Intel's Six-Core Xeon 7400 Allows Up To 96 Processors
Date : 16 Sep 2008 Category : Technology
NewsFactor NetworkOn hand with testimonial support were the industry's largest hardware and software vendors, including IBM, Dell and Microsoft.
Xeon Virtualization
The 45-nanometer Xeon 7400s come in seven flavors, varying in CPU speed and cache size. The top Level 3 (L3) CPU cache is 16MB, and Intel says up to 16 of the 7400s can be on one system board for the equivalent of 96 processors.
Each CPU supports up to 256GB of system memory. The 7400 is socket-compatible with the Xeon 7300, but is 50 percent faster, according to Intel.
In support of that 16-processor claim, Unisys of Bluebell, Pa., also announced its ES7000 Model 7600R Enterprise Server, which can accommodate 16 Xeons. According to Brian Daly, spokesperson for Unisys, the new servers are engineered for online transaction processing, business intelligence and virtualization. "Large-scale server consolidation is a key asset when you have a 96-processor environment," he said.
Server virtualization enables companies to carve out multiple servers on one hardware platform, maximizing CPU usage, space and power. Instead of a farm of server boxes, companies can squeeze more computing into one space.
Server virtualization began in the testing and disaster-recovery markets, enabling companies to test new applications in the safety of an isolated, virtualized environment or to fail over to other virtualized servers when a primary server crashed.
At Intel's roll-out event a number of customers extolled virtualization. Oracle said it will reduce the number of physical servers at its facilities by half next year by using multi-core Xeon systems and virtualization. Dell, HP and IBM also announced support for the Xeon 7400 with multiprocessor models, including the HP ProLiant DL580 G5 and...