Newisys-built Opteron servers to be distributed by Avnet

Systems vendor Newisys last week announced that its server based on the new AMD Opteron processor will be distributed by Avnet Applied Computing.

Opteron, which is being introduced this week, is an alternative to Intel’s 32-bit Xeon and 64-bit Itanium processor. It uses a 32/64-bit technology that lets 64-bit applications such as databases or online transaction processing get the full performance benefits of 64-bit computing, while preserving performance for 32-bit applications, the company claims.

Newisys, a start-up in Austin, Texas, has been developing Opteron-based servers, and in the future plans to make Opteron server blades. The company announced a dual-processor Opteron server last year. It says its objective is to have one of the major systems manufacturers such as IBM, Dell or HP adopt it. Newisys was founded by ex-IBMer Phil Hester and staffed with Dell, HP and IBM executives, but so far has not announced any deals with major systems vendors.

It has, however, signed a deal with $1.68 billion Avnet, one of the world’s largest distributors of CPUs, mass storage and networking gear. Since distribution is key to Newisys’ success, the deal with Avnet is important. Avnet will distribute Newisys’ rack-mountable servers to original equipment manufacturers, systems builders and value-added resellers.

Newisys’ 2100 Enterprise-Class Server runs Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and has features such as remote lights-out management that simplify its management and deployment in the data center.