Low-end servers - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• IBM's OpenPower project takes strides with first commercial server

  An IBM project to expand the market for its Power processor is making headway, with new hardware announced Wednesday that aims to challenge Intel's dominance in the data center.

• Dell looks to wow clients with a new type of converged system

  Dell kicked off its customer conference in Texas this week, almost exactly a year after it became a private company, and on Wednesday announced a new type of server that Michael Dell bragged has the most compute density of its kind.

• Google looks to the day when it can quit building its own servers

  Google is well-known for building its own server hardware to meet the unique needs of its massive compute network, but that won't always be the case, according to the head of its infrastructure team.

• HP joins with Foxconn to build low-cost cloud servers

  Hewlett-Packard is partnering with Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant best known for producing Apple's iPhone, to tackle the growing market for low-cost servers in cloud data centers.

• Lenovo agrees to buy IBM's server business for $US2.3 billion

  Lenovo Group has agreed to buy IBM's x86 server hardware business and related maintenance services for $US2.3 billion.
  

• IBM's low-end server business back in play; Dell, Fujitsu, Lenovo circling

  IBM has revived efforts to sell its low-end server business and Dell, Fujitsu and Lenovo are all lining up to take a look, according to reports this week.

• AMD slows new Opteron 6300 chips to match workloads

  Vendors don't normally brag about slower products but Advanced Micro Devices is making an exception for its latest Opteron 6300 processors, which have a slower clock speed than their predecessors to reduce power consumption.

• Next ARM server chip maker: Qualcomm?

  Qualcomm's CEO said his company has the capabilities to build ARM server chips but was careful not to disclose any product plans at the International CES in Las Vegas.

• Not quite Heinz: Intel's Avoton server chip comes in 13 varieties

  Intel is taking another run at the market for low-power, high-density servers with its new "Avoton" chip, which was launched Wednesday and will do battle with an expected upcoming wave of ARM-based processors.

• Intel will offer 'Broadwell' SOC to battle Calxeda, AMD

  Intel has updated its road map with a new, low-power server chip to help it ward off competition from Calxeda and other makers of low-power chips.

• IBM-Lenovo deal likely to focus on low-end, commodity servers, analyst says

  Any deal by IBM to sell parts of its server business to Lenovo is likely to focus on low-end commodity x86 hardware, not higher-end x86 systems such as IBM's PureSystems and iDataPlex servers, an industry analyst said Thursday.

• IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo, reports say

  IBM is in "advanced discussions" with Lenovo over a possible deal for it to purchase IBM's x86 server business, according to two news reports.

• Intel aims for easy server upgrades

  To make server upgrades easier, Intel introduced a rack reference architecture that speeds up data throughput while reducing energy and maintenance costs in data centers.

• New SPEC tool to ID most energy-efficient servers

  SPEC, the standards body for performance benchmarks, has released a new toolkit that should help customers choose the most energy-efficient server for the workloads they need to run.

• HP's first 'Project Moonshot' server due next quarter

  Hewlett-Packard's first low-power server for hyperscale computing environments, developed under a project it calls Moonshot, will go on sale next quarter, CEO Meg Whitman said on Thursday.