Rackable acquires Silicon Graphics, takes SGI name

Rackable Systems completed its acquisition of Silicon Graphics, Inc. on Monday and oddly enough, Rackable will adopt SGI as its global name and brand, instead of the other way around.

Rackable closed the transaction to acquire the debt-ridden Silicon Graphics (SGI) for $42.5 million in cash on May 8 and the company said it will change its name to Silicon Graphics International - or SGI - but will keep the Rackable Systems product line and ticker symbol (RACK) the same.

I wonder if abandoning the Rackable brand in favor of SGI is a good idea. Sure, SGI was hugely successful in the 1980’s and is still a more recognizable brand than Rackable because of its legacy, but SGI is also a failing brand that filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006 and again in April 2009 due to unmanageable amounts of debt.

In fact, I liken SGI to the captain of the high school football team; you know the type - a leader in its time, popular, and admired by all, but 20-some years later? Balding, broke, and holding desperately to what used to be.

Maybe I’m being too critical of SGI’s brand, but others question Rackable’s decision to take the SGI name as well. SGI is “Well known, sure. But more than a bit tarnished and not descriptive of Rackable’s business,” said Illuminata Analyst Gordon Haff.

Coincidentally, Sun Microsystems Inc. was founded the same year as SGI - 1982 - and they, too, are being acquired this year, by Oracle Corp. (Oracle won’t be dropping its name for Sun Microsystems though. )

Either way, Rackable now has a much larger portfolio of high performance computing products, with SGI’s x86 cluster offerings, shared memory clustered compute products, scalable data center and storage technologies, modular data centers, data management software, HPC tools and visualization technologies.

SGI will maintain its corporate headquarters in its current Fremont, California facility, with offices around the world, and the new management team will have senior executives from Rackable Systems and the former SGI.

Intel set to release “Nehalem” Xeon processors

Intel may launch its next generation multi-core Xeon processors, code-named Nehalem, on Monday.

The company sent out invitations to a live webcast on March 30 “for the launch of a groundbreaking new server architecture.” If that doesn’t give it away, some server vendors have already announced products based on the Nehalem processors, including Cisco, which will use the Intel Xeon CPU’s in their upcoming Unified Computing System’s blade servers.  Rackable Systems already introduced CloudRack systems based on Nehalem, and Dell is expected to introduce Nehalem-based systems this week.

In earlier disclosures about Nehalem chips for x86 servers, Intel said the processor will have two, four or eight processing cores and provide better scalability than previous generations. It will also have scalable cache sizes and simultaneous multithreading, or Hyper-threading, which is already available on other Xeon processors.

While Intel prides itself on introducing multi-core processors at a faster pace than competitor AMD, some of the most significant enhancements to the new Xeon processor have existed in AMD chips for years.

For example, one of the major changes with Nehalem is integration of the memory controller into the CPU. This replaces the legacy Front Side Bus, which is a known culprit in traffic bottlenecks issues. AMD has been offering an integrated memory controller –called Direct Connect Architechture — in its Opteron CPUs for years now.

Another feature in Nehalem is the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), which will give the chip faster access to a lot more bandwidth. This feature is similar to AMD’s HyperTransport technology, which has been around for a number of years as well.

That said, by adding QPI and an integrated memory controller, Nehalem will have access to a lot more bandwidth than its predecessors without relying on tons of cache memory, according to an ARS Technica report on Nehalem.

More importantly, what all of this means for end users is significantly better performance for applications that can take advantage of multithreading and multiple processing cores.

AMD ships more efficient, faster versions of 45nm Opteron CPU

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is now shipping seven new versions of its latest Opteron processor, the 45 nanometer quad-core chip, code-named Shanghai; five are high efficiency (HE) and two are designed for higher performance than the standard version of Shanghai.

The new versions of Shanghai are essentially identical to the original flavor, only the HE is more power efficient and the SE offers better performance than the standard versions.

The 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processor is 55-watts, compared to the standard 75-watts, and speeds range from 2.1 to 2.3 GHz. A server with an HE version can save 20% more than similarly configured systems during idle times, AMD reported.

The new HE processors are available in eight server systems from HP, Rackable Systems, Dell, Sun Microsystems, and other vendors are expected to start shipping the CPUs by mid-year.

Additionally, two new 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron SE processors (2.8 GHz) are designed for performance-intensive workloads; this compares to the standard Shanghai chip speed of 2.7 GHz. The SE chips aren’t conservative on power though; they come in a 105-watt ACP thermal envelope and are aimed at data centers where performance trumps power efficiency, said John Fruehe, AMD’s director of business development for server and workstations.

“Depending on the application, the SE version offers up to 5% better performance [than the standard version], but it also uses more power,” Fruehe said. “The customers that use these chips are less interested in the power efficiency and more interested in the performance, so we don’t do power testing on these.”

The new SE processors are also immediately available in three new systems from HP and other AMD technology partners.

The AMD Opteron pricing model for HE versions range from $316 to  $1,514, and the two SE models are $1,165 and $2,649.

Rackable Systems ships 12 V server motherboards; no 12 V enclosure plans yet

Google claims to have the most efficient data centers in the world, but keeps its secret sauce close to the chest, revealing only tidbits of information about its servers, like how standardizing on 12 V power supplies instead of using multiple voltages adds efficiency.

So last month when I read an EE Times article called “Server Makers Get Googled” that reported Rackable Systems Inc. would start shipping for its CloudRack enclosures 12 V-only motherboards with two servers per board in early 2009, I was quite interested. Could it be that server vendors have decrypted Google’s recipe for efficiency and will now offer it up for sale to the lilliputians of the IT world?

So, as a journalist that Rackable typically keeps in the loop, I felt a tad overlooked after reading all this buzz and emailed my Rackable contact to ask about this exciting new Google-esque product.

The folks at Freemont, Calif.-based Rackable said the reporter incorrectly inferred that Rackable was going to be delivering 12 V enclosures. “That information was taken out of context from a panel discussion, which included the mention of Google’s 12 V servers and Rackable’s CloudRack,” a Rackable spokesperson said.

Geoff Noer, Rackable’s Vice President of Product Management, called to explain today that though the company isn’t offering a 12 V rack, the company started shipping 12 V motherboard options for its servers in Q408.

And I suppose if any vendor were to give 12 V server enclosures a shot in the commercial market it would be Rackable Systems, because the company has a history of going off the beaten path when it comes to servers and server power; it introduced the first large-scale X86 DC-based servers and storage in 2003, and sells half-depth 1U, 2U and 3U servers for added density.

The benefit of using a single-voltage power supply (12 V) for hardware is added efficiency. Today’s server power supplies convert 110 V AC power to DC power at 3 V, 5 V and 12 V, which, according to Google’s website, wastes up to a third of the total energy consumed by a server before it ever reaches the computing components.

Google designs its servers to perform a single conversion to 12 V, which is then further converted to other voltages by the motherboard, reducing power loss during voltage conversions as well as heat output and power loss, according to this article about Google’s 12 V model on Nemertes Research.

Noer said that when comparing Rackable’s single 12 V motherboards to those using multiple voltages, the single output supply is 91% efficient — 3% more efficient than the multi-output option. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that 3% adds up to a lot of watts saved,” Noer said.

Apparently, whether a vendor uses a single output or a multiple output makes no difference to the end user because the power distribution happening within a server is not visible, Noer said.

Though Rackable does not have any plans to offer 12 V power at the rack enclosure level at this time, there is interest in it because it would add more efficiency by eliminating individual server power supplies, Noer said.

“As part of a rack-level or blade enclosure solution, 12 V-DC power distribution has appeal from the standpoint of eliminating individual power supplies, simplifying power delivery and improving power efficiency,” Noer said. “Such systems would still appear to be AC solutions from the users’ perspective, since they would be providing AC power to the rack or to the blade enclosure even though the internal DC distribution would be 12 V-DC-based.”

Noer said he’ll let us know “if/when” Rackable offers 12 V-based racks. Stay tuned.

Rackable Systems updates its most popular half depth server

Rackable Systems, Inc. today announced the new C2005 server, designed with more expansion slots and a choice of SAS or SATA II hard drives for greater flexibility and configurability.

The C2005 is an updated version of Rackable’s top selling half depth 2U server product, the C2004, which offers density comparable to industry standard 1U servers.

“The C2005 introduces an unparalleled level of flexibility compared to anything we have ever offered,” said Geoff Noer, VP of Product Management.

The new C2005 includes both Intel and AMD quad-core processor options and offers up to five low-profile expansion slots and a sixth slot available in all configurations (often a x16 PCI-E slot), Noer said.

“A lot of new technologies, like virtualization, benefit from having additional expansion slots for connectivity. In a 1 U server you typically only see one or two expansion slots,” Noer said.

The C2005 also includes up to 10 x 2.5” or 5 x 3.5” SAS or SATA II hard drives – or a mix or both. “An emerging challenge is to address the need to support both 3.5 and 2.5 inch, and providing both in a single platform” adds appeal, Noer said.

“Configurations that would have had to been in a 3U server or larger, for the number of expansion slots, can now be done with a 2U half depth. The density level is much higher and suited for technologies like virtualization,” Noer said.

Noer said the C2005 is well suited for scale-out computing across many markets, especially Internet, Enterprise, and HPC customers.

Up to 44 C2005 servers fit into a single rack. The server is also available in AC or DC power, and Noer said both options are in high demand. “The advantage of DC is largely around increased reliability of the solution. We can also supply AC to the cabinet and DC power to all of the servers inside the cabinet,” through Rackable’s AC-to-DC X86 rack-level rectification technology, which the company has offered since 2003.

The server is available for order immediately. Rackable did not give pricing because the systems are built to order, and pricing depends on configurations Noer said.