SCIENCE

Cavium Networks announced the collaboration with Caswell to deliver Multi-Motherboard Blade Servers (MMBS) powered by a massive array of OCTEON processors for energy efficient cloud computing applications. This high computing throughout is delivered using up to 10 systems in a server rack, with each system consisting of a 4U enclosure. This enclosure integrates blade switches for the fabric interconnection, memory and required storage interfaces for Cloud Computing and Storage applications. Caswell is demonstrating this appliance in Cavium's suite the Grand Hyatt hotel during Computex, from May 31 - June 4 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Cloud computing services mandates on-demand accesses to high amount of computing and storage resources. It is being deployed by IT infrastructure at un-precedented levels, with data centers scaling up to 20x the number of servers relative to existing infrastructure. This increase places an inordinate burden on the energy requirements and hence compute density per watt has become the defacto metric for Data Center. Additionally, systems need to be developed with Terabit Scalability, Predictable Low-latency and Non-blocking throughout. The MMBS systems from Caswell addresses all of the above stringent requirements by integrating over 1000 high-performance OCTEON Plus cores in a single 40U rack and provides a highly configurable system based on the computing and storage needs of customers and applications.

The OCTEON processor family consists of industry's broadest and highest performance general purpose multi-core MIPS64 based processors ranging from 1 to 32 cores on a single chip with integrated networking interfaces with industry leading hardware acceleration for packet processing, quality of service, TCP, Security, compression / decompression and deep packet inspection (DPI). The Cavium OCTEON core is Cavium's custom implementation, optimized for networking and services with very low power consumption. Flexible standards-based I/Os including gigabit Ethernet, 10 gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express Gen 1 and 2, sRIO version 2, USB2.0 and Interlaken enable flexible, high-bandwidth network and system connectivity.

"We investigated a wide variety of processor architectures and technologies to meet the demands of our data center and service provider customers for implementing their visions of cloud computing. Cavium Networks not only demonstrated a clear track record of providing performance/watt but also were pioneering next generation functionalities and features for the Data Center Market," said Polo Huang, Vice President of Caswell. "We look forward to extending our collaboration with Cavium Networks and delivering winning products for our customers."

"We are very pleased to work with Caswell to bring massive amounts of energy efficient computing for cloud infrastructure market," said Y.J. Kim, General Manager, Infrastructure Processor Group at Cavium Networks. "Caswell's scalable system architecture along with Cavium's OCTEON processors provide the best in class solution for Data Center Operators and Service Providers as they look to seamlessly and incrementally upgrade their infrastructure for new cloud services and subscribers."