14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has announced its new white-box blade server called the Clear Bay. The new server architecture is based on standardized components, instead of specialized parts, a habit that has become a common practice in the server business. The Clear Bay server is based on the Modular Server specification set announced last July at the Server System Infrastructure Forum.
The Modular Server Specification includes a complete standard for the blade servers, and is meant to facilitate the use of off-the-shelf components such as connectors, power supplies and heat sinks. This new approach at building blade servers is dedicated to keeping the servers' costs as low as possible.
Blade servers are denser and easier to manage than rack-mount systems, so they can be widely used by both enterprises and small businesses. However, classical blade servers are much too expensive for the latter category to benefit from them.
The Clear Bay architecture is based on the 6U-high blade chassis that can host up to six two-way server nodes running dual- or quad-core Xeon processors, a management module and two Ethernet switch modules. As for the storage, the chassis provides the necessary space and connectivity for up to 14 hard disk drives and two storage control modules. The server also includes Intel's Multi-Flex Technology, a set of management and storage technologies.
Among other additional technologies, the server can support virtual storage mapping, an integrated storage-area network, diagnostics and single sign-on. The Clear Bay platform is officially referred to as Intel Modular Server Products and is designed to be sold to local equipment manufacturers. Other server platforms are only available to top server vendors such as IBM, HP or Sun.