Intel is pushing its Xeon Processor 5600 series as the most secure data-center processor on the market. The company launched the server and workstation chips on its 32nm logic technology, which relies on second-generation high-k metal gate transistors to boost speed and lower energy consumption.
Intel is shooting high with this offering. But will enterprises buy the new chips that support up to six cores per processor? Will the processors, which offer up to 60 percent better performance than Intel’s last generation of chips, make short-term inroads into large data centers in the midst of a recession?
As Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, sees it, the fact that Intel is launching a chipset with 60 percent better performance and 30 percent better energy efficiency should play among two audiences: Companies that increasingly lean on x86-based solutions for demanding business applications and processes, and companies that are trying to lower their data-center power costs or leverage the most out of blades and other high-density server systems.
Chips for the Budget-Conscious
“If anyone continues to have qualms about the value and validity of x86-based
virtualization, the Xeon 5600 series will help put those doubts to rest,” King said. “The notion of retiring 15 single-core systems with a lone Xeon 5600 machine — and achieving ROI in five months — should thaw even the frostiest Scrooge-like data-center owner.”
King points to market studies suggesting that less than a third of the x86 servers that could be virtualized have actually been virtualized. That leads him to believe that Xeon 5600-based systems are primed to send a lot of “geezer servers” to that “old loading dock in the sky.” If they don’t, he added, budget-conscious execs should have a word with their IT managers.
Focus on Security
From a security perspective, King said fans of proprietary UNIX and mainframe…