It seems odd to be writing about a product code named “Zurich” as I sit on the Narita Express on my way into Tokyo, but nothing in life is ever easy.

Zurich is not just a city in Switzerland, but it is also the name of our newest roadmap addition as AMD expands the server roadmap down into the 1P space.

Just a year or two ago, the 1P server market was stagnant, filled with single processor tower servers, mainly destined for small businesses.  These are the very servers that cloud computing will eventually replace in many of these small businesses.

But there is a growing class of products that are emerging based on the needs of cloud and web hosting customers. Many of the customers that I work with, especially in Germany which seems to be a hotbed of hosting activity these day, are asking for a 1P solution that marries up a true server processor with an infrastructure with client-like economics.

“Zurich,” part of the upcoming AMD Opteron™ 3000 Series processors, has an unlikely code name for something focused on the value space. I have spent a lot of time in Zurich over the years and believe me, it is not an inexpensive city.  However, what Zurich is, as a city, is flexible.  I remember checking into the hotel one evening. I tried addressing the desk clerk in German out of habit, but as soon as she heard me try to fumble through “ich habe eine reservierung,” she immediately switched to English, making it easier on both of us.  But while we were talking, she took a phone call in Spanish, talked to another customer in French, talked to the bell hop in Italian and even spoke to another person in Schweizerdeutsch, their local language that borrows a lot from German, but I could only pick out a handful of words.

This kind of flexibility is perfect for a product like “Zurich,” which will have all of the server-based features that web hosting and cloud customers will demand like ECC memory, longer lifecycles, longer duty cycles, and server OS and application validation/support. It is based on the same die as our AMD Opteron 4200 Series processors, but it uses the AM3+ packaging.

This client packaging means significantly lower infrastructure costs for customers. Lower socket prices, fewer layers on the boards, lower overall platform costs.

Economics are a key driver of the web hosting business; today, many service providers are utilizing desktop infrastructure in order to achieve the lowest possible price and the fastest path to breakeven for their hosting customers. When a customer contracts for a dedicated server at the service providers’ location, the service provider has to buy the server up front (cash out the door) and then receives payments each month for the duration of the contract. Eventually they make a profit, but only after they have covered the upfront costs. With a lower price, “Zurich” helps service provider hit that breakeven earlier, allowing them more capital to help build out and grow their business.

We expect that the 1P market is going to start to heat up over the next few years, so establishing a foothold with the AMD Opteron 3000 Series platform will be important to our long term business, especially as more customers move to the cloud.

Expect to see more details in the future on this new product when we launch it in the first half of 2012, and if you are headed to Zurich, be sure to drop in on my friend Ingo and buy him an ice cold Hürlimann – that’s what I would do if I was there. Instead, I will have to settle for some ramen and an Asahi.  Which is not a bad compromise right now.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server and Embedded products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.