14 DAY TRIAL // Without question, TYAN is one of the most important sever-manufacturing companies and, while its revenues or market share are not as impressive as those sported by Dell or other big-name providers, it is nonetheless a worldwide recognized brand. Right now, it looks like TYAN plans for some expansion, as the company has just announced the launch of its latest compact server system that is powered by a central processing unit made by Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD for short.
FlexBLADE, as this latest server from TYAN is named, is intended to perform the role of a versatile computing platform while addressing the needs of as many users as possible, including technical workgroups, research and development teams. As the small and medium businesses worldwide are becoming more and more dependable on rather high performance computer systems, backed up by powerful but relatively cheap servers, TYAN is aiming the flexBLADE towards this ever increasing market segment, hoping that a computer solution based on the cheaper AMD Opteron processing units will be received with good reviews and comments.
Right now, it looks like TYAN took just about everything into consideration when it designed its latest flexBLADE server, as it is capable of supporting several distinct configurations while retaining its compact form, making it perfect for the computing needs of a small or medium sized bussines. Apart from this basic form, the flexBLADE can also be used as the backbone of a cluster and it can even be scaled up and mounted in racks, in order to provide a high performance computing solution, or HPC for short.
According to the hardware news site VR-Zone, Leo Yuan, President and General Manager of Scalable Servers Corporation, a TYAN division, said at the flexBLADE's official launch that the new server system was aimed at providing its users a high-end computing environment, while keeping its running temperature at a low level. Apart from these favorable characteristics, the flexBLADE is also, thanks to its AMD Opteron quad-core central processing units, very energy efficient. "The flexBLADE? meets the computational, networking and storage requirements of many individuals and workgroups in one platform that is compact, quiet, cool and energy efficient".
In order to be easy to move around and store, the TYAN flexBLADE is coming as a single chassis form factor box that can accommodate as many as five blades, each able to house two AMD Opteron quad-core processing units. According to the technical specifications from its manufacturing company, the new flexBLADE generation of servers can be scaled down in order to meet the computing needs of a single department or technical workgroup, in which case it will offer a high performance solution for around 1,500 watts, while being also cool and quiet. Scaling the very same server system upwards can result in high performance computing farms and clusters that can deliver an astonishing level of performance, while keeping the consumed energy level to around 3,000 watts.
As the new generation of TYAN flexBLADE server systems can be assembled in a number of more exotic configurations, they will also offer support for quad-socket blades, that can be equipped with huge amounts of random access memory. As every server blade is able to house 16 random access memory modules, a total of 80 memory DIMMs can be installed at any time inside a fully equipped flexBLADE server system. When talking about persistent storage, the new TYAN product is also boasting impressive features, as it comes with the ability to handle and accommodate up to ten 2.5 inch hard disk drives, or 14 drives in the 3.5 inch form factor.
Unlike the computer servers of the long-past days when the graphics department was represented by a mainboard integrated controller, or a low performance discrete card, the TYAN flexBLADE comes equipped with a PCI Express 16X slot for each of its blades, resulting in a machine that is able to handle up to five graphics cards at once, marking it a viable graphics rendering server.
As even the most powerful computing server will be virtually useless without the ability to communicate with the outside world, the TYAN flexBLADE is coming factory-equipped with up to 20 Gigabit InfiniBand networking cards, as well as ten Gigabit Ethernet ports that offer support for full system management, making this server family very attractive as far as performance is concerned.