Monitoring and Optimizing Apps on Dual-Core and Multiprocessor Systems -

Desktop PCs and laptop/notebook computers that run a dual-core processor are not much more expensive than those that run a single-core processor. Therefore, for the best future-proofing, buying a PC or notebook with a dual-core processor is the best choice. However, it won't be long before that choice moves to a computer running a quad-core processor.
On November 14, 2006, Intel added to the confusing number of choices by making quad-core processors available. A quad-core processor has four processor cores housed in a single unit, and systems running them can be used in network servers and in desktop PCs. All too soon, laptop computers will also be running them.
The review that starts on the following page deals with a Gateway FX530XT computer, designed for PC gaming, that has a Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor, the four cores of which run at 2.66GHz. The other specifications are a RAM memory FSB that has an effective speed of 1066MHz FSB, and a 2x4MB cache. The graphics cards are two ATI Radeon X1950 cards set up to use ATI's CrossFire technology. Each card has 512MB GDDR4 of memory and supports DVI HDCP, VGA (via adapter) and TV-Out connections.
In November 2007, AMD brought its quad-core Phenom range of quad-core processors to the market.
AMD Phenom Quad-Core Processors -
http://www.amd.com/...0,,30_118_15331_15332,00.html
Are Intel And IBM Cheating With Their Quad-Core Processors? -
http://www.informationweek.com/.../are_intel_and_i.html
Intel Core2 Quad Processors -
"Leaders of the pack seeking monster performance, look no further. With four execution cores, the Intel® Core™2 Quad processor blows through processor-intensive tasks in demanding multitasking environments and makes the most of highly threaded applications. Whether you're creating multimedia, annihilating your gaming enemies, or running compute-intensive applications at one time, new quad-core processing will change the way you do everything. Pioneer the new world of quad-core and unleash the power of multithreading." - http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2quad/index.htm

Monitoring and optimising applications on dual-core, quad-core, and multiple-processor systems

Windows XP and Windows Vista set running processes to run on all of the available processors by default. In Windows XP and Windows Vista, which both support dual-core, quad-core, and multiple-processor systems, you can set which of the processors runs a particular program or application. This is known as setting the processor affinity. However, note well that you should not use any third-party utility to set the processor affinity for operating system files, because doing so could cause system instability, system crashes, and data or system loss.
Here is how you set the processor affinity for Windows Explorer:
Press the Ctrl + Alt + Del key combination to bring up the Windows Task Manager. Open the Processes tab with the mouse pointer. Windows Explorer is explorer.exe. Right-click on explorer.exe under Processes, and choose Set Affinity. This brings up the Processor Affinity window, which has boxes for 32 processors (CPU0 to CPU31). In a dual-core system, which uses two processors, the two processors are called CPU0 and CPU1. They are both enabled by default, which is the best setting for Windows Explorer, but, because explorer.exe is a Windows program, not a system file, you could choose to have just one of the processors running it by removing one of the enabling check marks to disable that processor from running it. You can assign a processor to run any of the processes (programs and applications) listed under Processes.

WOWing Your 32-Bit Applications with 64-Bit Windows Part 1 -

AMD has now made triple-core (X3) and quad-core (X4) processors available. This article compares them and the alternatives from Intel. Note that Intel does not have triple-core processors.
New AMD Phenom X3 Vs. Phenom X4 -
See the Using Windows Vista section on this site for more information on it.
When two or more applications are running on a dual-core or a quad-core system, the work can be shared by the two or four processor cores. However, a single application won't run faster on a dual-core/quad-core system unless it has been programmed to do so by splitting it into threads that can be shared between the two/four cores. A multithreaded application is one that has been programmed to run on two or more processor cores. Such applications are currently (April, 2007) still rare.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor for Desktop -
Intel Core Duo Processors - http://www.intel.com/products/processor/coreduo/
If you are using software that hasn't been written to take advantage of two processor cores, you can make use of SMP Seesaw by Mike Lin.
"SMP Seesaw is a small utility for dual CPU workstations that allows the user to finely tune how Windows balances the processing load between the two CPUs."

Computer Shopper Intel and AMD processor reviews

Computer Shopper issue 244 (available from around March 20, 2008) in its processor reviews of Intel and AMD processors gave the following Intel processors its Budget Buy, Best Buy and Ultimate awards:
1. - Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 (dual-core processor) - Budget Buy award - Priced at £44 in March 2008 - Click here! to read the review of this class of processor.
2. - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (dual-core processor) - Best Buy award - Priced at £125 in March 2008 - Click here! to read the review of this class of processor.
3. - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (quad-core processor) - Ultimate award- Priced at £204 in March 2008 - Click here! to read the review of this class of processor.
Computer Shopper 2007 Awards
The Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 dual-core processor received the Best Component award in the Computer Shopper 2007 Awards. It was priced at just over £100 in October 2007.
The Computer Shopper 2007 Awards gave the Best Intel Motherboard award to the Abit IP35 Pro board. The Best AMD Motherboard award went to the MSI K9AGM2 board.
Using a laptop/notebook Pentium M notebook processor in a desktop PC
If you want a quiet desktop computer that uses only a minimal amount of power and that runs so cool that it can be fitted with a passive heatsink (one without a fan), ATX desktop PC motherboards are available that use the processors normally only found in laptop/notebook computers. It is also possible to buy an adapter that fits to particular standard motherboards that allows a mobile notebook processor to be used.
Click here! to go directly to information on these motherboards, processors, and adapters on Page 3 of this article.
The choice doesn't end there. Both AMD and Intel have made dual-core processors available, which are single units that house two processor cores with the same clock speed. Moreover, Intel first made quad-core processors available (its Core 2 Quad range) in January 2007. AMD made its Phenom range of quad-core processors available in November 2007.
Note that all of the dual-core processors made by AMD and Intel are 64-bit processors that can run 32-bit and 64-bit software, which includes a 64-bit operating system, such as Windows XP Professional x64 Edition • Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition • Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition • Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition • Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition • Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition and Linux.
Note that a 64-bit operating system can also run 32-bit software with ease. However, note that some 32-bit software might not run on a 64-bit operating system, and all 16-bit software will not run on one.

THE LATEST PROCESSOR NEWS

Intel's new Socket LGA1366 Core i7 quad-core desktop PC processors are now available
December 5, 2008. - Intel has released three of its new Socket LGA1366 quad-core Core i7 processors.
The new processors, which are built using the latest 45nm fabrication process, differ in several significant ways from Intel's Core 2 Duo dual-core and Core 2 Quad quad-core processors. The traditional frontside bus that links the processor to the RAM memory on the motherboard has been replaced by the new QuickPath interface - a memory controller built into the processor, which operates in a similar way to the HyperTransport memory controller that has been built into AMD processors for several years. Unfortunately, QuickPath only supports the latest DDR3 RAM memory, so you won't be able to reuse any DDR2 memory that you may have. Moreover, the DDR3 memory can be run in triple-channel mode instead of the dual-channel mode that AMD's processors support. This means that instead of using two memory modules in conjunction, as is the case with dual-channel mode, three modules of the same capacity and type can be run from the controller at the same time in order to increase performance. For this reason, Socket 1366 motherboards have six memory slots so that two sets of three modules can be run in triple-channel mode.
As with the Core 2 Quad range of processors, all of the Core i7 processors have four processor cores (in effect four processors housed in a single unit), which makes running multiple applications easy, because each application can have its own core processing it. Moreover, all of the Core i7 processors also use Hyper-Threading Technology that was introduced by Intel's Pentium 4 processors. Using it, each core can process two threads of information at the same time, in effect adding four virtual cores, which boosts performance significantly, but doesn't double it.
All of the Core i7 processors have 256K of Level 2 (L2) cache for each core, which share 8MB of Level 3 (L3) cache.
Despite using the same 45nm fabrication process as the latest Core 2 Quad processors, the new Core i7 quad-core processors have a higher power requirement (130W) compared to that of the Core 2 Quad processors (95W), which means that a bigger heatsink and fan unit is required to keep the processor cool, which, in turn, means a noisier PC.
Computer Shopper reviewed the Core i7 920, which runs at 2.66GHz, in issue 251. It was only give a a two-star rating due to the high cost of DDR3 memory and the motherboards that run them, plus the fact that the prototype system Computer Shopper used had a lower benchmark performance than an equivalent Core 2 Quad Q9550 processor. The advice was not to rush out and buy Core i7 until finalised motherboards and updated drivers can be used to put them to the test.
Here is the review:
http://www.computershopper.co.uk/reviews/238866/intel-core-i7-920.html
Intel's new Socket LGA1366 Core i7 quad-core processors due out later this month
November 5, 2008. - The latest quad-core processor chip from Intel, code-named Nehalem and officially named Core i7, is aimed at high-end desktop PCs for power users and PC gamers. Unlike the Core2 Quad quad-core processors, which are really two dual-core processors connected together, the new processors, like all of AMD's quad-core processors, have four individual cores connected together.
The new processors feature a turbo mode that is not like the turbo mode button found on computers during the 1980s. The turbo mode of Core i7 processors works automatically and results in increased single-core performance when all of the cores are not in use, achieving higher single-core performance.
Instead of the Front Side Bus (FSB) that PCs have been using for decades, the new processors use the new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology to communicate with the motherboard's Northbridge chip.
For the first time, Intel has integrated the memory controller into the processor, which AMD processors have had for several years. Because the new processors have a new socket (Socket LGA1366), use DDR3 RAM memory, and use an integrated memory controller and other new technology, the motherboards that run Core 2 processors are not compatible with the motherboards that run Core i7 processors and vice versa. A processor cooler is included with the retail boxed product.
When Intel launches the range of Core i7 processors officially later this month, several PC manufacturers will begin shipping desktop PCs that run them. The company has been making the new processors available to hardware vendors and websites since September. Test reports are very favourable, describing the performance as blazingly, blindingly and blisteringly fast. However, there is next to no information available on the new processors on Intel's website. That should change after the official release.
Eight-core Core i7 processors and two-core and four-core models for laptop/notebook PCs are expected to be made available in the second half of 2009. Three Core i7 models are to be released initially - the Core i7 920 (2.66 GHz), the Core i7 940 (2.93GHz), and the Core i7 965 Extreme (3.20 GHz).
As Intel prepares the launch its new Socket LGA1366 desktop PC processors in November, Asus has already made a motherboard available for them
October 9, 2008. - Intel is preparing for the launch of its new Core i7 processors in November 2008. This is how Intel describes the processors on its website: "These processors will feature Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, also known as simultaneous multi-threading, and are capable of handling eight software "threads" on four processor cores."
The processors have not been made available to reviewers yet, but the motherboard manufacturer, Asus, has already made its P6T Deluxe motherboard with the X58 chipset, which has the new LGA1366 processor socket, available to reviewers world-wide and ready for the market when Intel makes the Core i7 processors available.
The new motherboard provides new power-saving and overclocking technology. As an optional extra a device known as the OC Palm is available that provides overclocking on-the-fly during gaming or benchmarking. You can see an image of the device attached to a USB port on this page:
New ASUS P6T DELUXE with Super Hybrid Engine Delivers Maximum Overclocking and Energy Efficiency -
"The P6T DELUXE adopts the usage of TurboV—an advanced overclocking tool that utilizes a micro-controller to provide precise overclocking adjustments, and allow users to conveniently adjust the CPU ratio (multiplier)* for instant CPU upgrades for real-time performance enhancements. TurboV can also provide adjustments to the NB voltage, NB-PCIe voltage, CPU PLL voltage and DRAM voltage in 0.02V micro-intervals." -
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=12949
Apart from that page, there is no other information on the board on the Asus site yet. To locate reviews of this motherboard enter asus p6T deluxe in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio THE LATEST PROCESSOR NEWS
Intel's new Socket LGA1366 Core i7 quad-core desktop PC processors are now available
December 5, 2008. - Intel has released three of its new Socket LGA1366 quad-core Core i7 processors.
The new processors, which are built using the latest 45nm fabrication process, differ in several significant ways from Intel's Core 2 Duo dual-core and Core 2 Quad quad-core processors. The traditional frontside bus that links the processor to the RAM memory on the motherboard has been replaced by the new QuickPath interface - a memory controller built into the processor, which operates in a similar way to the HyperTransport memory controller that has been built into AMD processors for several years. Unfortunately, QuickPath only supports the latest DDR3 RAM memory, so you won't be able to reuse any DDR2 memory that you may have. Moreover, the DDR3 memory can be run in triple-channel mode instead of the dual-channel mode that AMD's processors support. This means that instead of using two memory modules in conjunction, as is the case with dual-channel mode, three modules of the same capacity and type can be run from the controller at the same time in order to increase performance. For this reason, Socket 1366 motherboards have six memory slots so that two sets of three modules can be run in triple-channel mode.
As with the Core 2 Quad range of processors, all of the Core i7 processors have four processor cores (in effect four processors housed in a single unit), which makes running multiple applications easy, because each application can have its own core processing it. Moreover, all of the Core i7 processors also use Hyper-Threading Technology that was introduced by Intel's Pentium 4 processors. Using it, each core can process two threads of information at the same time, in effect adding four virtual cores, which boosts performance significantly, but doesn't double it.
All of the Core i7 processors have 256K of Level 2 (L2) cache for each core, which share 8MB of Level 3 (L3) cache.
Despite using the same 45nm fabrication process as the latest Core 2 Quad processors, the new Core i7 quad-core processors have a higher power requirement (130W) compared to that of the Core 2 Quad processors (95W), which means that a bigger heatsink and fan unit is required to keep the processor cool, which, in turn, means a noisier PC.
Computer Shopper reviewed the Core i7 920, which runs at 2.66GHz, in issue 251. It was only give a a two-star rating due to the high cost of DDR3 memory and the motherboards that run them, plus the fact that the prototype system Computer Shopper used had a lower benchmark performance than an equivalent Core 2 Quad Q9550 processor. The advice was not to rush out and buy Core i7 until finalised motherboards and updated drivers can be used to put them to the test.
Here is the review:
http://www.computershopper.co.uk/reviews/238866/intel-core-i7-920.html
Intel's new Socket LGA1366 Core i7 quad-core processors due out later this month
November 5, 2008. - The latest quad-core processor chip from Intel, code-named Nehalem and officially named Core i7, is aimed at high-end desktop PCs for power users and PC gamers. Unlike the Core2 Quad quad-core processors, which are really two dual-core processors connected together, the new processors, like all of AMD's quad-core processors, have four individual cores connected together.
The new processors feature a turbo mode that is not like the turbo mode button found on computers during the 1980s. The turbo mode of Core i7 processors works automatically and results in increased single-core performance when all of the cores are not in use, achieving higher single-core performance.
Instead of the Front Side Bus (FSB) that PCs have been using for decades, the new processors use the new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology to communicate with the motherboard's Northbridge chip.
For the first time, Intel has integrated the memory controller into the processor, which AMD processors have had for several years. Because the new processors have a new socket (Socket LGA1366), use DDR3 RAM memory, and use an integrated memory controller and other new technology, the motherboards that run Core 2 processors are not compatible with the motherboards that run Core i7 processors and vice versa. A processor cooler is included with the retail boxed product.
When Intel launches the range of Core i7 processors officially later this month, several PC manufacturers will begin shipping desktop PCs that run them. The company has been making the new processors available to hardware vendors and websites since September. Test reports are very favourable, describing the performance as blazingly, blindingly and blisteringly fast. However, there is next to no information available on the new processors on Intel's website. That should change after the official release.
Eight-core Core i7 processors and two-core and four-core models for laptop/notebook PCs are expected to be made available in the second half of 2009. Three Core i7 models are to be released initially - the Core i7 920 (2.66 GHz), the Core i7 940 (2.93GHz), and the Core i7 965 Extreme (3.20 GHz).
As Intel prepares the launch its new Socket LGA1366 desktop PC processors in November, Asus has already made a motherboard available for them
October 9, 2008. - Intel is preparing for the launch of its new Core i7 processors in November 2008. This is how Intel describes the processors on its website: "These processors will feature Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, also known as simultaneous multi-threading, and are capable of handling eight software "threads" on four processor cores."
The processors have not been made available to reviewers yet, but the motherboard manufacturer, Asus, has already made its P6T Deluxe motherboard with the X58 chipset, which has the new LGA1366 processor socket, available to reviewers world-wide and ready for the market when Intel makes the Core i7 processors available.
The new motherboard provides new power-saving and overclocking technology. As an optional extra a device known as the OC Palm is available that provides overclocking on-the-fly during gaming or benchmarking. You can see an image of the device attached to a USB port on this page:
New ASUS P6T DELUXE with Super Hybrid Engine Delivers Maximum Overclocking and Energy Efficiency -
"The P6T DELUXE adopts the usage of TurboV—an advanced overclocking tool that utilizes a micro-controller to provide precise overclocking adjustments, and allow users to conveniently adjust the CPU ratio (multiplier)* for instant CPU upgrades for real-time performance enhancements. TurboV can also provide adjustments to the NB voltage, NB-PCIe voltage, CPU PLL voltage and DRAM voltage in 0.02V micro-intervals." -
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=12949
Apart from that page, there is no other information on the board on the Asus site yet. To locate reviews of this motherboard enter asus p6T deluxe in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).
Intel Core i7 (Nehalem): Architecture By AMD? -
Intel's new Socket LGA1366 quad-core processors. -
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Intel-i7-nehalem,review-31375.html

Processors and the sockets they can be fitted into on a computer's motherboard started to become confusing back in the days when the maximum speed of a PC processor was 200MHz and 233MHz, and Intel dropped using Super Socket 7 (SS7), while AMD went on using it all the way up to 550MHz for its K6-2 and K6-3 processors.
Today, Intel's single-core Pentium 4 processor has reached a clock speed of 3.8GHz, which is twenty times faster than 200MHz. However, due to heating problems, the clock speed has halted and both AMD and Intel have opted to develop dual-core and quad-core processors (two processor cores and four processor cores housed as a single unit) instead of attempting to overcome the problem of overheating that comes into play with clock speeds of 4.0GHz and higher.
On top of that, AMD and Intel have added 64-bit processors to their existing ranges of 32-bit processors. They can run on a 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, and can run 32-bit and 64-bit software, so it won't be long before 32-bit processors are no longer manufactured.
There are eight bits in a byte of binary computer code. The higher the number of bits of binary code (data) that a processor can process at a time, the more powerful it is. 64-bit processors, running on a 64-bit operating system that is running 64-bit software can process twice as much data at the same time as 32-bit processors running on a 32-bit operating system that is running 32-bit software. However, when processing 64-bit software a 64-bit operating system requires twice as much RAM memory as a 32-bit operating system running 32-bit software.
On top of that, laptop/notebook computers can use the processors used in desktop computers, or use processors specially designed for low power consumption so that battery life is extended and overheating problems do not occur. Both AMD and Intel have ranges of mobile processors for laptops/notebooks. Moreover, it is also possible to buy motherboards that allow a mobile notebook processor to be used in a desktop PC.

An introduction to the processors made by AMD and Intel

Another name for a computer's processor is central processing unit (CPU). Installed in a printed circuit board (PCB) called a motherboard (also known as a mainboard), the processor processes the programmed software instructions of applications and utilities, such as MS Word, and Norton AntiVirus, according to the programmed instructions provided by the computer's operating system, which is usually a version of Windows or Linux or Apple's Mac OS X.
There are only two major manufacturers of desktop PC and laptop PC processors - AMD and Intel. However, there are many major manufacturers of the motherboards that these processors run on. You cannot run an Intel processor on an AMD-based motherboard and vice versa. Visit the Motherboards, PC Cases and Power Supplies pages on this site for more information on them. Use your browser's Back button to return to this page.
With the arrival of its Core 2 processor technology, Intel named both its desktop PC and laptop PC processors Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad (four cores). The laptop processor start with a T, such as T7100. Desktop processors start with an E, such as E8500, and X for the extreme (extremely fast and expensive) version, a Q for quad-core, such as Q6700, and QX for the extreme version, such as QX9770.
November 18, 2008. - Intel has released three of its new Socket LGA1366 quad-core Core i7 processors. Here is a good review:
Intel Core i7 - http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/233892/intel-core-i7.html
And here is the information on the new processors on Intel's website:
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor -
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei7/...
The major motherboard manufacturers have brought out motherboards that support the new Intel desktop PC processors.
Asus - http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=179
MSI - http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php...
Gigabyte - http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/...
User manuals are available from all three of those manufacturers, so you can download copies and have a look at what is on offer.
If you are thinking of buying a desktop PC which has a particular make and model of processor, you can visit the following two pages to view tables containing all of the technical specifications (clock speed, supported instruction sets, cache, etc.) and other information, such as the dates of release, of all of the processors made by AMD and Intel up to the present. The further down the list a processor appears, the more recent it is.
Desktop CPU Comparison Guide - AMD processors -
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=337&pgno=0
Desktop CPU Comparison Guide - Intel processors -
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=337&pgno=4
This page provides a comparison of laptop/notebook PC processors:
Comparison of Mobile Processors -
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html
If any of the above links don't work, try entering a suitable search using the relevant keywords in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).
The Tom's Hardware Guide processor charts can give you a good idea how different processors compare with each other.
Updated CPU Charts 2008: AMD Versus Intel -
"The new CPU charts for 2008 from Tom’s Hardware have, at long last, arrived. There are 18 entries from AMD and 36 processors from Intel, which were put to the test using a fresh gauntlet of benchmarks. For more meaningful comparisons and the most consistent benchmark results, our testing platforms were fully re-equipped. The graphics card used was a powerful MSI N280GTX-T2D1G-OC based on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 280." -
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-intel-pc-processor,review-31355.html
Mobile [laptop/notebook] CPU Charts -
"Tom's Interactive Mobile CPU Charts focus on popular mobile processors, which are used in laptops and notebooks because of their increased energy efficiency." -
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/processors/3d-studio-max-9,463.html
If your desktop PC has an Intel-based motherboard, you can use:
Intel Processors and Boards Compatibility Tool -
Find the Intel processors that will work with your PC's Intel-based motherboard. Find motherboards boards that will work with your PC's processor. Check the compatibility of a motherboard and processor.
http://processormatch.intel.com/COMPDB/Default.aspx
The images at the top of this page show an AMD Athlon 64 processor (right) and the packaging that the retail product comes in (left). A heatsink and fan cooling unit is included in the package. If you want to use thermal paste to improve the transfer of heat from the processor to the heatsink, you'll have to buy some, because none is included in the package. The array of pins that fit into the motherboard's processor socket are on the reverse side of the processor. The processor in the image is for advertising purposes only, it is not what it looks like in reality. Images of the top and bottom of the real thing are shown further down this page.
AMD Athlon 64 processors are fitted into and run from Socket 939 and Socket AM2/AM2+ motherboards. Visit the Annotated images of ATX Socket LGA775, Socket A and Socket 939 motherboards page on this site to see annotated images of those three socket-type motherboards.
The following online video shows a desktop PC being built with an Asus P5E64 WS Professional motherboard and an Intel Core 2 Quad QX9770 quad-core processor. It shows you where the motherboard is installed in the case and where the processor is installed in the motherboard in a desktop PC.
Video: How To Build An Intel QX9770 QuadCore PC -
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/...

Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors leave Barcelona

AMD has released its long-awaited native quad-core processor, previously codenamed "Barcelona".
Describing the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron as the "world's most advanced x86 processor", AMD claims it as the first native x86 quad-core microprocessor, meaning the four processing cores share a single die of silicon.
The company also highlights other aspects of the 55- and 75-watt server chips. It claims gains for energy efficiency, a 50 percent increase in integer and floating-point performance, and improved virtualisation support. Note that the server chips also share the same power and thermal envelopes as their dual-core predecessors.
"Today marks one of the great milestones in microprocessor achievement as AMD again raises expectations for industry-standard computing," said AMD chairman and chief executive officer, Hector Ruiz. "We've worked closely with our customers and partners to design a new generation of processing solutions embodied by today's Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor - a four-way winner in performance, energy efficiency, virtualisation and investment protection. Early customer response has been extremely positive."
leshing out the details on the energy efficiency claims, AMD highlights the use of proprietary "CoolCore Technology" (turning off unused parts of the processor) an independent core-specific enhancement to its PowerNow! Technology (allowing cores to vary their clock frequency depending on application requirements) and Dual Dynamic Power Management (DDPM), which allows the cores and memory controllers to operate on different voltages, again determined by usage.
Sun, HP, IBM and Dell will be among those shipping systems based on the new server chip will be shipping. Details of AMD's pricing for the Quad-Core Opteron will be found at www.amd.com/pricing (based on 1,000 unit orders).
More information on AMD's quad-core processing can be found on the company's website.
For its part, Intel released updated quad-core server microprocessors last week - the Quad-Core Xeon 7300 series, its first multi-processor (MP) chips based on its now standard Core micro-architecture.
See also: Electronics Weekly's focus on microprocessors, a roundup of content related to microprocessor technologies and developments.

AMD CPU Roadmap Update

Fall is now upon us, and as usual marketing efforts are in full swing to get us ready for the season of spending - or giving, if you prefer. Computer hardware manufacturers are also hard at work to get their latest products out in time for the holiday rush. 2004 has been a relatively exciting year in the technology sector, with the launch of socket 939 and 775, PCI Express, and even DDR2, as well as a plethora of CPU and graphics chip rollouts, but it's not over yet. You may have already heard about some recent CPU launches by AMD, and there are a few remaining products that will launch before the year is up. Roadmaps are really about the future, though, so we will also take a look at AMD's tentative product lineup for the next year or so, starting with the Athlon 64 line.

AMD Athlon 64 Roadmap
Processor Clock Speed L2 Cache Socket Launch Date
Athlon FX-57 ??? ??? Socket 939 Q3'05
Athlon FX-55 2.6 GHz 1024KB Socket 939 Soon
Athlon FX-53 2.4 GHz 1024KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon FX-53 2.4 GHz 1024KB Socket 940 Now
Athlon FX-51 2.2 GHz 1024KB Socket 940 Now
Athlon 64 >=4200+ ??? ??? Socket 939 Q3'05
Athlon 64 >=4000+ ??? ??? Socket 939 Q2'05
Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4 GHz 1024KB Socket 939 Soon
Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 GHz 512KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4 GHz 1024KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz 90nm 512KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon 64 3500 +
2.2 GHz 512KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz 512KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3400+ 2.2 GHz 1024KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2 GHz 512KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz 90nm 512KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz 1024KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0 GHz 512KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz 1024KB Socket 754 Now
Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz 90nm 512KB Socket 939 Now
Athlon 64 2800+ 1.8 Ghz 512KB Socket 754 Now

In case you missed it, a couple weeks ago AMD (quietly) launched their first 90 nm Athlon 64 parts. Surprisingly, these parts launched at clock speeds at or below the current Athlon 64 offerings. The new models are the 3000+, 3200+ and 3500+ with clock speeds of 1.8 GHz, 2.0 GHz, and 2.2 GHz. Whether that was simply AMD being conservative or AMD trying to lower the cost of entry for socket 939 is difficult to say, but our early tests indicate that the 90 nm parts have plenty of headroom when paired with a quality OEM heatsink. The price on the 3500+ is actually slightly higher than the 130 nm version, once you factor in the cost of an after market HSF, but since enthusiasts are likely as not to purchase a quality HSF for their CPU it isn't a major concern. The 3000+ and 3200+, on the other hand, are priced to move at under $200, removing price as a barrier for entry into the socket 939 world. With the large amount of overlap in AMD's product names, it can be somewhat confusing, so remember to double check that you are getting the right CPU for your motherboard. We will have some articles that provide more information on these new CPU parts in the near future.
In addition to the recent 90 nm parts, AMD has the 4000+ and FX-55 scheduled for launch in the very near future. These are still 130 nm parts, although 90 nm parts are likely to become available at some point. We also have the 90 nm parts codenamed "San Diego" and "Venice" coming out in the first half of 2005. These are not the same as the currently shipping 90 nm parts, as they will include SSE3 support - 11 of the 13 PNI instructions will be supported; absent are the two instructions that relate to HyperThreading, which obviously does not affect performance on non-HyperThreading processors. These chips may include other tweaks to the Athlon 64 design as well, but we do not have any information on that yet - it does appear that the current 90 nm parts are nothing more than a die shrink of the Clawhammer, Sledgehammer and Newcastle cores.
In the second half of 2005, we will see the launch of the dual core "Toledo" processor, also with SSE3 support. While we do not list it here, dual core Opteron chips will be introduced for socket 940 before the socket 939 versions. There isn't a whole lot of detail on AMD's Athlon 64 plans for Q2 '05 and Q3 '05, other than that they will have >=4000+ and >=4200+ parts. The FX-57 is scheduled to launch around the same time as the Toledo core; so without speculating too much it would make sense if the FX-57 were to come with a dual core variant. If it is, clock speed is basically a complete unknown at this time, even for speculation. We'll be sure to update you with any information that becomes available.
If you're looking at that table and wondering where the future socket 754 Athlon 64 chips are, we have some bad news for you. As of now, we have no information on any future Athlon 64 CPUs for the platform. They may exist and we simply haven't heard about them, but more likely the 2.4 GHz 1 MB L2 3700+ will be the top end Athlon 64 processor for the platform. AMD has already begun to shift socket 754 into the value segment with the Sempron 3100+, and as you will see below, the future updates for the platform all bear the Sempron name.

AMD Sempron Roadmap
Processor Clock Speed Socket Launch Date
Sempron 3400+ ??? Socket 754 Q3'05
Sempron 3300+ ??? Socket 754 Q1'05
Sempron 3100+ 1.8 GHz Socket 754 Now
Sempron 3000+ ??? Socket 754 Q1'05
Sempron 2800+ ??? Socket 754 Q1'05
Sempron 2600+ ??? Socket 754 Q1'05
Sempron 3000+ 2.00 GHz 512K Socket A Soon
Sempron 2800+ 2.0 GHz Socket A Now
Sempron 2600+ 1.83 GHz Socket A Now
Sempron 2500+ 1.75 GHz Socket A Now
Sempron 2400+ 1.67 GHz Socket A Now
Sempron 2300+ 1.58 GHz Socket A Now
Sempron 2200+ 1.5 GHz Socket A Now

Current plans for socket 754 include processors scaling up to 3400+ speeds - which we guess will be 2.2 GHz - with the most of the new models scheduled for introduction in March '05. We are getting conflicting reports on the clock number, but 2.2GHz seems in line with most of our sources.
The Sempron 3100+ chips that we have tested are usually able to reach 2.4 GHz without difficulty, so they should be able to produce plenty of cores. Previous socket 754 processors have always come in 200 MHz increments, but we might see the return of 100MHz increments with the Sempron line. With the price of the socket 754 chips trending to well under $100, overclocking enthusiasts will likely find a lot of bang for the buck out of the Sempron line. Unfortunately, in addition to the reduced amount of cache, all of the Semprons lack 64-bit support. That isn't a major concern yet, but it could be in another six months when we see the launch of Windows XP-64 and 64-bit applications. For those that are interested in 64-bit computing, you will want to spend the extra money for the Athlon 64.
Besides the currently shipping as well as planned "Sempron-754" chips listed above, we also have 90 nm versions on the way, codenamed Palermo. Palermo will continue to include 256K of L2 cache, but like the future 90 nm Athlon 64 chips, it will include support for SSE3. We could also hope that Palermo might reactivate the 64-bit support in these chips, but we would be somewhat surprised to see that happen. It just does not seem to match AMD's current market segmentation philosophy. Also worth pointing out is that Sempron chips for socket 939 have disappeared from the roadmaps; they may have been cancelled, or else they might just be missing. We'll keep you posted on any developments in that area.
Finally, we have additional bad news for those who still love their socket A motherboards. As you can see in the chart, the Sempron 3000+ is the only future processor for the platform. Oddly enough, AMD will also go back to the Barton core for this model, so it will perform similarly to the XP 2800+ - it's only 83 MHz slower. The Athlon XP line is scheduled to end production in early in 2005, according to the roadmaps we've seen, and if you look at current prices on the parts it already appears to be well underway. As for the Sempron processor on socket A, even that is scheduled to reach the end of the line by the second half of 2005.
The platform still offers reasonable performance, of course, but if you want to purchase a motherboard that will last through a couple more inexpensive CPU upgrades, socket A is not recommended. The introduction of the lower model Sempron-754 chips looks to be planned to take over as the socket A models are phased out. This is actually a good thing, as the integrated memory controller on socket 754 and later AMD chips helps out a lot with performance, and we will now see that feature pushed down into the value computing segment.
About the only weak point in AMD's plans right now is their continued use of 200 mm wafers. Their 65 nm parts are scheduled to finally make the switch to 300 mm wafers, which should boost their output capacity by roughly 125% at each fabrication facility that uses the larger wafers. In the mean time, they continue to provide high performance processors that compare very favorably with their Intel counterparts. Competition breeds lower prices, making this a great time for the computing enthusiast.

Graphics market on fire; AMD gains

The economy may be under water, but the graphics chip market is on fire.

The market for graphics processing units (GPUs) saw the biggest increase in third-quarter shipments in six years, according to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), as AMD gained in both the desktop and laptop segments.
Laptop graphics chip shipments soared by almost 40 percent quarter-to-quarter, as AMD gained

Laptop graphics chip shipments soared by almost 40 percent quarter-to-quarter, as AMD gained
(Credit: Jon Peddie Research)

In the third quarter of 2008, more than 111 million GPUs were shipped, the market researcher said. During the same quarter last year, 91 million GPUs shipped, and 94 million units shipped in the previous quarter. That's an annual increase of 22.5 percent and a quarter-to-quarter increase of almost 18 percent, according to JPR.

In the overall market, Intel jumped from 33.4 percent in the third quarter of 2007 to 49.4 percent in the third quarter of this year, according to JPR. AMD saw year-to-year growth of 22.8 percent, while Nvidia lost 6.4 percent year-to-year.

For desktop GPUs, Intel increased its first place position to a 43.9 percent share, while Nvidia's position slipped to 32.6 percent, and AMD climbed to 20.3 percent, JPR said. Desktop GPUs saw an increase of 4.7 percent this quarter to 61.9 million units.

On the laptop front, Intel GPU shipments dropped one point to 56.2 percent, while Nvidia GPU shipments declined to 21.8 percent, and AMD jumped to 20.9 percent. Laptop graphics chips soared almost by 40 percent quarter-to-quarter to 49.4 million units, to claim 44.4 percent of the market, JPR reported.

Though the third quarter is typically up as PC makers place orders for chips for the holiday season, "this quarter was up more than any other for some time, and in spite of suggestions of a recession that started last Q4," said Jon Peddie, president of the Tiburon, Calif.-based firm.

Peddie cautions, however, that the doom-and-gloom scenarios may be having their effect on business and consumer spending plans and the fourth quarter could be flat (compared with the third quarter) this year.

AMD bows new budget 3D card

Check up on the enthusiast Web sites and their review of AMD's new $130 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card and you'll find a common thread. Each laments the crowded $100 to $200 3D card segment, where rebates and minute performance wins make it very hard to determine a clear winner between AMD and Nvidia in this price range.

If you believe AMD, and want to compare the Radeon HD 4830 with Nvidia's GeForce 9800, it seems as if the Radeon card wins on performance, even on games such as Crysis and Call of Duty 4, where, as the folks at PC Perspective note, Nvidia traditionally has the upper hand. The complication here is that you can find the GeForce 9800 card for a few dollars less than the new AMD card.

Follow Nvidia's guidance, and compare the Radeon HD 4830 to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, the situation is reversed, Nvidia maintains a slight performance edge, but the AMD card is less expensive. Just keep in mind that the 9800 GTX+ is a double-wide card. The Radeon HD 4830 has a single slot design, meaning you can install it in a wider variety of desktops.

In one view, 3D card shoppers win. All of these cards deliver speedy 3D frame rates on current PC games for relatively affordable prices. But with so many options, this midrange thin-slicing, as always, is confusing and annoying. You can bet both AMD and Nvidia are aware of the game they're playing, a kind of one-upsmanship in minor increments.

Our suggestion? We like generally like AMD's cards more than Nvidia's lately. Among other things, they have better audio implementation over the HDMI port, you get more flexibility in multicard setups, and on level that's completely irrelevant to you, AMD doesn't send us overly aggressive weekly propaganda newsletters via e-mail. Ultimately, you're best off buying the fastest card you can afford. That strategy will typically give you the longest break between upgrades.
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Read reviews of the Radeon HD 4830 here:

Intel's Barrett: U.S. Woes Not Hurting PC Market

LISBON -- Intel, the world's biggest microchip producer, expects no slowdown in global demand for personal computers despite economic problems in the United States and in other countries, its chairman, Craig Barrett, said on Wednesday.
He also told reporters here in Lisbon, where he was to sign a draft deal with the Portuguese government to make 500,000 cheap portable computers for schools, that the company was upbeat on demand prospects for low-cost computers and broadband wireless systems.
"We gave a relatively upbeat business forecast, saying that despite the economic problems in the United States, our business is so international that we didn't see any slowdown in the PC market," he said. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) posted a quarterly jump in profits during its most recent earnings report.
Barrett said a number of economies have not been seriously affected by the U.S. slowdown, providing hope that the crisis will have limited implications.
"We are seeing ... that the slowdown in the U.S. hasn't spilled everywhere else. The world's economy is not as robust as it could be, but it's not a disaster."
Apart from broadband wireless, and the next generation of low-cost computers, Intel also remains bullish about the introduction of more digital capability in health care.
"There's a huge opportunity to use it not just in the back-office but in remote diagnostics," he added.
Referring to the European Union's recent antitrust charges against Intel, Barrett said price reductions for microprocessors and computers have an "anti-inflationary nature" while prices are rising globally and also said that was a testimony to high competition in the sector.
"It looks as the market is functioning as it should, because every year consumers are getting more for less," he said. "We continue to say that -- please just look at the facts, don't just listen to a competitor complaint."
The response comes amid ongoing criticism over Intel's competitive practices, particularly as they relate to smaller rival AMD, whose market position is at the heart of the European Commission's charges.
Most recently, during AMD's (NYSE: AMD) most recent quarterly earnings call, the company's chairman, Hector Ruiz, said he would work to break "our industry from the grip of an illegal monopoly."
Last year, the Commission accused Intel of giving computer makers rebates to limit their use of AMD's chips or avoid them altogether.
The Commission issued additional charges against Intel earlier this month, saying the U.S. company had paid a retailer to refrain from selling computers with chips made by AMD.
Intel lawyers have previously said that that new charges filed against the company by the European Commission could lead to higher prices for consumers.
At any rate, while Intel remains flying high, its rival continues seeing still more losses. Earlier this month, AMD posted a loss of $1.189 billion on sales of $1.35 billion.
At the same time, Ruiz also announced that he would step down from the position of CEO.
Ruiz Steps Down as AMD CEO, Meyer Ascends
After seven quarters of bleeding money, Advanced Micro Devices will have a new CEO.
Hector Ruiz has stepped down as chief executive of the troubled microprocessor company, with Dirk Meyer, president and chief operating officer, taking over the reigns.
The news was announced on a conference call to discuss AMD's (NASDAQ: AMD) second-quarter financials, which were not pretty. The company reported a loss of $1.189 billion, or $1.96 per share, on sales of $1.35 billion.
"The time is right," Ruiz said today during the company's earnings call. "Barcelona is shipping, the conversion to 45 nanometer is on track," he added, referring to the much-delayed launch of AMD's quad-core Opterons and the company's upcoming smaller chip designs.
He also said the company has made progress on its efforts to streamline its business operations in connection with foundry partners, a plan it calls "Asset Smart".
"This is why the time is right to turn the company over to a new leader, one who has earned the trust of AMD partners and customers worldwide," he said.
Ruiz, 62, joined AMD as president and chief operating officer in January 2000 and became AMD's chief executive officer on April 25, 2002. He has served on AMD's board of directors since 2000 and was appointed chairman of the board of directors in 2004.
Meyer, 46, joined AMD in 1995 as part of the design team for the original AMD Athlon processor. He worked his way up to president and COO in 2006. He holds more than 40 patents as an engineer.
Ruiz will stay on as executive chairman and chairman of the board, working on the asset smart strategy and continuing the battle against Intel by "breaking our industry from the grip of an illegal monopoly," as he put it.

Sun, Intel Push Optimized Solaris

SAN FRANCISCO – Eighteen months after Sun Microsystems and Intel made peace and announced plans for Intel-based servers as well as working together on Intel-optimized software, the two companies held a briefing with reporters here Tuesday to update their progress and future direction.
Much of their work has centered around optimizing OpenSolaris, the experimental version of Solaris (Sun's Unix variant) where new features are tested and debugged before being added to the official Solaris product that is shipped with Sun servers. That deal is bearing fruit already in helping Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) optimize Java for Solaris.
"The January '07 deal gained us access to Intel's architecture to do things in Solaris we could not do before," said Herb Hinstorff, director of marketing for Sun Solaris. "The first year was all about getting to know each other. This year, we are shipping Intel optimizations in Solaris now and Intel is a contributing member to OpenSolaris."
Dave Stewart, a software engineering manager at Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), added: "It has been tremendous to see the results of the collaborative effort of marrying Solaris with Xeons. We're now working with the Sun xVM team to deliver some virtualization optimizations."
Beyond the CPU
But the work isn't just on the CPU level. Andy Roach, senior director of x64 engineering for Solaris, added "We're working on more than just CPUs. We're working to deliver full Intel-based solution stacks to Solaris users." He said Intel developers are frequently seen in Sun offices and vice versa.
Sun gives away OpenSolaris and new versions are released every six months, as opposed to the multi-year gap between Solaris releases. After the developer community has had a chance to experiment with technologies on OpenSolaris, such as virtualization, power management and CPU optimization, those technologies will migrate to the enterprise product.
The two companies made Penryn optimizations to OpenSolaris and Hinstorff said they hope to have all of the enabling technologies for Nehalem, Intel's new processor architecture due by the end of the year, in the next release of OpenSolaris.
There will have to be optimizations because Nehalem will represent a major change in architecture over the current Xeon design. The memory controller will be on the CPU, noted Roach, which will mean a major drop in memory latency and improvement in performance. Nehalem will also use a different kind of memory, DDR3.
The two companies are also working on Java performance tuning. Within the first six months of the alliance by the two firms, Java performance had improved 20 percent, and at JavaOne earlier this year, they announced a 68 percent benchmark improvement. The Java groups at Sun and Intel are working on optimizations across multiple operating systems, with the goal "to have best performing Java on Intel as possible," said Hinstorff.
IDC vice president Jean Bozman said the alliance is definitely starting to benefit Sun. "Sun has seen an improvement in its x86 sales, but there are multiple reasons for it," she told InternetNews.com. "One reason is they are now able to tap into a very large segment of the marketplace where they hadn't been participating before. By optimizing Solaris for Intel, it could only make things better for them."

HP, Intel, Yahoo Team on Cloud Computing Labs

Is there gold in them thar clouds? Yahoo, Intel and HP seem to think so.
The trio of tech titans announced an ambitious research initiative today focused on studying the software, hardware and datacenter management issues surrounding cloud computing. The group's new Cloud Computing Test Bed is aimed at creating a large, globally distributed testing environment that they hope will encourage unprecedented levels of research.
Companies from Amazon to Google, IBM and Salesforce.com already offer some cloud computing (define) services, but Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of research at HP and director of HP Labs, said a larger effort is needed.
"It requires an entirely new approach to the way we manage, and deploy cloud computing," he said in a conference call with reporters.
Banerjee also said the participation of HP Labs fit with the group's renewed commitment to focus more on projects that have a clear commercial payoff.
Other partners for the test bed include Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The partnership with the University of Illinois also includes a grant from the National Science Foundation.
The test bed will initially consist of six locations at IDA, the University of Illinois, the Steinbuch Centre for Computing at KIT, HP Labs, Intel Research and Yahoo.
The companies said each location will host a cloud computing infrastructure, with HP and Intel providing the hardware and processors. Each center will have 1,000 to 4,000 processor cores.
All six locations are expected to become fully operational later this year, when they'll also become available to researchers through a worldwide selection process.
"We really need to think of this beyond the physical hardware layer," said Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Research. "It's about what exciting applications you can build once you take the cloud for granted. What if a utility was always available at any location or scale we want?"
Gartner analyst David Mitchell Smith said the research effort could potentially pay off by providing companies and organizations with ways to use cloud services to offload the huge cost of buying and maintaining datacenters.
"People are starting to imagine the cloud on that scale -- it's not pie in the sky anymore," Smith told Internetnews.com.
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) Research Director Andrew Chien said the scale of project will help to expose what works and what needs more research. "It's one thing to do things at a test tube level, it's another to operate at a much larger scale with network effects and contention," he said.
Cloud computing research on a large scale is far from new. Last year, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) also announced a joint project in conjunction with several universities. When asked why Intel and its partners didn't simply join that effort, Chien said he thought his group's effort is both complementary and different than the Google/IBM project.
"What we're trying to do is support research in a variety of levels and novel hardware features Intel has been able to add in silicon," he said. "We'll allow people to run a fairly low level of customized software."
Gartner's Smith said the reason Yahoo, Intel and HP are going their own way is simple: "They're competitors."
Additionally, he doesn't think a broader collaboration of competitors is likely in the near future.
"I wouldn't expect one unifying 'cloud' vision anytime soon," he said. "You'll see different definitions by different vendors."

Intel Defies Economy, Seasonal Weakness

Intel on Tuesday announced a 25 percent jump in profits over the second quarter of 2007 thanks to its aggressive cost cutting and continued strength of its products, despite U.S. economic problems and seasonal softness.
Normally, the second quarter is the weakest time of year in the hardware business, but Intel sales rose 9 percent over 2Q07 to $9.5 billion for its fourth record quarter of revenue in a row. The chip giant's aggressive program of cost cutting has paid off to the tune of a 67 percent improvement in operating income and a net profit of $1.6 billion, a 25 percent improvement over last year.
That translates to 28 cents per share, three cents better than analysts were expecting. Intel shares rose 21 cents in after-hours trading, after rising 24 cents to $20.71 during the regular trading session of the day.
During a conference call with financial analysts, CEO Paul Otellini was very upbeat on the quarter's numbers. "Demand continues to be strong, with revenue and unit shipments at high end of the norm when taking into account the divestiture of the NOR business," he said.
Intel is in the process of finalizing the spin-off of its NOR RAM business with STMicroelectronics.
The 45nm manufacturing process continues to ramp up, with the company expected to ship 100 million chips this year, Otellini said. They are getting better yields than at 65nm and expect 45nm to become the dominant manufacturing process this quarter.
Another segment growing faster than Intel expected: notebooks. Otellini said that notebook processor sales surpassed desktops in Q2. "That was sooner than we expected," he said.
The other surprise is Atom, its embedded chip. Atom sales are exceeding expectations and unit shipments will grow sharply in second half. The company is increasing production of Atom every 40 days as demand rolls up in netbook, embedded devices and consumer electronics.
Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said that microprocessor revenue was up 14 percent, with mobility accounting for one-third of total quarterly revenue and up 15 percent from 2Q07. All geographies experienced year-to-year growth, including the U.S., and were a little better than average on a seasonal basis.
"We are aware of global issues that dominate the market these days," he said. "We saw order patterns [grow] as anticipated. Inventories are healthy, our global footprint is benefiting from demand."
For the third quarter, Intel projects revenue between $10 and $10.6 billion, which would be two percent growth year over year at the midpoint of that range. Gross margin will be around 58 percent

Intel Shows Off New Centrino Notebook Chips

TAIPEI -- Intel, the world's top PC chipmaker, on Tuesday launched the next-generation of its Centrino wireless chip that it hopes will provide a new revenue stream amid a broader push into mobile technologies.
The launch of the Centrino 2 chip, previously codenamed "Montevina," came after a delay of several months and was decidedly lower key than the launch of the first Centrino chips in 2003.
The next-generation chipset combines Wi-Fi capability, which has a maximum range of only about 100 meters, with WiMAX, the newer wireless technology that allows for high-speed data transmission over much larger distances, and which can be used to blanket entire cities.
IDC analyst Bryan Ma said the new chips represent incremental development for the industry, compared with the first Centrino that marked Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) entry to the wireless space.
"My big question is whether this is revolutionary or evolutionary; I suspect it may be more of the latter," Ma said. "Even if it's just evolutionary, however, it is still a good fuel to help the industry along."
The chips are mainly intended to go into notebook computers, as the PC industry moves to more mobile devices with new lighter technologies and development of new wireless networks.
Taiwan is in the process of constructing six WiMAX wireless networks, and is also the world's top contract PC producer, with sector leaders Quanta and Compal Electronics manufacturing for Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Sony (NYSE: SNE), among others.
"Notebook computers will be the main industry driver in the future, and notebook sales already outnumber desktop sales in many countries," said Stanley Huang, director of advanced technical sales and services for Intel Asia Pacific, at a launch event in Taipei.
"Because this chip has new capabilities, we hope it will change the way people think of mobile computing," he said.
Others at the launch included HP, the world's top PC maker, and Acer and Lenovo, the third- and fourth-place PC vendors.
All plan to use the chips in their models, with various players designing some 250 different notebook models with the chip.
The world's largest chipmaker is hoping to capitalize on the growing popularity of notebook PCs, which are rapidly taking over from older desktop models.
Data tracking firm IDC expects the notebook PC segment to grow 35 percent this year to 145 million units shipped, while desktops should grow much more slowly, by 2 percent, to 157 million. At current growth rates, IDC estimates annual notebook shipments will surpass desktops next year.
The Centrino 2 launch is part of a broader Intel strategy to develop a wider suite of wireless products to use in non-PC devices, most notably mobile phones, as data transmission speeds improve with new mobile technologies.
Such technologies allow for a much wider range of applications, such as streaming video and video downloads, that would have been impossible using older technology.
Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO, said in a speech last year that his company is seeking to spread its technology from the high-performance computing market to smaller products such as TV set-top boxes and handheld Internet-enabled devices.

Intel Introduces First System on a Chip

As promised, Intel has jumped into the System-on-Chip (SoC) market with a series of announcements based around both the Atom processor and a new family, built on the Pentium M chip.
The company has 15 SoC projects in its pipeline, aimed at large and small form factors alike, from handheld devices and mobile Internet devices (MIDs) to cars to servers, all of them considered new, growth markets, according to Gadi Singer, general manager of Intel's SoC enabling group.
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) sees its greatest opportunities in the mobile Internet space and in emerging markets. Singer predicted the Internet will have 1.2 billion users by 2012 and people will expect Internet connectivity wherever they go, said Singer. But mature markets want their Internet, too, having grown up with constant access.
"New devices need to be powerful, responsive, but in a small form factor," he told a briefing of journalists. "This puts a lot of pressure on the silicon to support this."
The company's first SoC product is the EP80579, a four-on-one chip based on the Pentium M processor design with memory controller, I/O controller and a set of integrated application-specific accelerators on a single chip. Doug Davis, vice president of the Digital Enterprise Group and general manager of the Embedded and Communications group, said Intel used the Pentium M because that's what it had available at the time development began and it met its needs.
According to Davis, the chip will be 45 percent smaller than if the four chips were installed separately on a motherboard and consume 34 percent less power as a whole rather than as four separate pieces.
The EP80579 will consume 11 to 21 watts, depending on clock speed, and run between 600MHz and 1.2GHz. To satisfy industrial requirements, the company has announced a seven-year support life cycle.
Another chip, the EP80579, is for the embedded market. The next generation will be based on Atom instead of Pentium M, hardly a problem since Atom is also based on the Intel Architecture (IA) instruction set. The next generation of the MID processor line will be Lincroft, due next year, featuring a tenfold reduction in power consumption over the current line of chips.
For consumer electronics (CE), the company plans to release a chip code-named Canmore later this year, followed by Sodaville next year. Intel did not go into detail beyond saying that the chips would be tuned for consumer electronics devices, such as bringing the Internet to the television.
IDC analyst Shane Rau said this is a big change for Intel. "These are very highly integrated processors, he told InternetNews.com. "Intel is known for stand-alone processors," he said. "What's different about these is there's a system on a chip. So Intel is prepared to introduce pieces of silicon that are app-specific."
This reflects Intel's desire to look for every way possible to expand, and the way it expands is by finding new markets to enter. "It's the PC market looking to redeploy its technologies into new markets,

Intel Reveals First Details on Its GPU Entry

Intel has taken the wraps off its entry into the graphics processor market, offering up the first technical hints of "Larrabee," its attempt to take on nVidia and ATI/AMD in the highly competitive graphics processor space.
In a briefing with journalists ahead of its presentation at the Siggraph show later this month in Los Angeles, three engineers on the team went into great technical detail on the structure of the chip, but declined to give much product specification.
What they would say is that initially, Larrabee will be available as an add-in card, just like nVidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and ATI (NYSE: AMD) cards are now. Other potential uses or the form factors of the cards were not discussed. Product won't appear on the market until late 2009, if not 2010.
Larrabee is built on the old Pentium technology, but heavily modified and modernized for graphics processing. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) would not say how many cores would constitute a Larrabee processor, beyond the nebulous promise of "dozens." The cores all communicate through a wide "ring" bus that allows for fast inter-core communication and sharing of data, as well as sharing cache data. The L2 cache is partitioned among the cores, allowing for data replication and sharing.
Each Larrabee core is a complete x86 core capable of context switching and preemptive multitasking with support for virtual memory and page swapping. The main difference between Larrabee and other GPUs is that Larrabee will be much more flexible in the steps through what graphical data is processed.
Existing GPU architectures require data to be passed through a battery of processors, from a vertex shader to a pixel shader to a rasterizer, even if a particular processing job doesn't require it. As such, Intel believes that there is no such thing as a "typical" workload.
"The problem with designing a GPU is how much performance to put into the different segments to balance out variations in the load," said Larry Seiler, senior principal engineer in the visual computing group at Intel.
So Intel's solution is to not have fixed function stages in the pipeline. "You are entirely in control of how processing happens," said Seiler. "You can change scheduling, how each stage is handled, you can modify it to handle the characteristics of your workload, or change the rasterizer for your workload."
However, Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, said Intel's solution is not necessarily better nor worse. "There are fixed functions and logical steps one has to go through in a GPU, but those things are in there for a very good reason. Those are the most efficient ways to do graphics programming," he told InternetNews.com.
What Intel is doing is adapting its strategy, the x86 architecture, to graphics, Peddie added. "This is really a multi core CPU. What makes it different from the x86 we are using in our computers is this ring communication for interprocessor communications. That is one of the main differentiators between Larrabee and Nehalem."
That said, Peddie thinks the "ring" for inter-core communication is a big revolution. "I think it's fantastic that Intel has done this, because this is the first innovation in computer graphics architecture since the GPU was introduced almost ten years ago. So they get a lot of credit from me for being brave enough to do it," he said.
The ring "gives you a really fat communication path for every processor to talk to every other processor. That's something they have that neither ATI nor nVidia have," said Peddie. "nVidia and ATI have an order of magnitude more processors, but are built in groups or gangs and communicate from group to group. So processor 004 can't talk directly to processor 794."
Seiler said that the flexibility of Larrabee is not limited to the hardware, but the software as well. "If a developer finds something in the API that limits them, they can create their own," he said. "We want to insure developers the freedom to run in Larrabee as they need."
That also means possible forking as developers improvise their own fixes, the same problem that made Unix so incompatible after many years of proprietary fixes. Intel is aware of that. "We want to give them freedom but we are wary of the potential for splintering. So it's a balancing act," said Seiler
Intel has been heavily romancing major computer graphics experts at universities all over the world and all of the major game developers. The paper being presented at Siggraph, along with many Intel engineers, includes Stanford engineers as contributors as well as Mike Abrash, one of the best known gaming graphics programmers.
So Intel is making a full court charge on Larrabee, a big change from its less-than-stellar integrated graphics products. "Don't judge Larrabee by Intel's current graphics products," said Peddie. "[Intel CEO] Paul Otellini has taken the handcuffs off the guys at Intel who know how to do graphics. Not only has he taken the cuffs off he's given them the checkbook to get some staff and IP behind it. As a result, Intel is going to do it right."

Apple's Suit Aims to Eclipse PsyStar

Apple has confirmed it's suing Doral, Florida-based startup PsyStar for selling computers using unauthorized copies of Apple's Leopard operating system.
"We take it very serious when we believe people have stolen our intellectual property," Apple spokesperson Susan Lundgren told InternetNews.com. Beyond that, Lundgren said Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) had no other comment to make on the suit other than to confirm reports that Apple had taken the legal action against PsyStar last week.
Calls to PsyStar yesterday were not returned. Apple's suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Among Apple's complaints, is that PsyStar's use of Apple's proprietary software and intellectual property has "harmed consumers by selling to them a poor product that is advertised and promoted in a manner that falsely and unfairly implies an affiliation with Apple."
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has never been a fan of licensing. When he returned to the company as CEO in 1997, one of his first acts was to shut down a licensing program that allowed other companies to build Mac-compatible computer systems powered by Apple's operating system.
PsyStar started selling a computer called the OpenMac back in May that included a modified version of Apple's operating system. As of today, the PsyStar Web site is still operating and taking orders. It touts the Open Computer as "The Smart Alternative to an Apple."
An FAQ on the site further states: "The idea of the Open Computers is not to pirate the Apple operating system but to allow the Apple operating system to be run on hardware of the user's choosing."
Among other products, PsyStar's cheapest is the Open Computer, a tower system with 2GB of memory, sans monitor, keyboard or mouse, that does include OS X Leopard pre-installed for $554.99.
The accompany product blurb says: "Why spend $1999 to get the least expensive Apple computer with a decent video card when you can pay less than a fourth of that for an equivalent sleek and small form-factor desktop with the same hardware."
Apple's cheapest Mac is the MacMini at $599, with less memory and graphics capability than the Open Computer.
PsyStar also sells downloaded updates for Leopard and servers using the operating system. Apple has asked the court to stop PsyStar from using Leopard and seeks unspecified damages, according to a report by the Bloomberg News service and numerous other news outlets.

Apple: Out of Touch With Server Room Needs

Here's a great idea to put to your CIO: Why not run the company using a server operating system made by Mattel? It's the company behind Barbie and Hot Wheels (not to mention Tumblin' Monkeys), so it certainly knows a thing or two about toys. Maybe its designers have enough time to put together an enterprise OS.
Yeah, right. The idea is plain ridiculous, but is it any more ridiculous than using Apple's OS X Server or letting end users work on Macs in the enterprise?
Because the truth is, Apple is not really a computer company. It makes toys. It used to be a computer company called Apple Computer, but it dropped the "Computer" bit from its name in January 2007 as a tacit admission that it was now a consumer gadget maker, not to mention an online music retailer. Following the introduction of the iPhone and iPod Touch, two very pretty "boy's toys," the company's latest caper is the launch of its App Store.
The top-selling applications as I write are Band, Crash Bandicoot and Super Monkey Ball, which sounds uncomfortably similar — in name at least — to the aforementioned and very wonderful Tumblin' Monkeys.
Perhaps I am being unfair. After all, Microsoft makes toys too, and plenty of enterprises run their businesses using its server OSes. Just under 40 percent of all server spending was on Windows-based servers in the first quarter of 2008, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. Yet Microsoft also makes the Zune, for example, as well as the legendary Microsoft Barney.
So why shouldn't enterprises take Apple seriously? Here's the problem: It can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
Microsoft is huge, and it is quite capable of doing more than one thing at a time. During the past two years, it worked on Vista, Windows Server 2008, the Hyper-V virtualization system and the Zune — all at the very same time.
The same cannot be said for Apple. It can certainly make great toys like the iPhone and iPod Touch, and there's no doubt it can create OSes. But, as it revealed last year, it can't do both at the same time:
"... iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team," Apple announced. "As a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned."
That's scary stuff and not what you want to hear from an OS developer. The iPhone software development effort wasn't a one off, either: The company has clearly been putting plenty of resources into developing version 2.0 of its iPhone (and iPod Touch) software during the past few months. Firmware for its consumer toys, not software for its computers, is the priority at the moment.
It's ironic, then, that many commentators have been suggesting the new iPhone 2.0 software (which adds features like support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to make the phone more attractive to businesses) will raise Apple's profile in the business market and thus lead to a gradual increase in the use of Macs in the enterprise. Also ironic is a new industry group consisting of Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic, LANrev and Parallels to form the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA). This consortium of software developers is dedicated, according to the group's Web site, to "making it easy to deploy, integrate and manage Macs in a Windows environment."
Running Macs in the enterprise doesn't seem like a good idea if Apple hasn't got enough engineers to provide the kind of resources an enterprise desktop OS inevitably needs. For example, if enough corporate bigwigs insist on bringing their shiny new MacBook Airs onto the LAN, you can be sure malware writers will start to target them. How fast will Apple be able to respond with patches if it's too busy selling Super Monkey Ball?
Granted, Microsoft isn't always the fastest to respond to newly discovered exploits, but there's no doubt it has the manpower to put to the task when it really wants to. Likewise, there's certainly no shortage or Linux and Unix patch-writing experts willing to devote their time to producing security fixes for their OSes.
So where does that leave Apple's server OS? In the nine years since its launch, it's gone precisely nowhere, and with Unix server spending declining in the first part of the year, according to IDC, it doesn't exactly look like sales are going to explode any time soon. Where will Apple be devoting its attention over the next year or two then: Developing its server OS or making more toys for the boys (and girls)? That's a tough one. Not.
Lest you think I am just another mindless Apple basher, I'll proudly admit to having an iPod Touch, a black Classic, white fourth- and third-gen models, a silver Nano, and three Shuffles (one lost) in a variety of colors. But would I put an Apple Server in my business? Not a chance.
In addition to writing for ServerWatch, where this column first appeared, Paul Rubens is an IT consultant and journalist based in Marlow on Thames, England. He has been programming, tinkering and generally sitting in front of computer screens since his first encounter with a DEC PDP-11 in 1979.

Microsoft Serves Up SQL 2008

Microsoft today announced it's releasing to manufacturing SQL Server 2008, its enterprise database and business intelligence platform.
Originally planned for earlier this year to coincide with Windows Server 2008, SQL Server was delayed to insure the code was solid.
The release comes three years after SQL Server 2005, which is better than the five-year gap between it and SQL Server 2000. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) got an earful from customers and promised greater expedience with the release cycles.
"Customers clearly told us [the gap between SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005] was too long," said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of Microsoft's data platform and storage division. "We heard this and committed from there forward to a 24- to 36-month release cycle and said that that the next release of SQL Server would be available 24 to 36 months from the release of 2005."
Throughout that time, Microsoft offered a community technology preview (CTP), the fancy word for a beta, for customers to download and test. As new features were added, the CTP was updated. This helped not only gather feedback but seed the market so applications are ready on launch day.
Microsoft said that more than 75 large-scale applications are already in production, and more than 1,350 applications are being developed by nearly 1,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) on SQL Server 2008. "Our overall objective was to get a lot of customer feedback and get a lot of apps into production," Kummert said.
Microsoft highlighted a number of big changes: a streamlined upgrade path, integration with services by Oracle and SAP, improved Office 2007 performance, transparent data encryption and a system resource governor.
SQL Server is available in seven different editions, from the free Express version that runs on a desktop computer to the Enterprise edition for mission-critical computing. Pricing remains the same for 2008 editions as it was for the 2005 editions.
One of those editions is new. SQL Server 2008 Web is an Internet-designed database meant specifically for highly available Web applications or hosting environments, according to Microsoft. Hosting partners wanted better features, scalability and pricing for a Web version of SQL, so Microsoft created this version to fit these needs.
Existing customers of SQL Server 2005 will find the pricing most agreeable: free, if they have a Software Assurance support license (and who doesn't?). It is available for a free download from Microsoft's TechNet site. An evaluation copy is planned for release on Thursday.
Chris Aliegro, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft, said this release of SQL Server isn't quite as monumental a jump as the prior release, but remains important, as SQL Server has become a big business at the company.
"This has clearly become a rock star product for Microsoft," he told InternetNews.com. "It's gone from being interesting to strategic and a billion dollar-plus product, and it's used so widely by other products at Microsoft."
The Web version of the product seems like something aimed at MySQL, which is very popular with Web developers. Aliegro would not say yes or no on that, but added he wouldn't be surprised if that was where Microsoft was aiming.
"Clearly there's a great market opportunity for them to do something like that," he said. "SQL Server has been historically used behind the corporate firewall, not to support Web sites," Aliegro explained. "If there's an opportunity for them to move a product into a lucrative market, they are going to do it, and database-backing Web sites is an opportunity for them."

Open source blades?

Rackable also announced it's joining Blade.org, the industry consortium created in 2004 by IBM and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) that's trying to create open standards for blade servers. Up to now, all of the blades from Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Sun have used their own design standards, meaning you can't install a Sun blade in an HP chassis, for example.
IBM has been an exception to that rule, opening its blades up and making the specs public. The first company to offer a third-party product is Themis, which offers a Sun UltraSPARC-based blade that works in a BladeCenter chassis.
"Openness has been a key part of our strategy for blades from day one," said Tim Dougherty, director of BladeCenter strategy at IBM. "We felt it's the right thing to do to expand the blade market."
The ICE Cube is available in 20- or 40-foot container sizes and can hold up to 1,344 dual-socket blades with quad-core Intel Xeons or 672 quad socket, dual-core AMD Opteron blades.
The BladeCenter chassis slots right into a Rackable ICE Cube, so long as you remember to remove the wheels that are on the chassis. It then uses the ICE Cube power and cooling system for operation and management.
IBM BladeCenter T and HT are available immediately via Rackable Systems and its channel partners

IBM, Rackable Team Up on Blades

IBM and Rackable Systems today announced a joint sales agreement whereby Rackable Systems will offer IBM's BladeCenter systems for installation inside of Rackable's ICE Cube modular datacenters.
The ICE Cube is a standard-size shipping container with all of the racks for an ultradense datacenter installed inside. Customers can fill it with Rackable's line of 1U to 9U racks or they can add a BladeCenter chassis to use IBM blades.
The deal involves the use of IBM BladeCenter T or HT systems, which are NEBS-3/ETSI-compliant, meaning they’re certified for use in telecommunications environments and carrier facilities.
Pund-IT Principle Analyst Charles King said it's a win for both companies. "It gives Rackable a way to jump into the blade solution space without having to spend any money developing it themselves," he said, adding that developing the blades is an expensive process. "And it allows IBM to sell BladeCenter as an OEM product -- not that Rackable will put its logo on it."
Tony Carrozza, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Rackable, said adding the BladeCenter products to the its modular datacenter "puts us in a position to offer customers a broader set of solutions, from cloud computing to enterprise apps, which is what the BladeCenter allows us to do going forward," said
Blades from IBM (NYSE: IBM) are inherently different from a Rackable (NASDAQ: RACK) rack-mounted system in that IBM blades are for more general-purpose computing, whereas Rackable systems are meant for ultradense computing projects.
"We don't have what you would consider to be a true blade product," Carrozza told InternetNews.com. "The BladeCenter is a true blade product with a self-contained fabric, management software, redundancy and resiliency in it," he explained, adding that besides rack servers Rackable typically offers scale-out servers. "It's blade like but doesn't have its own switching fabric built into the chassis," he said.
Plus, Rackable's systems are based on Intel and AMD chips, whereas IBM blades also offer the option of IBM's POWER5 and POWER6 processors.
The ICE Cube is available in 20- or 40-foot container sizes and can hold up to 1,344 dual-socket blades with quad-core Intel Xeons or 672 quad socket, dual-core AMD Opteron blades.
The BladeCenter chassis slots right into a Rackable ICE Cube, so long as you remember to remove the wheels that are on the chassis. It then uses the ICE Cube power and cooling system for operation and management.
IBM BladeCenter T and HT are available immediately via Rackable Systems and its channel partners.

IBM Follows Through on Data Protection for SMBs

Just three months since it acquired continuous data protection (CDP) startup FilesX, IBM has rebranded its solution as IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) FastBack and today began pushing its own version to market.
CDP, also known as continuous backup, has been growing in importance as a way for companies to better ensure their files are safeguarded. The process automates file backups each time a change is made, enabling offices to not only restore lost files, but also to reconstruct files as they appeared at any point in the past.
In particular, such offerings are lower-cost offerings aimed at helping small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) and remote locations -- which typically lack dedicated IT staff -- deal with mounting storage concerns.
"There is more data being distributed and companies want consistent data protection strategies," John Connor, product manager for TSM FastBack
Big Blue said the ease of managing FastBack's disk-based, block-level storage approach makes it suitable for small and remote offices that have little tech support.
"This eliminates issues with backup windows and provides near-instant recovery," Connor said.
FastBack, which IBM acquired earlier this year, also represents a second try on the technology, Lauren Whitehouse, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, told InternetNews.com.
IBM initially had attempted to tweak its TSM top-end product to create a data protection tool tailored for small to midsized firms, called TSM Express. But it wasn't a perfect approach, Whitehouse said.
"They scaled down the comprehensive offering but the TSM Express really didn't meet the need as it was still hefty to manage," she added. Instead, the new FastBack offering "is the next generation of that approach."
Still, for Big Blue, being able to swiftly integrate the product and assimilate it into its sales channel shows its proficiency at technology mergers, Whitehouse said.
"They have the formula for taking in technology they acquire and getting it rolled out in an impressive time frame," she added.
The new offering serves to build on IBM's storage flagship, the venerable Tivoli Storage Manager. IBM also said the new FastBack offering, which has been melded into TSM, complements its CDP software for laptops and desktops, IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files.
Along with FastBack, IBM also introduced FastBack for Microsoft Exchange and FastBack for Bare Machine Recovery, designed for system and server migrations. Together, the bundled components are sold as TSM FastBack Center.
While the suite is currently offered only for Windows platform, IBM has plans to develop additional versions, it said.

IBM Thinking Green for N.C. Datacenter

IBM today announced that it will build an advanced datacenter in its Research Triangle Park, Raleigh, N.C., facility for $360 million. This will be the first datacenter to be built with the computer giant's New Enterprise Datacenter design principles.
The New Enterprise Datacenter platform is a fusion of Google's Webcentric cloud approach and the MySpace approach, with an emphasis on data-intensive parallel programming.
The datacenter will be one part of a hub for IBM's (NYSE: IBM) computing infrastructure in the cloud that clients will be able to access anytime from anywhere. The other part of the hub is IBM's datacenter in Tokyo, which is also being unveiled today.
Data-intensive parallel computing "turned out to be a very key element of cloud computing applications we've seen deployed by Facebook, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and some folks in the telecommunications industry we've had discussions with," Dennis Quan, director of development, autonomic computing, with the IBM software group, told InternetNews.com.

The technologies for both datacenters were shaped by work done through IBM's partnership with Google. The two teamed up in October to create three datacenters for academic computing using data-intensive parallel programming.
IBM's work with Google "gave us a lot of knowledge and research to figure out the best way to bring out the cloud computing platform," Quan explained. "The manifestation of that is our Unified Datacenter Architecture."
According to Quan, this architecture consists of IBM's systems technologies -- virtualized networks, storage, compute resources using Xen and VMware on x86 boxes and native virtualization capabilities on power systems and the mainframe.
It also includes using Tivoli software "to drive provisioning and monitoring of systems in the datacenter, and advanced capabilities like doing chargeback and ensuring high levels of availability and storage management," Quan added.
Befriending the environment
The Raleigh, N.C., datacenter will leverage green computing principles. It will use many of the technologies from IBM's Project Big Green initiative to slash energy consumption, and use the latest water-cooled and air-cooled equipment.
IBM will make heavy use of virtualization technology in the datacenter. The company plans to adopt a modular construction technology to minimize cost and environmental impact.
After the first 60,000 feet are built, additional space will be added in equal-size modules on demand. The center will be able to support 2.5 to three times as many clients as a traditional datacenter of comparable size, IBM said.
Work on the Raleigh, N.C., datacenter will begin soon, and it's expected to be completed by next year. It will be "the biggest of the cloud centers we've launched," Quan said.
Since March, IBM has launched cloud computing centers in Dublin, Ireland; Beijing, China; and Johannesburg, South Africa. The Tokyo and Raleigh, N.C., datacenters will be the vendor's eighth and ninth datacenters, respectively.
Over time, Quan expects enterprises to increasingly leverage cloud computing at its datacenters. "We're going to see a lot of apps come about based on SOA (define) that will allow applications on various clouds to talk to each other and be very functional and be managed in a centralized fashion," he said. SOA is service-oriented architecture.
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, said IBM is making "a very large investment in what's still a very interesting, but from a commercial standpoint, an emerging technology" with its move into cloud computing. However, the datacenters "point to IBM's strength in datacenter design and hardware strength."
King contrasted IBM's moves to the joint initiative announced recently by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HP), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Yahoo to set up cloud computing labs. "They're working on research testbeds for cloud computing, whereas IBM is moving forward with what will be commercial datacenters,


Other cloud computing initiatives
HP has another cloud computing initiative it launched in May. This will help enterprises build their own minicloud datacenters, complete with products and services for building out the center.
Cloud computing is fast becoming a growth area, and companies are flocking to this sector thick and fast.
In February, storage giant EMC bought Seattle-based startup Pi, using it as the nexus of its newly set-up Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division. Pi founder Paul Maritz, a 14-year veteran of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), became head of that division.
Maritz is now CEO of virtualization giant VMware, an EMC (NYSE: EMC) company, and sits on its board of directors. He took the post after VMware co-founder and CEO Diane Greene left abruptly.
In June, Q-layer announced the concept of a virtual private datacenter. This would let companies support on-demand cloud computing through virtual datacenters, according to a report by Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Bowker. It would also let them build their own virtual environments, using a credit-based chargeback system to track resource allocation and utilization.
Also in June, Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) made its JBoss Enterprise Platform available on Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) EC2. This lets users build, deploy and host enterprise Java applications and services in the cloud.
And earlier this month, RightScale and GigaSpaces teamed up to let enterprises deploy and scale data- and transaction-intensive applications on EC2, and manage them. And 3Tera lets customers run applications in their own datacenter.

IBM Unveils Proactive E-Discovery Solution

IBM has unveiled eDiscovery Manager, a software product that lets enterprises manage electronically stored information so that they can retrieve it easily when a legal challenge requires e-discovery. The term e-discovery stands for 'electronic discovery' and refers to discovery in civil litigation dealing with information in electronic form.
Enterprises are being forced to adopt e-discovery solutions because of amendments in December to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) (define) that require companies to preserve and produce electronically stored information when facing litigation. FRCP is the U.S. federal district court procedures for civil suits.
Part of the vendor's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) (define) suite of products, eDiscovery Manager integrates with IBM's auto-classification and records management technology, and the vendor's content-centric business process management (BPM) (define) capabilities.
The eDiscovery Manager uses IBM's e-mail archiving solutions, leverages the vendor's ECM repositories, and supports an easy-to-use interface. It "controls information at its source when it is created," Aaron Brown, program director of IBM Content Discovery told InternetNews.com. The eDiscovery Manager works with IBM's Classification Module, and content management repository for this.
"We let you handle capture, retention, archiving and content management to manage your content proactively because the information has already been retained, classified and managed," Brown said. Many other e-discovery vendors offer point solutions or outsourced third-party solutions that companies put in place when litigation comes in, according to Brown.
While these point and third-party outsourced approaches do work, "they are expensive, because organizations often have to expand them to deal with other cases, and typically these solutions don't address the bigger problem of information retention," Brown said. "We want e-discovery to be part of the basic daily process rather than having you run around putting out fires."
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is one of the few vendors that can offer an enterprise-class solution for eDiscovery, Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told InternetNews.com "Nobody has the breadth anymore to cover all databases, all repositories; it requires a very large set of capabilities and IBM Global Services and EDS are among the few entities that folks love to help solve that kind of complex problem."
EDS is now a part of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), which bought in May for $13.9 billion.
Together with other products in IBM's ECM suite, eDiscovery Manager lets enterprises sort, classify and archive information for easy retrieval.


The inner workings
IBM eDiscovery Manager is an integral part of the IBM Compliance Warehouse for Legal Control, a combination of software, hardware and services that let enterprises achieve, sustain and prove compliance with multiple legal and compliance mandates
It also supports IBM's broader Information Governance strategy, which helps clients define, enforce and monitor policies related to the control and quality of information. IBM eDiscovery Manager runs on Windows and AIX, IBM's version of Unix. IBM is moving AIX to open source.
When lawyers need information relating to a case, they provide the parameters such as the subject, a range of dates, and keywords to IT, which conducts a search using eDiscovery Manager's search-based interface. The product collects relevant information and puts a litigation hold on it, which marks that information as undeletable.
"A very important part of the eDiscovery process is that the tools you use must respect things like deletion policies and keep accurate logs of access and searches," Brown said. These functions have been built into eDiscovery Manager, he added.
Once the search is complete, the IT department checks the information gathered and exports the result to the legal team, Brown said. "This is not the end application for the legal team, we're just focused on proactive management and collecting and identifying the information