14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has announced its new series of SME building blocks that will allow companies and OEMs to include them in machines aiming at small and medium businesses. The new offering from Intel is based on blade server design specifications released last July by the Server Systems Infrastructure Forum Group, an initiative led by Intel Corporation.
According to William Wu, Intel's Asia-Pacific marketing manager for server platforms, the new set of modular-server building blocks acts like a "bare-bone system", and the branding on the final product belongs to the channel, not to the chip manufacturer. The Asia-Pacific region is channeled by HCL and Wipro in India, Teratec in Korea, MPP in Thailand, and FPT in Vietnam.
The server business continues to bring huge profits. Intel stated that the global small-to-medium business (SMB) server spending is expected to grow as compared to 2007, reaching an incredible sum of $19.8 billion. One of the most promising market segment for the system builders will be the non-branded server business.
"This is a significant development for the channel, as whitebox server market represents one of the most rewarding and fast-growing business opportunities," Wu said in an e-mail interview. "Server systems provide a unique opportunity for the channel to get closer to the core IT infrastructure of their customers, making them a more trusted partner."
Intel's server blocks can hold as much as six server nodes and 14 serial attached SCSI devices integrated in a single unit. All these server configurations will be able to provide the user with integrated storage attached network (SAN), two Ethernet switch modules, and a management module. All the nodes will flawlessly integrate with Intel's ultimate CPU offerings, such as quad- and dual-core Xeon processors seated in a two-socket motherboard.
There is no official pricing per server from Intel, as this aspect will be decided by each local OEM or reseller. "Typically we expect [such] products to be priced at a comparable rate to the dual-processor rack-mount servers of similar configurations available in the market," Wu concluded.