Server Wars: Solution Provider Takes on Dell, HP

ION Computer Systems has a knack for breaking through. The white-box builder in 2011 developed the first machine in its class to sustain a million transactions per second. That machine, the x64-based SR-71 SpeedServer, had remained on the CRN Test Center's list of its Top 10 fastest reviewed servers ever since. Until last month, that is, when a system from Supermicro knocked it out.

But the engineers at ION have been working hard to improve their winning design, and have released the SR-71mach 4, the latest version of the SpeedServer that does even more justice to its name. The Test Center visited ION's headquarters in the Long Island suburb of Hauppauge, N.Y., to see what the company has been up to and to take some performance measurements of our own. Here's what we found.