HP displays arm Low-power servers or threatens Intel status

Beijing time, November 2, Hewlett-Packard unveiled a plan to work with chip designer arm and AMD to develop ultra-low-energy servers, a move that threatens Intel's status.

With the rapid growth of data centers and the increasing consumption of electricity on the Internet, many technology companies are looking for ways to make servers more efficient and save energy.

HP launched the Low-power server system was originally launched by the chip testing technology company Calxeda, Calxeda mainly designed the ARM architecture server chip, Hewlett-Packard called this Project "project moonshot." HP believes that the future of the server system will be built with the Intel Atom Chip, Atom chip is mainly used in low-end notebook computer, its chips than the server with Xeon chip more energy-efficient.

In addition, HP has worked with a number of companies to try the so-called "micro-server", which focuses on very low energy consumption rather than higher computing speed. With a large number of simple processor combinations, it is expected to handle some calculations in the same capacity as the traditional Intel, AMD server processors, but consumes a lot less power and a lot more space in the computer.

HP says Calxeda technology will be part of the server development platform Redstone. Initially, the system can be installed in a cabinet more than 2800 servers, in general, the same size cabinets can only be equipped with dozens of traditional servers. When dealing with some network-related tasks, low-power servers can reduce energy consumption by up to 89% and save 94% of the space. There are only a few tasks that require full load use of such technology, so HP will set up a laboratory in Houston to allow customers to test their own software and micro-server work. This project, called Pathfinder Program, can be used by system technology providers.

Calxeda also uses arm's low energy design. Relatively speaking, ARM's chip is more energy-saving, province space.

Powerful chips using arm technology are widely used on tablets and smartphones, and arm executives have previously said they want to make their chips popular on PCs and corporate servers.

Last week, ARM unveiled details of its first 64-bit processor architecture, which also says it wants to enter enterprise applications, such as servers. In addition to working with ARM and AMD, HP's new project partners include storage, networking and software companies.

Intel chips account for a 80% share of the global PC and server market, even though the Intel chip features more power than arm chips and can use more electricity. At present, Intel is running at a gallop to make chips more energy efficient.

This January, Nvidia also said it would develop PCs, servers, and supercomputer processors, which are also based on ARM architecture.

The HP Redstone platform, which will be launched in the first half of 2012, is limited in number and is available only to specific customers.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)