Items tagged with Enterprise
Intel has been making noise in virtually all segments of the storage market as of late. A few weeks back, we took a look at the Optane Memory H20, which combines 3DXpoint media with traditional NAND on hybrid M.2 device to accelerate the storage subsystem in mainstream notebooks and PCs. More recently, we evaluated the blazing-fast, ultra-pricey Optane SSD P5800X for high-performance workstations, and we can't forget about the budget friendly SSD 670p that arrived in early March. Today, we’ll shift our focus to the enterprise space and inspect Intel’s recently-announced PCIe Gen 4 SSD D7-P5510 series, which targets data center applications with high-capacities, and enhanced throughput...
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Data centers have a new high-tech toy to play with, courtesy of Samsung. Called the CLX Memory Expander, it sort of looks like an external storage device (from the renders) in the vein of Samsung's T7 Portable SSD, but it is nothing of the sort. This is essentially a memory expansion device that leverages the new Compute Express Link (CLX) interconnect standard. Why not just stick with conventional DDR-based memory? Well, there is a limitation imposed by memory channels, whereas Samsung's CXL-enabled module scales memory capacity to terabyte levels, in DDR5 form to boot. In addition, Samsung says its new solution dramatically reduces system latency caused by memory caching. CXL, by the way, is...
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AMD nearly doubled its revenue in the first quarter of 2021 compared to a year ago, earning more than $3.4 billion, up 93 percent compared to its Q1 revenue last year. The same goes for its net income, which jumped 94 percent year-over-year to $555 million. Further, a significant chunk of AMD's earnings came from more than doubling up its data center revenue. "We had outstanding year-over-year revenue growth across all of our businesses and data center revenue more than doubled. Our increased full-year guidance highlights the strong growth we expect across our business based on increasing adoption of our high-performance computing products and expanding customer relationships," AMD CEO Dr. Lisa...
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The end of the year is typically thin on interesting news in the technology sector, as companies opt to wait for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January to make any major announcements or product unveils. There are exceptions, however. Just before we ring in another year, Intel has posted an interesting document that essentially confirms its upcoming Xeon Scalable processors based on Sapphire Rapids will support on-package high bandwidth memory (HBM). While previously rumored, this is a feature Intel has not explicit stated up to this point. During its Architecture Day 2020 event this past summer, Intel talked a little about Sapphire Rapids (among other things), noting it is based on an...
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Intel went on a bit of a storage blitz today at its Memory and Storage 2020 event, unveiling a bunch of new generation enterprise and client SSDs that are mostly centered around its advancements in Optane memory. They include several updated storage products that make use of 144-layer NAND flash memory (QLC and TLC). What you see above is one of two client products, that being Intel's upcoming Optane Memory H20. It pairs 144-layer quad-level cell NAND flash memory in 512GB and 1TB capacities, with 32GB of 3D XPoint memory on the same M.2 module for an added speed boost. This is essentially a shift from churning out standalone Optane memory sticks, in favor of all-in-one (or hybrid) solutions,...
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Samsung's line of Galaxy handsets hardly need an introduction. By now, even casual smartphone shoppers are familiar with the Galaxy brand, which spans top-of-the-line flagships like the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy S20, to much more affordable options like the Galaxy A and Galaxy 5G. And of course there is the innovative Galaxy Z Fold 2. But one Galaxy handset you may not have heard of before is the Galaxy XCover Pro. So, what exactly is it? The Galaxy XCover Pro is a bit of a different beast in the Galaxy family, designed specifically for working environments and job sites, including healthcare settings, manufacturing facilities, retail shops, and so forth. That's to say, the Galaxy XCover Pro...
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It is fair to say that the CPU market has been highly influenced by tech giants such as AMD, Intel, and others over the last few decades. Could one up and coming company help to shake up this market? NUVIA recently raised $240 million USD in their second round of funding. The company is actively working on creating their own CPUs and SoCs. NUVIA Inc. was founded in February 2019, and it was able to raise $53 million USD during its first round of funding in November of that year. Shortly afterwards they were able to open offices in Austin, Texas, and Toronto, Ontario. The most recent round of funding witnessed the participation of multiple capital and investment groups, but was led by Mithril...
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Lenovo is one of the first hardware makers out of the gate to incorporate AMD's brand-spanking-new Threadripper Pro processors into a new desktop line. Unveiled today, the ThinkStation P620 lays claim to being the world's first professional workstation to be powered by a Threadripper Pro processor, with 64 cores and 128 threads of computing muscle at its disposal. According to Lenovo, not only is the ThinkStation P620 the first workstation to sport a Threadripper Pro chip, it's also the only one. At least for now, anyway—it would be odd if Lenovo scored a long term exclusive deal, but hey, anything is possible we suppose. "Users can achieve reduced render times, more creative iterations,...
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As far as Google is concerned, it is time to stop thinking about Chromebooks strictly in the sense of educational tools, and expand the view into the enterprise space as well. Parallels apparently shares this sentiment. As such, Parallels announced it has partnered with Google to bring full-featured Windows applications to the Chrome Enterprise platform. "Remote work is a new reality, making efficiency, connectivity, speed, reliability, security and undisrupted access essential elements of a successful organization. At this key moment, our two organizations have formed a landmark partnership to equip enterprises with solutions that optimize their businesses and teams to meet the evolving challenges...
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Intel has been busy refreshing its CPU product lines across virtually every segment, including high-performance desktops and servers, and various tiers of mobile. In particular, Intel's Comet Lake architecture has found its way into both desktop and mobile applications. Building on its 10th generation Core foundation, Intel today announced a new round of vPro processors based on Comet Lake. These are not necessarily new processors (more on that in a moment). Instead, vPro is an entire platform of hardware and software with specific technologies aimed at enterprise and IT customers. It's essentially the combination of a CPU, chipset, network controller, and software that offers certain security...
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is advising customers to update the firmware on certain Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drives to prevent them from failing after 32,768 hours of use, which equates to 3 years, 270 days, and 8 hours. If that should happen, the data on the drive(s) would be permanently lost and unrecoverable. "HPE strongly recommends immediate application of this critical fix. Neglecting to update to SSD Firmware Version HPD8 will result in drive failure and data loss at 32,768 hours of operation and require restoration of data from backup in non-fault tolerance, such as RAID 0 and in fault tolerance RAID mode if more drives fail than what is supported by the fault tolerance...
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AMD 2nd Gen EPYC Scores Design Wins In Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers, Faster 64-Core Beast CPU Unveiled
AMD continues to add more server feathers to its cap courtesy of its Zen 2 CPU architecture, which is the driving force behind its 2nd generation EPYC "Rome" processors. One of those feathers is Dell—it announced five new PowerEdge platforms powered by EPYC, each one designed from the group-up and optimized to support features like PCI Express 4.0. Among the new offerings are two 1S racks (PowerEdge R6515 and R7515) and three 2S racks (R6525, R7525, and C6525). According to Dell, the EPYC-equipped PowerEdge C6525 delivers weather modeling results in half the time as previous generation EPYC servers, resulting in faster severe storm notifications. Dell also claims its newest server products...
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Gigabyte is rolling out the big guns in the server sector, with a new family of products built around AMD's mighty EPYC 7002 "Rome" processors. As we have already seen on the desktop, the underlying Zen 2 CPU architecture is stout. Data centers are where companies like AMD enjoy higher margins, though, and AMD is off to a solid start. So is Gigabyte, which has already broken 11 different SPEC benchmark records. "These new world records have not only been achieved against results from all alternative processor based systems but even against competing vendor solutions using the same 2nd generation AMD EPYC 7002 Series 'Rome' processor platform, illustrating that Gigabyte's system design and engineering...
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AMD is on a roll with its Zen CPU and Navi GPU architectures, the former of which is proving particularly compelling to customers across the board. Intel still dominates in overall semiconductor sales, but AMD is not exactly playing second fiddle, or at least it's trying not to. In what could be a major boost to AMD's bottom line, there is speculation that Google may migrate its cloud data centers to EPYC hardware. Bear in mind that the data center is the real high stakes battlefield for AMD and Intel, where margins are much higher compared to desktop and laptop products. AMD is on the cusp of introducing the world's first 7-nanometer x86 data center CPU, a next-gen EPYC product line based on...
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Kingston has been a dedicated stalwart of the memory, storage, and peripheral markets for many years. The company’s products target virtually every type of user, from entry-level first-time PC builders to seasoned sysadmins. The products we’ll be showing you here today, the Kingston DC500R and DC500M solid state drives, target the latter type of user, in need of reliable, high-capacity SSD storage for enterprise and data center applications. At first glance – of both their physical design and specifications -- the Kingston DC500R and DC500M drives appear to be similar. The ‘R’ variant, however, is geared for read-heavy workloads, while the ‘M’ variant...
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AMD made some waves at Computex where it delivered its first keynote for the event. To kick things off, the company talked about its second-generation EPYC servers processors, codenamed Rome, and promptly demonstrated a pair of 64-core EPYC chips thrashing two 28-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 (Cascade Lake) CPUs in a benchmark that showed AMD's hardware performing 2X better. That demonstration did not sit well with Intel, which has fired back with a more thorough comparison. How things actually shake out between AMD and Intel, both on consumer desktops and in the server space, will be made more clear once reviewers have had a chance to properly test and benchmark AMD's new stuff. Make no mistake,...
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It is widely known that Zen 2 is on the horizon, with a new generation of processors likely to be announced at Computex later this month. AMD has not kept this a secret. In fact, AMD recently reiterated that Zen 2 products will ship in the third quarter of this year, including both consumer desktop (Ryzen 3000 series) and server (EPYC) processors. In regards to the latter, a fresh leak gives us a sneak peek at the specs and performance of some of the offerings that AMD is readying. To quickly recap, Zen 2 is the third generation of AMD's Zen microarchitecture, It is the first of the Zen series to utilize a 7-nanometer manufacturing process—current generation Zen+ parts are built on a 12nm...
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Intel on Tuesday announced a new line of 8th generation Core vPro mobile processors for business laptops and, to an extent, portable workstations. The launch comes just one week after rival AMD rolled out new Ryzen Pro and Athlon Pro mobile processors for the same segments, underscoring the competitive landscape that exists between the two companies. The new chips from Intel are based on the company's Whiskey Lake architecture. Whiskey Lake is built on the same 14-nanometer++ manufacturing process as Coffee Lake and is the third 14nm Skylake process refinement, after Kaby Lake Refresh and Coffee Lake. We already saw Intel launch a batch of 8th generation Core processors based on Whiskey Lake...
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Intel is launching its latest salvo of data-centric products today, targeting a wide range of workloads and applications. You may think that means a fresh batch of powerful Xeons are on the way – and you’d be correct but there's more. Today marks the official arrival of Intel’s Cascade Lake, many-core 2nd Generation Xeon Scalable Series Processors, but the company is also announcing or launching a plethora of adjacent products including new FPGAs, innovative network controllers, a new server chassis platform, and Optane DC Persistent memory. And along with those powerful Xeon Scalable Series Processors, more specialized Xeon-D series products, which are designed for all sorts...
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AMD has managed to reassert itself in the enthusiast computing discussion, thanks to its current gen Zen CPU and, to a lesser extent, Vega GPU architectures. Between Ryzen and Threadripper, there are now many compelling non-Intel options for power users. This also applies to the server side of the equation as well, and though Intel still dominates the landscape, AMD's EPYC server processors are gaining ground. It's a slow climb for sure, but AMD is now in a position where it can chip away at Intel's lead. And that is precisely what it is doing, according to Spiceworks, a professional network for the information technology (IT) industry headquartered in Austin, Texas. As it stands, a whopping...
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HTC on Thursday announced an upgraded version of its standalone Vive Focus headset for virtual reality applications. Aimed at the enterprise market, the new Vive Focus Plus ups the ante with support for dual ultrasonic six degrees for freedom (6DoF) controllers so that users can interact with the virtual environment in the same manner as PC VR headsets like the Vive and Oculus Rift. The Vive Focus Plus comes with two 6DoF controllers featuring an analog trigger with pressure-sensitive input. HTC envisions developers running with the functionality to create more immersive experiences, though we will obviously have to wait and see how it actually pans out. This is a standalone headset, meaning...
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Intel shares fell more than 8 percent in early morning trading on Friday, even though the company's earnings results for the second quarter beat out estimates with record revenue of $17 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year. That enabled Intel to nearly double its profit to $5 billion, versus $2.8 billion the same quarter a year ago. Nevertheless, investors seem more concerned about Intel giving up market share in the data center to rival AMD than posting record earnings. While still a dominant force with its Xeon line, Intel is now seeing increased competition from AMD's Zen-based Epyc processors. Whether investors are overreacting is up for debate—Intel's Data Center Group (DCG) increased...
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