Eight x86 server Market Outlook optimistic what kind of attitude are the manufacturers?

As we all know, in recent years x86 server has been more and more widely used in various occasions, from file servers, Web servers to mail servers to large database servers, virtualization integration, especially in this year's Intel E7 series processor release, but also set off a wave of upsurge, Pointed at the Enterprise key application market Overlord-minicomputer. The IDC Global Server Research report shows that by the end of 2010, x86 servers exceeded 95% of global server shipments and nearly 60% of global server turnover.

Market segments, in recent years, 4-way and 8-way servers have also achieved good results, and 4-way and 8-way servers have grown far more than other categories of x86 servers, in 2010, the 4-or 8-way x86 server's annual compound growth rate was nearly 6%--2 times the overall x86 server market growth rate. There are three main reasons: workload consolidation requires larger systems; A large number of virtualized computing environments require more memory and I/O, and industry and critical business workloads require more scalability.
　　
IDC Research
　　
In the past, critical business was always associated with mainframe and UNIX servers in enterprise-level data centers. Other distributed server systems based on the x86 architecture are considered to lack the reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS characteristics) that are most needed for critical business workloads.
　　
Now, however, as more and more of the global IT infrastructure is running on x86 server systems, customers are increasingly looking to run demanding workloads on scalable x86 platforms. At the same time, with the improvement of x86 processor technology (multi-core, multithreading, larger cache) and the enhancement of multiprocessor collaboration capability in large scale computing, the x86 server is being deployed in the data center to handle the core work more and more.
　　
IDC forecast
　　
Looking ahead, IDC expects strong growth in the market from 2011 onwards. By 2015, the total number of 4-and 8-way servers in the global x86 server market will exceed 500,000 units a year.

▲IDC Global 4-8-Way server turnover forecast

From the current situation and the IDC forecast is not difficult to find, the future of the eight x86 server market prospects are very optimistic, and in the face of such market prospects, the major manufacturers and what kind of attitude? The following is an analysis:

IBM upstream

We see IBM Although the introduction of support to extend up to 8 Road, 12 Road, 16-way server ibmx3850/3950x5, but did not launch a real sense of the eight server, the reason, of course, will not be a technical problem, very simple IBM's most lucrative part is minicomputer.

Therefore, although the high-end x86 market is unusually hot, but IBM is against its way, according to the Greater China Power BAE server product director Li Hong introduced, IBM to take "high fight, all-out attack" strategy, on the one hand, A total of 3.2 billion dollars was invested in the POWER7 in 2010 to achieve a full product line layout including high-end, midrange, low-end and blades, on the other hand, the advantage of POWER7 to attract other Unix and X86 server users migrated to the IBM platform.

And this strategy has also resulted in significant IBM results, with the IDC report showing IBM minicomputer market share accounted for 59.2% in the second quarter of this year. It is conceivable that in this case, IBM can also be x86 high-end server has much enthusiasm, so although IBM in 2007 launched a scalable to 8-way 4-way server ibmx3850m2, and today is only the product upgrades to the ibmx3850x5, and does not push the real eight server.

HP/hp--compliant with the trend

Although IBM has a good effect upstream, but there is only one IBM in the world, the counter-hp small machine is not so optimistic, because of the long-term ibm,sun, now coupled with the impact of high-end x86 server market, Hewlett-Packard's ultimate approach is to cut prices, using a unified blade architecture to reduce user access to UNIX, and, on the other hand, change the license policy for HP-UX operating systems, changing from a previous, nuclear charge to a processor charge. Shows HP for the minicomputer market helplessness.

and in the x86 server market, HP has long been in the lead, we all know to do what we are good at, and the trend is to x86 the server market, it is not difficult to understand why HP has not only AMD platform eight server, as well as the Intel platform eight server, By the strong in the x86 server market to compensate for the loss of minicomputer.

Wave

In fact, for domestic server manufacturers, the attitude is more clear, first domestic server manufacturers although there areminicomputer, but compared to foreign manufacturers of small machines, there is little competition, to break the server market between domestic and foreign manufacturers in the "low-end contend, high-end weak" situation, but also in the large-scale x86 system more than a few kung fu.

This September, the tide officially launched high-end server "day-level project", planned in 5 years, two steps, in 2011 mainly to cost advantage to vigorously promote eight server TS850 replace the 8-way RISC system, from 2012 onwards, Will drive 32-way fault-tolerant server and 8-way TS850 dual-line, to maintain high-end server overall more than 50% of the annual composite growth rate. In addition, at just the end of the HPC China2011 (2011 National High Performance Computing conference), the wave ahead of the exhibition has not officially released the 32-way high-end server K1, although the current K1 is based on the Itanium® processor platform, but the future may be launched based on the Xeon platform, Enough to reflect the tide for the multi-channel large-scale systems, the x86 market confidence, determination.

Dawn

is the dawn of domestic manufacturers, in the attitude of the eight server is somewhat similar to the wave, as early as in 2009 launched the eight server based on AMD platform, the Intel Xeon E7 released this year, and launched the Intel platform based eight server, The degree of enthusiasm can be seen.

In addition, a long time ago, Shuguang released a full range of Dragon Server based on the godson processor, covering blades, racks, towers, storage servers, in addition, the dawn also vigorously promote the period of cloud computing solutions, can dawn in the development of the road to pursue a comprehensive, diversified development.

(editor: Heritage)