ACADEMIA

In support of the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor, the industry's first enterprise-class x86 dual-core processor for servers and workstations launched today, AMD announced its key OEM and system builder customers will introduce a broad portfolio of server and workstation dual-core solutions. AMD's key OEM customers, including Sun, HP and IBM, announced today their intention to launch ground-breaking, dual-core processor-based platforms based on the non-disruptive AMD64 dual-core technology, the world's leading x86, 64-bit computing environment. Additional partners also announced dual-core systems. "Because we built AMD64 technology from the ground-up for multi-core processing, it is a non-disruptive, upgradeable platform, for high-performance software and hardware solutions. AMD OEM partners and system builders can now have several inherent advantages over the competition -- faster time-to-market, lower design and support costs and potentially lower cost of operations. This is the height of customer-centric innovation," said Marty Seyer, corporate vice president and general manager, Microprocessor Business Unit, Computation Products Group, AMD. "AMD64 dual-core processors are designed to fit inside the same thermal envelope and infrastructure as our AMD64 single-core processors. OEMs who will be supporting upgrades of dual-core processors can perform a BIOS upgrade and immediately enable their existing AMD64 platforms to take advantage of the power of dual-core processing for servers and workstations. AMD leads this market with superior innovation, superior architecture and an unwavering vision with dual core." Enterprise support for Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors Several dual-core AMD Opteron processor-based systems were announced today from a variety of vendors including Sun, HP, IBM, Cray, Supermicro, Egenera and Dawning. Sun Microsystems, a company that has closely collaborated with AMD in bringing innovative dual-core solutions to market, announced dual-core support for their entire currently shipping family of AMD64 technology-based systems. John Fowler, executive vice president, Network Systems Group, Sun, said, "The combination of Sun Fire V40z servers and our Solaris 10 operating system, which has been optimized for AMD64 technology and dual-core processing, represents the next logical step for enterprise customers looking for a complete two-way through eight-way server solution in their data centers. With this powerful combination of technologies, our customers will be able to deploy mid-range servers to address significant workloads with the option to use Solaris, Linux or Windows while increasing their processing power up to eight-fold." HP today launched the new HP ProLiant BL45p server blade and the dual-core HP ProLiant DL585. Both systems are based on the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor, and enable enterprises to build more agile IT infrastructures. In addition, HP announced dual-core support for its existing AMD Opteron processor-based servers, blades and workstation. "We have experienced rapid adoption of HP ProLiant servers based on AMD Opteron processors as customers seek the performance and price/performance advantages delivered by our powerful AMD Opteron processor-based portfolio," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Industry Standard Servers, HP. "The introduction of dual-core technology drives more opportunities for our customers to stretch the boundaries of what can be achieved using industry-standard architecture. HP is enabling customers to take advantage of this aggressive innovation through the introduction of the new dual-core server models we have announced today, and HP will support Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors in 2P servers and blade servers as soon as they are available from AMD." IBM is also capitalizing on the performance advantages contained in the new processors with the soon-to-be-available Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor-based IBM IntelliStation A-Pro Workstation and IBM eServer 326. Dave Turek, vice president, Deep Computing, IBM said, "The rate of innovation we have witnessed on the AMD Opteron processor has been nothing short of meteoric. Two years ago, IBM was the first OEM to announce support for the AMD Opteron processor, and we are excited today to support the new Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors with our server and workstation product lines. In addition, IBM is working closely with AMD to enable AMD Opteron processor-based blade technology as part of the BladeCenter ecosystem." Cray, a global leader in high-performance computing, announced that the Cray XD1 and Cray XT3 supercomputing systems will be available with Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors. Both of these widely adopted supercomputer platforms, which run some of the world's most complex computations, were designed to incorporate the application performance advantages of multi-core processing and Direct Connect Architecture. Supermicro Computer, Inc., a premier server solution and motherboard manufacturer in Silicon Valley and the one of the fastest growing high-volume server manufacturer, now expands its product offerings with AMD64 technology-based solutions. "Based on market demand and customer requests, Supermicro has an optimized product line to support single- and Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors in the server market with a broad range of the most advanced AMD64 solutions available today," said Tau Leng, director of marketing, Supermicro. Egenera, an industry leader in utility computing and blade servers, will make four-processor, eight-core and two-processor, four-core Egenera Processing Blade configurations available with Dual-Core AMD64 technology this quarter. Egenera's adoption of Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors enables greater flexibility for their customers who require high-computational performance. Dawning Information Industry Corp Ltd., a leading server manufacturer in China, will announce 10 new servers based on the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor, including the two-way R210A, A620R-D, A650, A650R and A850 servers; the four-way R4280A, R4380A and S4800A servers; the eight-way A950 server; and the Dawning 4000A supercomputer cluster. Dawning customers can order these new platforms immediately. Availability The Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series will be available immediately and the Dual-Core AMD Opteron 200 Series will be available in late May. AMD expects systems from OEM partners based the Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series to be available within 30 days and systems with the Dual-Core AMD Opteron 200 Series to be available in June.