling out the
ProLiant Generation 8 systems that
included the upgraded SL230s and 250s Gen8 systems.
Dell on March 6 introduced its twelfth generation of
PowerEdge servers, including the R820, R720, R720xd and R620 rack systems, M620
blade, T620 tower and C6220 shared infrastructure server based on the Xeon E5.
Our customers told us that they need
end-to-end solutions to handle the complex workload problems they face every
day, Brad Anderson, president of Dells Enterprise Solutions Group, said in a
statement. As such, we built our new generation of servers, systems management and workload solutions to address the
needs of business end users who require maximum performance to run mission-critical
applications and IT departments which demand more efficient, secure and
reliable operations.
IBM executives also used the Xeon E5-2600 launch to roll out
new x86-based servers aimed at giving users more capabilities in cloud
environments and in analytics. Included in the March 6 rollout was a new
version of the companys BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud, an integrated
offering that includes server, storage, networking and virtualization
capabilities and built-in management software. The solution is powered by the
latest generation of IBMs BladeCenter HS23, which offers 62 percent more
compute power than previous generations and comes with an integrated 10 Gigabit
Ethernet Virtual Fabric technology, which enables businesses to run 20 percent
more virtual machines.
"IBM is
delivering easy-to-deploy cloud and analytics products to help clients align
their businesses to manage unprecedented amounts of data and become much more
efficient at turning that information into timely business
insights, Adalio Sanchez, general manager of IBMs System x business,
said in a statement.
According
to Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT Research, IBMs newest System x
servers take full advantage of the innovations in Intels Xeon E5 chips.
The result is a processor built for the rigors of the modern
data center, and IBM is taking that to the bank, particularly in areas such as
cloud computing and analytics, King told
eWEEK.
Both practice areas will benefit from the combination of raw system, storage
and network performance offered by Intels Xeon E5-2600, but solutions designed
for high-density cloud computing environments must deliver world-class power
efficiency, as well. Overall, the new System x, BladeCenter and iDataplex
solutions look like solid additions to IBMs already formidable array
Intel-based systems.
Intels Bryant noted the innovations the chip giant put into
the Xeon E5-2600 processors that touch on everything from I/O to security to
energy efficiency, saying that a key goal was a balanced approach that touched
not only servers but also networking and storage. The new chips offer an
integrated I/O controller that supports PCI Express 3.0 that Intel officials
say will triple the speed of data into and out of the chip. In addition, 10GbE
also is supported on the motherboard. Intel also introduced the Ethernet
Controller X540.
Regarding security, the Xeon E5-2600 also leverages Intels
Advanced Encryption Standard New Instruction (AES-NI) to more quickly encrypt
and decrypt data, and Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) to help minimize the
threat of malicious attacks. Intel bought security software vendor McAfee last
year to enable it to build more software capabilities into the hardware, which
Bryant said strengthens the security in the chips. The greater adoption of
mobile computing and cloud computing increases the threat of attacks, she said.
The solution is to bring security closer and closer to the
hardware, she said.
Intels Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 enables systems to boost
the performance of single cores by as much as 900MHz when needed, while the
companys Node Manager and Data Center Manager features give users accurate and
real-time information about data and power use.
Senior
Editor Darryl K. Taft contributed to this article.
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