SeaMicro has unveiled a new internet-optimised x86-server, which it claims to reduce by 75% the power and space used by servers and is optimised for the workloads and traffic patterns of the internet.
The company said that SM10000 integrates 512 1.6GHz Intel Atom processors with ethernet switching, server management and application load-balancing to create a ‘plug and play’ standards-based server that reduces power draw and footprint.
According to SeaMicro, the new system is built on x86 CPUs, which allows customers to deploy the SM10000 without modifications to existing operating systems, application software or management tools. It comprises of 1 terabyte of DRAM, 0 – 64 SATA solid state or hard disk drives, 8 – 64 gigabit ethernet uplinks and the entire system that is 10 rack units tall (17.5 inches tall).
SeaMicro has invented a new technique in CPU I/O virtualisation that reduces non-CPU power draw by eliminating 90% of the components from the motherboard. This CPU I/O virtualisation allows SeaMicro to shrink a server motherboard.
The new system comes with an architecture that can support any CPU instruction set and any protocol, including ethernet, fibre channel and data centre ethernet. SeaMicro also invented Dynamic Compute Allocation Technology (DCAT) that combines CPU management and load balancing, allowing the system to allocate workloads to specific CPUs on the basis of power-usage metrics.
In addition, DCAT technology enables compute pooling, allowing users to create pools of compute for a given application. This enables users to add compute resources to the pool based on predefined utilisation thresholds, SeaMicro said.
