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Hardware Trends: Faster. Smaller. Cooler.

By: Joanne Cummings

5/20/2008

Small, mobile, virtual and green: Those are the key words to keep in mind when making hardware decisions for the future.

Every new iteration of chip, desktop, server, storage system and wireless router is not only getting smaller, but is evolving to better support your customers as they move to the latest mobile, virtualization and green technologies. Here are some of the top trends to keep an eye on as you look to support your customers' future initiatives:

1. Chips Are Getting Faster, Cooler and More Power-Efficient
When it comes to chips, speed is the most important factor, and lately, speed is all about multi-core. While the chips themselves aren't getting any bigger, their capabilities are scaling quickly as they evolve from the pedestrian dual-core models of yesterday (think Intel Core Duo and AMD Opteron) to the quad cores of today (such as Intel's Core 2 Xeon and AMD's Barcelona) to six cores tomorrow. In fact, Intel plans to release its six-core Dunnington-class server/workstation processor in the second half of 2008.

The idea is that the more cores available, the better software performs-as long as it's written to take advantage of the multi-core chips. Today, such apps are few and far between. But that could change soon. Microsoft and Intel have pledged $20 million to set up and fund new parallel-programming research facilities at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop new programming models that can not only take advantage of multiple cores, but also multiple threads within each core. That could be good news for your customers moving to virtualization. With several virtual servers sharing the processor power within one piece of hardware, such multi-core, parallel-processing solutions are already becoming a necessity for some apps.

Along with speed, chipmakers are also focusing on building processors exclusively for the mobile market, which is expected to continue its rapid expansion this year. "Mobile processors will continue on a double-digit growth track for the year and are on track to surpass desktop processors in 2009," Richard Murphy, an analyst for research firm IDC, said in a statement. That said, look for more mobile-targeted chip options, such as Intel's new Atom processor, which is designed especially for ultra-small handhelds.


And finally, while chips are getting more powerful and mobile, they're also becoming more environmentally friendly, requiring less power (some just 50 watts) and cooling overall. That's something your customers will notice, especially because, for many, data center powering and cooling costs actually exceed overall server costs. Look for more-efficient, high-power chip alternatives such as Intel's quad-core Intel Xeon Processor L5400 Series, a 45-nanometer chip with cores that run at just 12.5 watts each.

2. Servers Are Moving Toward Blade Systems
Here the trend is toward small, high-performance blade systems that cannot only easily handle virtualized environments, but tend to be far more green when it comes to space, power and cooling costs.