64-Bit Blades Battle

After Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) jumped back into the blade server market with plans for a slimmed-down blade last week, rival vendors Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) told Next-gen Data Center Forum of their own plans to boost blade performance with 64-bit Opteron chips from Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD).

A spokeswoman for Sun confirmed that the company will be delivering Opteron-based blades at some point in the future, although she refused to provide a specific time-frame. HP, however, was more forthcoming, confirming that it will be offering Opteron-based blades by the end of this year.

An HP official added that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor will be shipping blades with Intel Corp.s (Nasdaq: INTC) 64-bit Itanium processor by mid-2005. He also promised new management software on HP’s blade server range by late summer or early fall of 2004.

Processor speed is currently one of the highest priorities for users, particularly in areas such as high-performance computing. Although she was unwilling to divulge any performance specifics, the Sun official confirmed that the new blade offerings will boast a faster processor than the vendor’s current UltraSparc and X-86 processor-based offerings.

A key element of the Opteron processor is its memory controller, which enables the chip to quickly move data in and out of the server’s main memory.All this activity in the blade server space spells good news for users, according to Richard Fichera, vice president of analyst firm Forrester Research Inc.

With the rival blade server vendors jockeying for position, and chip manufacturers such as AMD and Intel going head to head, Fichera believes that users can look forward to both improved performance and price cuts over the next few years.

But a key issue will be the migration path to 64-bit processors. “There’s a lot of interest in Opteron at the moment because it’s an early-to-market, 32- to 64-bit hybrid chip. It gives users an easy migration path to move their 32-bit hardware to 64-bit,” says Fichera.

Dell is also aware of this: The company’s new, slimmed-down blade, which is yet to be named, will use Intel’s recently launched Nocona chip. Nocona, which is the next-generation Xeon chip for dual processor servers and workstations, offers users the ability to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.

Fichera believes that Opteron and Nocona are likely to be evenly matched in terms of performance. However, with the vendors still some months away from shipping their new blade servers, we will have to wait for an in-depth view of overall system performance.A spokeswoman for Dell said that the company will be providing more information on the blade server’s overall architecture when it is launched later this year.

— Evan Koblentz, Senior Editor, and James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum