Replies to post #91806 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[RobertG]

SeaMicro's cloud server sports 512 Atom processors

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178018/SeaMicro_s_cloud_server_sports_512_Atom_processors
Agam Shah

June 14, 2010 (IDG News Service)

SeaMicro has developed a server that packs in 512 low-power Intel Atom processors on miniature motherboards the size of credit cards, the company announced today.

Atom processors are more commonly found in netbooks, but Andrew Feldman, SeaMicro's CEO, says they can be more power-efficient than x86 chips for certain cloud and Web transaction workloads. Such transactions tend to be smaller in size but higher in volume.

"Today's servers are inefficient on small workloads," Feldman said.

Higher-performance chips like Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron are efficient at running traditional enterprise workloads such as database applications, he said. But he believes a collection of small Atom cores provides better performance-per-watt in the cloud.

"Atom turns out to be good at ordinary problems and not great at hard problems. The Internet is all about ordinary problems," Feldman said.

Other vendors have also been turning to alternative, low-power chips in servers. Dell has built servers around Via Technology's Nano processor for some of its cloud customers, and Microsoft's research group has built some experimental Atom-based servers.

SeaMicro designed its new server, called the SM10000, with as few components as possible to save space and reduce power consumption. It has 512 miniature Atom motherboards, connected by a fabric that provides throughput of 1.28 terabits per second, the company says.

Server motherboards usually include components for tasks related to storage and networking, but SeaMicro says it virtualized the I/O through an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit). The ASIC emulates the hardware, which has helped eliminate "90%" of the components from the motherboard.

"This technology allows us to shrink the motherboard to the size of a credit card," Feldman said. The only major components remaining are the DRAM, ASIC and Atom CPU, he said.

The server is 10 rack units high, or 17.5 inches, and includes storage and Ethernet switching. It uses Atom Z530 processors running at 1.6GHz. The server needs one-quarter of the power and space a traditional "best-in-class" server would need for the same workload, Feldman said.

The Atom chips could be replaced by other x86 chips or by Arm-based processors, he said.

The SM1000 has a unique design that could lead other vendors to rethink how they build servers, said Cal Braunstein, CEO of Robert Frances Group, a market research company.

"They have designed it for particular usage. By doing that they are able to have an architecture that allows them to use the Atom and divide workloads among a large number of processors simultaneously," Braunstein said.

The server is good for specific types of Internet tasks, Braunstein said.

Many data centers are running into power constraints. Servers like the SM10000 can help solve that problem while reducing energy bills, he said.

The server is due for release July 30, priced starting at $139,000. SeaMicro said some customers are already using the server, though it declined to name them.

[wbmw]

Nothing in here about any specific Intel effort to get Wintel apps running on non-Windows OS.

What do you think "port of choice" means? Are you still arguing that it means Windows... On Windows?

Remember, my first post on this subject was about how, when using one of these non-Wintel level-playing-field alternative platforms, the Wintel-codebase-advantage disappears.

Again, this answers your question. Any ISV can take their Windows apps and use the Intel tool set to have an easy port to Meego or Android.

Try to think beyond the highest profile heavy-weight apps like Adobe CS5 or Office 2010. Those need more aggressive overhauls in order to be usable in a handheld platform.

Instead, think about Canon printer software, or software that goes to any of the 100s of USB based devices that would be useful to hook up directly to a smart phone. My smartphone comes with a low profile USB connection already. Would be nice to hook up printers, cameras, or external drives.

Think about utilities like virus/malware checks, networking status monitors, photo organizers, etc. There are 1000s of downloadable apps off of Internet sites like download.com or twocows.com, and probably 100s out of those that would be useful as smartphones evolve to become more PC-like.

Intel's strategy has obviously been to leverage this by providing the tools for developers to easily port their apps across the various Atom platforms. That's something that ARM has not announced any plans to do, and is presumably more difficult due to their architectural barriers and the broad range of ARM SOCs, each of which require software tweaking for compatibility.

Intel has an argument for effort vs. reward. They are asking ISVs to spend some time on their architecture, and with a simple toolset, be able to have software that's compatible across all Atom based devices. The alternative being to spend more time porting to ARM, and having to retweak the software for each of the ARM SOCs they want to target.