IBM adopts high-performance cell chip

IBM has adopted a high-performance cell chip for server lines, reports Canada.com.

"The cell chip will make its IBM debut in a new line of blade servers - relatively thin chunks of circuitry designed to perform specialised computing tasks," says the article.

IBM envisions the cell-based blades to be used in markets requiring sterling graphics and intensive computing.

Sun Microsystems has revealed their plans in the x64 market, and slashed prices on all its server products, according to DailyTech.

"The unnamed Sun 'Galaxy` server features 8 AMD Opteron sockets, 32 DIMM slots and four disc drives," it says.

Sun drew attention recently with controversial anti-Dell advertisements, and the Sun "Get off the `Itanic`" initiative inspired by the belief that Itanium users are being left "high-and-dry" by HP.

Users with servers powered by Intel`s Paxville Xeon MP processor can now take advantage of the virtualisation capabilities in their Xeon-powered servers, the Channel Insider reports.

Users can now contact systems makers Dell, HP and IBM to upgrade the BIOS on the chip enabling activation of the Intel virtualisation technology, says Diane Bryant, GM of Intel`s Server Platforms Group. The technology was in the chip when it started shipping last year, but it was disabled until now.

"You can now enable virtualisation technology in your servers and start running it in your testing and development environments," Bryant adds.