IBM Unveils Opteron-Powered Servers
The Armonk, New York-based company joins Dell, Acer and Hewlett-Packard in offering server systems based on the Opteron 6100 processor. Having waited five months since the launch of the new chipset in March, IBM is coming to market well behind Acer, which adopted the Magny-Cours processor immediately, followed by Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
The new IBM System x3755 M3 server can be configured for up to four processors, 32 memory slots and 16TB of local storage in a 2U package. It also includes hot-swap power supplies, hot-swap fans, and hot-swap hard drives protected by RAID.
IBM was also one of AMD’s first Opteron supporters, and the new x3755 M3 rack server reaffirms the strength of their partnership, said Travis Williams, an AMD spokesperson.
AMD at VMworld said it is making a strong push into the server business with its new Opteron 6000 processor line, and that IBM is only the latest in a series of server OEMs to adopt those processors. AMD also said it expects about 45 different AMD Opteron 6000 series-based platforms to be available by the end of this year.
“With the newest System x server, IBM has looked to their clients’ needs and selected an outstanding, energy-efficient processor architecture for compute-intensive applications," said Patrick Patla, AMD’s vice president and general manger, Server and Embedded Division, in a statement e-mailed to CRN. "Many of the barriers to 4P adoption have been eliminated with the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, and IBM has further simplified 4P adoption in dense environments with the 2U design.”