Thanks in part to AMD’s technological leadership in low-power processors and optimization of the server platform roadmap for density, the issues around power in the data center power are fairly well understood, and we have helped OEMs develop some smart solutions on the market today with more coming very soon.

However, it is not enough to think about this year or even the next 5 years.  What happens in the timeframe that is “off the roadmap” of today’s technology?  This is where AMD’s research team has posed some key questions and NYSERDA has stepped up along with Clarkson University in upstate NY, HP, and other industry partners to help answer the questions.

We know that renewable energy – solar and wind power – plays a major role in our future.  How do we link this vital resource to the data center and I mean directly link power source to servers?  (You know AMD is all about eliminating the bottlenecks!)  That is one key issue – getting power from a wind turbine directly to a data center like an HP POD without building a traditional electrical grid between the two. 

Renewable sources can also be intermittent.  What do you do if the sun does not shine one day or there is an atypical calm in the wind one evening?  A data center’s reliability cannot tolerate lulls in the action, so a big question from our AMD Research labs that takes this all one step further is “How can we shift a compute load automatically and reliably between renewable energy sources without resorting to a traditional electrical grid?”

This is a multi-faceted problem and we expect the solutions will fundamentally alter how we design and build computing resources in the future.  The economic implications are not insignificant.  For example, the cost of laying optical fibers is orders of magnitude less than the cost of building power lines.  Estimates can range from $500/mile for “dark” fibers to $15,000/mile for new optical fibers compared to $750k-2 million/mile for new electric transmission lines. The potential gains for the IT industry and the energy sector are exciting and, frankly, huge.  You can bet you will be hearing more about this in the months and years to come.

Alan Lee is the corporate vice president of Research and Advanced Development 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.

Not only did we solicit your participation in our online contest, we also met a number of you at VMworld in San Francisco.   A few of you were passionate enough about the subject to jump on camera to share your opinions and predictions. With VMworld Copenhagen this week, we thought it was a great time to share your video responses.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rosv1KzT0k

Much like our online respondents, VMworld attendees defined the cloud as an end to the constraints of computing as we’ve come to know it.  They were excited about the possibilities of combining platforms, operating systems and applications that can benefit from the cloud computing model.  As we expected, respondents are using the cloud both in a personal and professional capacity – in more ways than we could even begin to count.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7KmtAuWeFg

Then we asked– how do you define the ideal cloud infrastructure? Over and over again we heard: the ideal cloud infrastructure is scalable and reliable.  We agree, and our recently launched AMD Opteron 4000 Series Platform is designed to address exactly those requirements.

So, how did our respondents do, and is there anything they missed?  If you’re at VMWorld in Copenhagen, we’d also love to hear from you.  Is the cloud computing hype in full force on another continent this week?

Tracey Blanton is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD.  Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

So let’s be perfectly clear about today’s announcement.

This is AMD’s platform value to our embedded customer:  a single stop for leading-edge processors, graphics and chipsets.  And of course, software from our software partners helps complete the package.  No other company can develop and deliver this level of silicon technology integration and its benefits to embedded customers, who are more pressed than ever to deliver high performing, low power and differentiated systems and do so in the shortest window of time to maximize revenue.   They know that an AMD embedded platform, whether it is client or commercial, can help give them an edge in walking that fine line between high-performance and low-power. 

But what else can we offer?  (I’m thinking of an infomercial – “But wait…there’s more!”)  It’s not just balanced system architecture with advanced energy efficiency – it’s also a strong line-up of AMD chipsets and graphics processors that can help take performance and even the end-user experience to the next level.  And like our colleagues on the server side of the house, we don’t compromise on the feature sets and we believe our variety of choice helps our customers develop targeted, differentiated products.

If you’re an embedded systems designer, I’d like to know your take on the value of a highly integrated platform.

Buddy Broeker is AMD’s Director of Embedded Computing Solutions.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied

I am reminded of this when I see the new Boston Quattro 6000GP server.  In the world of density, this product really stands out. Based on our new six-core AMD Opteron™ processor codenamed “Istanbul,” this new server manages to squeeze a total of four discrete servers into a 2U chassis. The Quattro 6000GP has four separate system boards, giving customers four individual servers that can each operate independently, all within one chassis.

If you are running a very dense data center, perhaps HPC applications or cloud applications, then a system with this type of density can help you better manage your environment.

With four dual-socket system boards, you can install up to 8 total processors, or (with the new 6-core processors) have up to 48 total cores in a 2U space.  Multiply that by the 21 slots in a standard 42U rack, and you have over 1000 cores in a 6 square foot space in your data center.

PCPro was impressed enough to give the Quattro 6000GP the PCPro Recommended award in recognition of the outstanding features and capabilities of this server.

In talking to customers, I’ve been told that data center density is often an issue, because data centers tend to be the most expensive floor space in the company. With special security, power, cooling and fire control, the cost of floor space in the data center is often not only the most expensive, but also the most difficult to expand when you need more room.

Greater density means better use of data center floor space, and the new six-core “Istanbul” processors can help customers to reach new levels of threads per square foot. In the Quattro 6000 GP, the compute nodes aren’t consuming all of the space in the server, however.  There is still room for twelve SATA hard drives, giving you up to 12TB of storage, up to 3TB per server. Featuring green WD SATA hard drives, the system is designed to be energy conscious because Boston knows that you’ll be looking for maximum density.

Every time we drop in on Boston Limited, they always have something interesting up their sleeve, and the new Quattro 6000GP is a great showcase for the dramatic core density of Istanbul. Whether you have HPC, web, cloud or are facing density challenges in the data center, this is a new emerging form factor that is worth a look.

 John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Well, it appears that Ralph never ran a data center.  Consistency is the holy grail of the data center, not the hobgoblin. When you have hundreds, or thousands of servers to keep track of, the more you can minimize the variances in hardware, the easier it is to manage the servers and your business.

Most IT teams typically spend the majority of their time managing software and not hardware. They realize that consistency can help reduce their software management tasks and make their lives easier.

Recently I read a blog on ZDnet where there is a potential concern about Windows XP compatibility on Windows 7 with some Intel desktop processors.  The blog author, Ed Bott states “In the case of Intel’s phenomenally confusing product matrix, VT support is added and removed from CPU models for reasons that have more to do with marketing than technology.”

(Read about our close collaboration with Microsoft to ensure stability and compatibility for Windows 7 in Nigel Dessau’s recent blog.)

How is this possibly tied to enterprise severs?  It’s all in the choices that your processor vendors make.  If they focus on consistency your life can be a lot easier; but some unnecessary forced choices can diminish your efficiency.

The newest Intel Xeon processors appear to suffer from a similar marketing decision.  At the top of the stack, the more expensive silicon has a full set of features.  But as you roll down the stack, away from the premium priced parts down to the mainstream parts (where the majority of the parts are sold) you see that many of the features and capabilities are either reduced or actually absent.

On some models the QPI bus speed is dropped, there are actually 3 different bus speeds depending on which model you buy.  Same with memory; three different memory speeds – meaning you have to stock multiple speeds of spares. Or you can choose to standardize on one speed, which means that you are either paying too much or compromising on the product, it’s your choice.  Cache is similar – sometimes it is the full amount, sometimes it is half of that.

What about software-visible features? Well, if you are tuning you applications to see a certain number of cores or to anticipate a particular performance level, then the fact that features like HyperThreading or Turbo are available on some processors and not others can create real server issues for you. Because not all Xeons have those features you start multiplying the number of software images that you have to maintain.  Or, to make your life easier, you just don’t support these features.

The AMD Opteron™ processor is different. When we design our processors, we hold the feature set consistent across the family.  That means customers can minimize their software changes and make systems easier to manage.  They can also do a better job of planning their deployments.  Knowing the features are consistent they can more accurately model the different performance levels for different processors. Cutting features like cache as you move down the stack makes it more difficult to accurately predict performance levels.

While some may counter that you can “scale performance” up and down the stack, this only works if your applications scale all resources equally.  If I/O and memory scale proportionately with CPU speed, then you are fine.  But what about web applications with their heavy I/O requirements but low CPU performance needs?  Well your choice is to overspend on the CPU to get the higher I/O performance or go with the lower priced CPU and compromise on the I/O performance that you likely need.  Neither choice is optimal.  That is why we drive for consistency. 

The reality of the situation is that having consistent features doesn’t have to prevent you from having a full stack of processors. Artificial limits only take away, they don’t enhance. And as we are finding out on the desktop side, the strategy could have downstream impacts that you hadn’t counted on.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Take a look at the server market today; 70% of the volume is in the dual socket space[i].  And it’s growing. Willie Sutton was once quoted (incorrectly) with saying that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is at.” So why are we driving so hard in the two socket space?  Because that’s where the volume is at.  And you can quote me, correctly, on that one.

With our recent server roadmap update announcement, we are introducing the world to a new strategy for addressing the 2P market – G34 platforms on the high end, and C32 on the low end.  Hi-low.  It’s a big enough market that you would have to be crazy to think that it can’t be addressed by two different platforms.  Two different platforms that are more the same than fraternal twins, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Think for a moment about where the 2P market is going. In the past few years we have been adding more cores, more expandability and more RAS features to our products – because customers have been demanding it for virtualization and other resource-hungry applications. But at the same time, a new class of application need is being driven by the low end.  Cloud computing, the growth of SMB applications and sprawling network infrastructure are creating a demand for lower power and lower priced, reliable servers.  The same density and business needs that drove AMD to add the AMD Opteron™ EE processors to our product line are driving a new platform that we expect will give you everything you need for most applications, but at a low cost, with very low power consumption.

G34 platforms, under the platform name of “Maranello”, are designed for expandability and performance. We plan to offer four memory channels per socket and 8 or 12 core processors perfectly suited to handle the most demanding 2P environments.  As an added bonus, these processors and platforms are expected to be able to scale easily to 4P. No longer will you have different models to choose from (2000 or 8000), we expect the new G34 processors to be able to easily handle both markets, simplifying the lives of those building servers as well as those maintaining servers.

C32 platforms, which we plan to bring to market under the platform name “San Marino”, are designed for the needs of the other half of the stack.  Scaling 1P and 2P solutions, the two memory channels and 4 or 6 cores are planned to perfectly match the hundreds of thousands of applications where 12 cores and 4 memory channels may be overkill.  Especially when it comes to electricity.  These processors sip electricity, they don’t gulp it.  They deliver the right level of performance for small/medium businesses, for cloud environments, and for network infrastructure needs. By utilizing a simple design, with fewer memory channels, AMD expects to deliver a relatively lower infrastructure cost.  And with planned power envelopes below the total range of current AMD Opteron processors, we expect that fewer fans, smaller heatsinks and smaller power supplies can help you achieve greater energy efficiency, lower noise, and of course lower cost.

So what about that twins comment?  What do these processors have in common?  Plenty.  They are expected to utilize the same core.  The same chipset design.  The same BIOS base.  We expect the C32 designs to be able to span 1P to 2P and G34 to span 2P to 4P.  They overlap is at that “meat of the market” intersection where the highest volumes live, for plenty of coverage in all directions. We expect that as a system designer, it will be a trivial feat to take a C32 design and change it to G34.  More commonality across a vendor’s products is a good thing.  As a customer this can help you drive down your long term cost of management.

Of course the question “so, you’re abandoning the 1P and 4P space” naturally comes up.  Nothing is further from the truth.  The C32 is expected to allow for a much more flexible 1P.  Low cost and simplicity to meet the needs of the 1P market, but with scale up capabilities to take it to 2P. Think of it as 1P on steroids (the good kind, not the baseball kind).

And 4P?  What can help turn the tide in a market that is slowly being encroached by 2P?  How about a platform that combines the best of both and allows a company to deliver a low-cost entry-level 4P server?  Talk about breathing new life into a market that sorely needs to adjust to the new realities of business in the post Y2K work. The time is right for this hybrid approach.

We’re very excited about how we plan to help our technology partners bring these new designs to market.  Without naming names, let’s just say that there is a renewed enthusiasm amongst our industry partners who have made comments about this truly being “game changing.” One even likened this strategy to the launch of the original AMD Opteron processor, an event arguably that did more to change the dynamics of the x86 server market than anything else.

We’ve laid our cards on the table now, and it it’s clear that in 2010, we expect AMD to be holding the winning hand. Let the games begin.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Sure, there’s new management at VMware, a repositioning to the operating system for the virtual datacenter, and lots of new competition. But what struck me even more than those changes are the fact that the x86 virtualization movement, started all those years ago by Diane and Mendel, is going mainstream, and that’s very very exciting for someone like me, who’s in charge of helping making sure AMD’s customers have the best experience possible in running software on AMD hardware.

One proof point is just the sheer amount of attention VMWorld is getting this year. Who would have ever thought the conference that attracted 1,600 early adopters of x86 virtualization to San Diego in Nov. 2004 would be hosting 14,000 mainstream IT professionals in Sept. 2008? And that the New York Times would write so much about a technology as enterprise focused as virtualization! I think this demonstrates the power that virtualization is already playing in shaping the future of the computing industry.

A second proof point is the amazing number of new servers I see being introduced by everyone from large OEMs to small system builders that are specifically aimed at serving as excellent virtualization solutions. For example both Dell and HP have recently introduced blades based on the energy efficient Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor that are designed to handle the rigors of memory-intensive virtualization.

A final proof point that virtualization has gone mainstream is the thriving ecosystem developing around virtualization. Just take a look at the presentations that were given in AMD’s own booth at the show – our “Master of Virtualization” theater was filled with small and large ISVs and IHVs who were showcasing how they are moving the needle on virtualization – including 3Leaf, Broadcom, Citrix, DataRam, Egenera, Microsoft, Novell, Sun, Transitive, Parallels, and Virtual Iron.

So what’s next in these times of change? I believe that as virtualization pushes it way into the main stream – and lights up discussions around topics such as cloud computing, virtual infrastructure, and dynamic data center fabrics –  the virtualization ecosystem needs to understand that interoperability, open standards, and vendor cooperation has to be paramount. Customers are looking for choice – and not for technologies designed to lock out competition. They want live migration of virtual machines across different processors and tools that can manage virtual machines created by any hypervisor. Feel free to contact me and we can follow up with more information.

It was quite a Week 2 in the National Football League. Blown call. Risky 2-point conversion. Brett Favre’s first loss as a Jet. The Patriots being the Patriots. And of course another Steelers hard-nose win vs. the Browns.

One team who continues to surprise many – in a bad way – is the Cincinnati Bengals. They lost their home opener 24-7 to a team without their starting quarterback. And after two games, here’s how they stack-up against the other teams: ranked 30^th in points per game, 31^st in total offense and 32^nd in Passing Yards per game. (Just a reminder; there are only 32 teams in the NFL.) And to add further insult to their performance, the Bengals have the distinction of having more “12 men on the field” penalties then they do touchdowns.

But what is most surprising is the cadre of Pro-Bowl caliber offensive weapons the Bengals posses; Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson (I refuse to refer to him as Ocho Cinco – a post for another time) and Carson Palmer.

While no one can disagree that these three aren’t playing at the top of their game, there seems to be a much larger problem – the foundation of the offense line. A lackluster rushing game generally has more to do with poor O-Line performance than poor back performance. And judging by the pressure on Palmer all day, there’s definitely a weakness with their offensive line.

Personally, I love offensive linemen and would offer that they are the toughest, most dedicated unsung heroes of any winning team. They are the foundation of the infrastructure that makes players like Palmer and Johnson so great. When the O-Line clicks so do the Bengals and right now they are not clicking.

Thinking about infrastructure and foundation, Intel this week officially announced their “Dunnington” server processor with all the glitz you would expect from a marketing company like Intel (more cores!, more cache!, more power!). However the core infrastructure of the chip is still fundamentally flawed with an off-die memory controller and bottlenecks galore in the overall micro-architecture.

Just as you’ll likely see some team (see Oakland Raiders) fire their head coach as a stopgap measure, “Dunnington” is another stopgap solution our competition has targeted for multi-processor based servers. It continues to leverage Intel’s current approach to multi-core computing for multi-processor servers, and its use of a traditional Front-Side Bus (FSB) architecture.

So in many respects the Bengals and Dunnington are suffering from the same problem (you won’t see that comparison anywhere else for sure), weak core infrastructure and foundation. While I don’t have a lot of confidence in the Bengals beating the Giants this week, I do believe they have a better chance than “Dunnington” does in adding significant value for many IT shops.