IDF SF08-Online gaming and sports leagues are growing every day and here at IDF this week we had the opportunity to see how Intel is making an impact. I was visiting the Virtualization Community in the IDF Showcase where I met Bjoern Metzdorf, Director of Information Technology at Turtle Entertainment who was speaking with Alan Bumgarner of Intel. Check out the video for a major success story including an 18:1 server consolidation ratio, 85-90% power savings and no observable latency for the gamer, this is cool stuff!

If you want to learn more about Turtle Entertainment and the Electronic Sports League (ESL) Click Me

Back at IDF for Day 2 and still wrapping up some exciting news coming out yesterday. I met with Robert Zuber (IBM WW Marketing Manager)and Mike Moreno (Intel) and we talked about how IBM and the DB2 team, along with XEON 7400-series processors achieved this milestone of the Industry's First 1M+ TPC-C result. Here's a video with Robert and Mike in the Technology Showcase.

Check out the official Transaction Processing Council Site for details on the system configuration and full results.

I'm blogging here today from the Intel Premier IT Professional (IPIP) event in Denver, Colorado. This is a really amazing setting at the Center for the Perfoming Arts in downtown Denver. There are some 200 industry professionals here networking and sharing best practices around client and server technologies with some of the main topics including Intel's technology roadmap, security, client and server virtualization. For those who couldn't be here, check the IPIP Website for event details and to download the presentations. In addition to updates on this blog, Josh Hilliker and I will have an event wrap-up on Blog Talk Radio, stay tuned for the details. Check back to this blog for event updates as they occur.

Wm. Hank Lea
Community Manager
Open Port-The Server Room

2pm- Event Update

Here's some cool video of XEON 7300-series(4P)running a database transaction application:


And another video showing the XEON 5400-series (2P) running the Black-Scholes Option Pricing benchmark:


And a third demo showing the XEON 5400-series in a workstation configuration running 3D rendering application:

Using some data from our own IT group, we developed a simple ROI calculator. This tool provides an estimate of performance and IT cost savings of refreshing older servers with new ones. Below is a screen shot of the calculator that is now available on our new server tools section of the Server Room. Give it a try and let us know if these assessment tools are helpful?

Technology moves at such a rapid pace - it can often be mind-boggling. Even working directly with the product teams at Intel, I sometimes have difficulty keeping pace. The good news is that there is a tremendous opportunity today to be captured thanks to this rapid innovation, as well as a steady stream of advanced technology that IT can use to better support business and gain a competitive advantage. Recently I was interviewed by Tim Phillips from the Register about the current 45nm Quad-Core Intel Xeon products and the next generation Intel platforms based on the Nehalem processor.

A few years back, Intel fundamentally changed the way we design and develop our underlying micro-processor technology. We streamlined our innovation and accelerated it's pace. Internally, we call this new model Tick-Tock. I like to call it shrink and innovate.

A "Tick" is a manufacturing process shrink that delivers smaller silicon with higher speeds, more transistors and lower power consumption (example: moving from 65nm to 45nm process technology). The 45nm quad-core xeon processors (available since Nov '07) utilize unique materials (a high-k, dielectric) that are delivering industry leading performance / watt as measured by the industry's first and only standard benchmark, SPECPower

A "Tock" represents a more extensive architectural innovation (ex. Intel Core Microarchitecture) introducing new micro-architecture features and functionality fully utilizing the higher transistor count set up by the shrink. For Intel Xeon-based servers, the next "tock" is Nehalem. In addition to the new micro-architecture based on 45nm, a system re-design will incorporate next generation memory, I/O and virtualization technology for high performance, high bandwidth solutions compatible with today's leading software solutions

I recently found this simple animation that breaks down the Xeon processor family into bite-sized chunks and explains which Xeon-based servers are best suited to meet common IT and business needs.

I shared it last week when traveling with customers in Taiwan and it was well received.

What do you think of this video?

Intel Uncut: The engineers and architects explain how Intel got down to 45nm.



Moore's law has pushed the phyisical limits of the current materials. Intel has used Hafnium based materials allowing for smaller devices without gate leakage. As Kelin Kuhn says, the technology is getting nearly "incomprehensable". With 45nm technology we are working on a scale where 400 transistors can fit on the the size of a human bloodcell. Modern processors are allowing for 100's of millions of working transitors, and devices in the fab are being produced at 1/10th the wavelength of light ... truly amazing.

Eco-Technology - what does this term mean and why would Intel use it instead of "Green Computing" or something more common?

Moore's Law gives us the ability to deliver more performance and greater energy efficiency with each generation of microprocessors - and reducing the energy consumption of our products is far and away the biggest impact Intel can have on carbon footprint.

We recently completed an analysis of a high-performance computing configuration that was originally deployed in 2002 (coming in at number 17 in the Top500 Supercomputer list for that year) and is still in use today. This configuration consists of 512 servers fit out into 25 racks using 128 kW and delivers 3.68 TFlops peak on the LINPACK benchmark. Today, that cluster could be replaced with a single rack of roughly 53 blade servers drawing 21 kW and still giving us that 3.7 TFlops of performance (Energy efficiency in the data center). More on whether that level of density is appropriate for everyone later.....

Think of the incredible increase in productivity - and new innovations - that have been made possible by this phenomenal growth in compute capacity. The explosion of information that's available at our fingertips and the evolution of many aspects of our global economy to bits instead of physical materials.

And that's really the point of "Eco-Technology" which is defined as an "eco-sensitive" approach to technology that takes into consideration sustainability in both manufacture and end-use of technology.

So we're increasing both the energy efficiency of our products and we're eliminating potentially harmful materials such as lead and halogen from our manufacturing, but we're also as an industry continuing to contribute to productivity and transformation. Both are important.

As companies explore their IT Sustainability programs and we all work to define what green computing should mean, what are your thoughts on how to balance the imperative to do more work, deliver more business value with the rising costs of energy and our collective desire to slow climate change? The US Environmental Protection Agency is contemplating Energy Star for servers. If you were in charge, what criteria would you use to award the label?