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Intel seeks new 'microserver' standard

Stephen Shankland CNET News | October 30, 2009 5:23 AM PDT

Summary

In September, Intel introduced its idea of tiny 'microservers'. Now the company wants to make the design into a standard others can use, too.

Topics

Intel Corp., Computer Industry, Productivity, Corporate Governance, Servers, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Hardware, server, Intel, microserver, Stephen Shankland CNET News
In September, Intel introduced its idea of tiny 'microservers'. Now the company wants to make the design into a standard others can use, too.

The chipmaker will offer its design specification to the Server System Infrastructure Forum by the end of the year, said Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel's high-density computing group. If the group's board votes its approval for the specification, group members may use the designs royalty-free, he said in a meeting with reporters in San Francisco on Thursday.

The computer industry is in constant tension between proprietary designs and standards that anyone may use. The former can mean tidy profits for companies, as long as the technology is widely adopted, but the latter can spur broader adoption. Intel's primary business, selling processors, benefits more from the latter when it comes to cultivating a new server market segment.

For more, read "Intel seeks new 'microserver' standard" on CNET News.

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magallanes 3rd Nov 2009
Intel is stocking a mountain of atom chip that nobody wants (because the flop of netbook), so is trying to create a new trend :server using a subpar cpu.
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Why bother with a new standard?
Joe_Raby 30th Oct 2009
What Intel needs to do is use the pre-existing motherboard form factors like Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX. Why can't they just design a board in the Mini-ITX form factor for a single-socket Xeon 3400-series processor with ECC RAM and dual-GBe ports with the standard fare of USB, serial, and onboard VGA to round it out? Integrators can use a number of Mini-ITX cases on the market that support multiple 3.5" or 2.5" hard drives. For the small form factor market, the don't need to have extremely high-end drive options like SAS. I'd say 4-5 SATA ports would suffice. Integrators could use enterprise-class SATA drives to save on cost over the more expensive SAS.
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I think HP was in on defining this standard...
BillDem 30th Oct 2009
Anyone who has had their HP MediaSmart server taken apart and spread all over their desk will recognize the similarities with the motherboard form-factor inside that server. Personally, I don't mind a new standard as long as the spec includes a little clearance for modifications to be made. The MediaSmart is so tight that it makes it virtually impossible to use a fan on the CPU. Seriously HP, add an inch to the height and let us mount a fan on the CPU if we like. Also, the spec should always include a hot swap back plane for SATA II.
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ATX and ITX are PC mobo layouts that don't support servers' needs
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 30th Oct 2009
ATX/ITX mobos are designed for PC's not servers.

Microservers are likely to be headless (little/no video) and have more limited per-board extensibility, i.e. IDE/PCI/PCX/etc.

The microserver standard would be more about packing server cards into large racks of servers in data centers/containers.

Read the original article for more details:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10386452-264.html?tag=content;col1
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A blade server "standard"?
Uber Dweeb 30th Oct 2009
That seems to be where this is targeted. It may have "also-rans" trying to compete with the big boys already in the market, but I doubt it will enhance Intel's bottom line by much.
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RE: Intel seeks new 'microserver' standard
AdeOghert 31st Oct 2009
What do you need a server for?

All your apps and documents are supposed to be in the "cloud"
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RE: Intel seeks new 'microserver' standard
chromeronin 31st Oct 2009
One thing missing from that micro server in the picture -
SD slot for VMWare ESXi.

Nice thing is, you dont even need to waste your time with a
video card unless you need ot run Windows on it. OS X
server will install headless, I've got Linux VMs I have never
had to use the virtual console on, ever.
Now with these micro servers, th detail will come for
packagin them into cass with modular storage IO, ethernet
or fibre SIMs etc. Maybe even have somehting like a 10Gig
ethernet socket, which can be spit into two 1Gb interfaces
like with Cisco Switches, or even better, devices that look
like switches with lots of ethernet ports, but actually have
full servers inside for virtualisation and boot from internal
flash ram, and use external storage via fibre, iSCSI or
eSATA.
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magallanes 3rd Nov 2009
Intel is stocking a mountain of atom chip that nobody wants (because the flop of netbook), so is trying to create a new trend :server using a subpar cpu.

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