AMD Opteron Coverage - Part 3: The First Servers Arrive

Target Market #2: Enterprise-class Servers

We mentioned High Performance Computing as an area where the Opteron was in heavy demand, but as we saw in our Enterprise performance investigation, the Opteron makes for an excellent database server and an even more competitive web server.

The database and web server markets demand one thing more than performance and cost - availability. Being able to guarantee uptime and minimizing the amount of downtime when the unfortunate does occur are paramount to the success of a server in these markets. Unfortunately, in the past, none of AMD's partners have been able to deliver solutions worthy of the title: Enterprise-class.

What's the level that AMD's partners should be setting their sights on? The level of Intel's Enterprise Platforms & Solutions Division (EPSD). For example, the servers that come out of Intel's EPSD have features like dynamically adjusting fans that speed up and slow down depending on the cooling needs of the server; if one fan fails, not only is an error sent to the administrator, but the other fans in the system spin up to compensate for the loss of cooling. Intel performs fire tests on their EPSD products where they generate a fire within the chassis and see if it spreads to other systems in a rack; the dynamically adjusting fans actually end up putting out the fire in a number of cases because they spin up to compensate for the increase in heat inside the chassis. This is all in addition to the remote manageability of the server, and the highly integrated software package that ships with their solutions. When any component within an EPSD server fails, the administrator is notified of the failure as well as linked to a place to purchase replacement parts and given a video and diagrams explaining how to replace the part.

Updating BIOSes remotely, remote power on and shutdown are all features that are basic requirements for this market; these are all requirements that are not thoroughly met by solutions like the Appro and Einux platforms we just illustrated.

AMD recognized the need for servers with better management features if they were to be taken seriously in the Enterprise world, and thus partnered with a company called Newisys to produce their flagship 1U Opteron design.