I recently attended an IBM market strategy seminar regarding the trends of Microprocessor chip technology and IBM's blade server products. The findings are interesting.
Today 80% of servers acquired worldwide are still rack optimized. The largest growth has been in the X86 processors ported for the non-Unix, and RISC architectures. Chip technology has changed greatly since 2004 vs. any other time in history. With the single core 32 bit processor released in 2004 moving to 64 bit support (Xeon & AMD) in 2005, and dual core 64 bit released in June 2006.
Intel announced its new Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor QX6700— “the world's first quad-core desktop processor” during the CES Show in January. Their quad core server chipset was released in November 2006. The application software development always lags the latest chip announcement. I expect these chipsets to be widely used in 2008. Not only do the newer duo and quad chips process transactions per second faster, they also address heating and power consumption with improvements in both areas. I think it is safe to say that single core processor chips are now at the end of their life-cycle.
IBM has utilized the latest Intel and AMD chip design in their X-Architecture. This architecture runs through their xSeries, Blade, iSeries, pSeries, and Z9 product lines. All these product lines incorporate: scalability, virtual technology, hot swap redundancy (power & fan), reduced power consumption, and improved cooling dynamics. The model numbering scheme is used to identify the particular IBM X86 series, # of processors, tower or rack design, and Intel or AMD inside.
IBM Blade Update:
IDC expects 15% of all server acquisitions to be of the blade type by June, and rise to 27% by 2010. Today’s blade technology competitive challenges are:
- Cost reduction- Acquisition, iInstallation, floor space, power & cooling, and life-cycle investment (parts upgradeability vs. whole system package).
- Increased control- Rapid deployment, infrastructure, and high availability.
- Reduced complexity- Cables, installation, flexible architecture, and resource management.
The first architecture chassis (November 2002) is still used today to house the most current parts and pieces that make up IBM's blade product offering. Processors, communications, and other features can be swapped-out without disruption to a running system. IBM's latest blade offering (Blade Center H, for high speed, provides for faster and more network capacity) now supports 10GB ethernet, a full range of processor offerings, advanced management tools, and storage I/O expansion availability right onto the blade itself.
There are various expansion boards incorporating communication switches (Cisco and Nortel), memory, and storage that attach right onto the single blade making it double wide without requiring changes to the chassis.
The Blade parts (memory, processor, storage, network adapters) are what I residualize, as the current secondary market places the highest value on these features. As IBM continues to incorporate commonality amongst its parts in manufacturing, the after market is expected to expand with wider parts acceptance/use within IBM's X-architecture product lines. With cost reduction, improved heterogeneous hardware management, and reduced complexity, we can expect blade technology to expand among the Tier one players (IBM, HP, and Dell).
LaSalle continues to track changes with technology. If you have any questions, please contact your representative who can help you analyze available products and align them to meet your growing needs.LaSalle can provide competitive pricing through our business partner alliances.
Jim Leve is one of LaSalle Solutions’ Product Managers, monitoring technology trends and values.
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2007 Bringing New Generations To the UNIX World
While there have yet to be committed availability dates, both IBM and SUN stated last year that they would be shipping their next generation of processor systems, sometime during 2007. IBM plans to unveil the Power6 chip and new line of RS6000 servers, which will be replacing the highly successful and extremely popular Power5 & Power5 Series.At a time where we have seen most manufactures moving towards non-proprietary processing packages and partnering with the likes of Intel & AMD, IBM has been able to continue to remain competitive, while still incorporating their own home grown CPU technology. There’s been an argument for several years that the high level costs for extensive R & D and manufacturing required to make your own chips, puts you at a disadvantage from a price competitive standpoint.While most will still agree with that statement, you have to admire IBM for challenging that position and still coming out on top.
SUN Microsystems plans to introduce their next generation ULTRASparcV line of systems this year as well, but there haven’t been any time tables announced on exactly when. SUN’s ULTRASparc IV product footprints have remained stable over the past couple of years, but it’s been primarily their AMD run servers that have helped them actually gain some ground on the competition.
SGI Unveils New Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor
To meet the ever growing demand for space-efficient computing solutions, SGI has announced the new Altix XE1300 ultra dense cluster server.This model will feature up to four Quad Core Intel Xeon processors per chassis, for a total of 16 cores.They will be incorporated along with the latest network technology within a small 1U size chassis.
In a collaborative design effort between SGI, Intel Corporation and Supermicro Computer, the “Atoka” motherboard is the heart of this new server class.It doubles the density of the Altix XE systems, by housing two nodes per chassis that also feature an integrated InfiniBand connection on each node.With four Intel Xeon processor sockets, each chassis can scale up to 16 Intel cores (with quad-core) or 8 cores (with dual-core). By comparison, AMD’s Opteron systems offer only 4 cores in each 1U form factor.
SGI will begin accepting orders for the quad-core configurations in early 1Q07, with delivery anticipated shortly there-after.SGI has transitioned over the past few years to more of a niche player.While they’ve been unable to compete against the likes of HP, IBM, and SUN in the general UNIX server arena, those extreme high level computing applications they can compete in, they do so very effectively.
LaSalle continues to track changes with technology. If you have any questions, please contact your representative who can help you analyze available products and align them to meet your growing needs.LaSalle can provide competitive pricing through our business partner alliances.
Steve Buerger is one of LaSalle Solutions’ Product Managers, monitoring technology trends and values.
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