When you’re planning a backpacking trip, whether it’s for several hours or several days, space is at premium.  Not only do you need to think about tents, sleeping bags, clothing, first aid, and navigational gear (among other things), but also how to keep yourself properly hydrated and fueled up.  Oh yeah, you have to figure out how to cram all of this gear into your pack…and carrying an additional pack is not an option!

Odds are you’ll be heading into the wilderness and won’t be able to re-supply for a while, so one of the limiting factors will be the amount of food you can carry.  Running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere makes for a potentially disastrous situation.

So let’s look at the nutritional numbers and how best to fuel the trip:

• Fats:  ~9 calories per gram, and typically found in nuts and oils
• Carbohydrates and proteins:  ~4 calories per gram, and typically found in sugars, grains, and meats

If you’re trying to maximize the number of calories you can carry in order to sustain you during your trip, you probably want to pack more foods with a higher fat content (such as peanut butter) than carbs or protein.  More calories per gram à more energy in your pack to get you where you want to go.

You can probably figure out where I’m going with this analogy – low power CPUs are all about helping maximize your performance per rack, just like packing foods with more calories per gram help deliver more energy in a limited amount of backpack space.

Depending on your specific rack power or overall datacenter power / cooling environment, low power SKUs might be a good fit to help maximize your performance per rack.  For the Intel® Xeon® 5500 series, there are two low power CPU options available, both spec’d at a 60W Thermal Design Point (TDP):  Xeon® L5506 (2.13 GHz) and the Xeon® 5520 (2.26 GHz).  These two SKUs have the same features as the corresponding Xeon® E5506 and E5520 SKUs, just lower in power. 

If you’re buying LV Xeon® 5400 CPUs today, such as the L5420, expect a big jump in performance per rack with the Xeon® L55xx SKUs due to lower overall system power and higher performance.  Similar story if you’re evaluating the Xeon® E5506 or E520 SKUs – same performance with L55xx SKUs with lower system power, so higher performance per rack.

Have questions – ask me on this blog or Ask An Expert in the Server Room.

Today Intel provided a server product update for the upcoming Nehalem-EX processor and the expandable platforms based on it.  Here’s a recap of some of the interesting messages communicated to the press:

• Nehalem Architecture and Quick Path Architecture are coming to the EX (MP) segment, 4 Socket Servers and above. 
• EX Servers are ideal for server consolidation / virtualized applications, data demanding enterprise applications and technical computing environments.  Both Itanium and Xeon processors based systems represent an attractive alternative to more expensive, proprietary RISC-processor based systems.
• EX Servers are designed for the high-end.  They offer more capabilities (i.e. memory, RAS, cores/threads, sockets) than 2 Socket Servers that IT managers require for business drivers such as large scale server consolidation, high data demands, virtualization, and scalability.
• Up to eight cores / 16 threads and a whopping 24MB of cache.
• Up to 9x the memory bandwidth vs. today’s 4-Socket Xeon 7400.  The performance will be dramatic – the highest-ever jump from a previous generation processor. 
• 2x the memory capacity with up to 16 memory slots per socket (that’s 64 DIMMs on a 4 Socket Server), and four high-bandwidth QuickPath Interconnect links.
• New levels of scalability: from large memory 2 socket systems through 8 socket systems, and even more with OEM node controllers.  Matter of fact, there are over 15 8-Socket+ designs from 8 OEMs currently. 
• IBM showed their 8S Nehalem-EX server design running 128 threads (8 Sockets x 8 cores x 2 threads due to Hyper Threading)…an industry first. 
• New RAS features traditionally found on Itanium, such as Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery which detects CPU, memory, and I/O errors, works with the OS to correct, and helps recover from otherwise fatal system errors. 
• Nehalem-EX is scheduled for production in the second half of 2009, with OEM systems in early 2010.

Stay tuned over the next few days – we’ll post a video from the event.  Also look for some informative blogs over the next 1-2 weeks that will offer more of an in depth view of Nehalem-EX’s 4 Socket capabilities, performance, scalability, RAS, and Virtualization.

     Remember that song from Meatloaf?  I always wondered, “What is that thing he won’t do?” I thought of it the other day when I was in Europe visiting several Intel® resellers.  What really struck me was that there is not a single thing these professionals won’t do to make sure they offer the best hardware and software solutions to meet their customers’ needs.  No matter what the size of your company, they make it a point to deliver. They just love providing the right solution for every situation.

We spent some time talking about the specific needs of the small and medium businesses. The Intel resellers were really enthusiastic about the recent launch of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series. Now they have even more options to offer their customers. For growing companies that are looking for a competitive advantage, the intelligent and adaptive performance of these new processors are just what they need.

     Whether you’re looking to transition to your first server or update your existing servers, it’s important to have the right resource guiding you. “An average small or medium company is totally dependent on their information technology these days. If their server is not working as it should or isn’t appropriate for their needs, they are in BIG trouble. Finding a reseller that can act as a trusted advisor in identifying the right equipment, installing it, and maintaining the device through things like Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is critical,” explained Olaf Pas, an Intel reseller in the Netherlands.

“We’re really excited about what the latest generation of Intel server processors can offer our customers. The virtualization capabilities allow us to aggregate our customers’ small business server, their SQL server and the terminal server in one machine. This can save them a ton on their electricity bill,” Olaf continues. And who doesn’t want to save?  Finding the right server solution to help customers save money and get more performance is what local resellers love.

     So, if your employees and customers are hungry for more data responsiveness and your business is hungry for more productivity and cost savings, perhaps it’s time for a little Meatloaf …and the expertise and attention of an Intel reseller – your local Techoloogy expert.

Learn more about the new Intel Xeon server processors:

• Talk to an IT solutions provider: http://premierlocator.intel.com/http://premierlocator.intel.com/
• Read this brochure for information about the advantages of Intel® processor-based servers for small and medium businesses.