HP has thrown its weight behind promoting early adoption of dual-core processor technology, saying it represents an important industry-defining change that business cannot ignore.
"Using dual-core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for HP`s new additions to the Proliant server range was largely driven by user demands for what makes business sense," says Paul Collins, industry standard servers manager for HP SA.
"HP is working to establish dual-core processor technology as an industry standard by spurring adoption, which will hopefully draw more chip manufacturers into the server market. This in turn will enable HP to become chip-agnostic as well as platform-agnostic," he says.
"Dual-core provides a compelling alternative to single-core processor technology because it can boost the performance of certain applications by up to 75% at a similar price, but without the associated power and overheating issues," continues Collins.
In addition to better performance and price-to-performance ratios, Collins points out that dual-core represents further savings for users of software with a per-processor licensing model.
Collins concedes that the performance gains provided by dual-core may not be that important for entry-level Proliant server customers, but says dual-core is aimed at providing greater scalability to close the gap between mid-market and high-end servers.
"HP sees dual-core in the Proliant servers as bridging the gap between 32-bit and true 64-bit servers in terms of processing power as well as making it easier to achieve server consolidation and virtualisation," explains Collins.
Despite some resistance by non-AMD customers to having to switch to AMD to realise the benefits of dual-core processors, Collins says HP is seeing that resistance beginning to crumble.
"Business is demanding better returns on IT investments and because business is increasingly directing IT spend and there is a diminishing business case for single-core solutions, we are expecting an explosion in dual-core adoption in coming months."
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