* IBM releases five Opteron servers and blades
IBM last week strengthened its relationship with AMD with the introduction of more Opteron-powered servers.
IBM’s System x AMD Opteron-based servers, aimed at high-performance computing, consist of five new servers and blades designed for business intelligence, ERP and manufacturing and design.
The new servers feature IBM’s X-Architecture, including its Xcelerated Memory Technology offering 15% faster memory access, and ‘Cool Blue’ power management.
“We believe the relationship between AMD and IBM incorporates synergies that other vendors do not,” says Charles King, senior analyst for Pund-IT Research in a research note. “IBM was the first major vendor to adopt Opteron, doing so at a time when the future of the platform still hovered in doubt. Like the company’s formal support of Linux, IBM’s solutions arguably helped validate Opteron among customers and opened the eyes of competitors who realized they needed to get moving or be left behind.
“IBM’s latest System x Opteron servers should give organizations the tools they need to gain competitive advantages in a host of existing and emerging new markets,” says King. “It is this intersection of the technical and the practical that leads to new business opportunities, and there is no IT vendor that understands or travels the Opteron road better than IBM.”
IBM first introduced Opteron-based servers for high-performance computing in 2003. The company claims that the new Opterons deliver as much as a 21% performance increase with the same power requirements as previous generation Opterons.
Specifically the company introduced a ‘snap-in’ blade server that lets customers add another two-socket blade to the first, doubling processing power. The blade connects via AMD’s HyperTransport technology. The BladeCenter LS41 is designed for ERP, data warehousing, databases and of course, high-performance computing clusters.
Another new blade server, the LS21 is a two-way blade for financial services, scientific applications and databases.
These blades are followed by the System x3755, x3655 and System x3455. The x3755 is a mid-market server for scientific computing; the x3655 is designed for database, ERP, business intelligence and video on demand. The x3455 is intended for use in high-performance compute clusters.
Both the servers and the new blade will be available in the third quarter of this year. Pricing will be set upon availability.
