IBM unveils cloud machine

IBM has this week unveiled a service-oriented architecture appliance it says will help customers to build private cloud infrastructures, reports Information Age.

The WebSphere CloudBurst appliance, which the company unveiled at its Impact conference in Las Vegas, allows users to provision and manage virtual instances of application servers. This means if there is a peak in demand for an application, new instances can be quickly provisioned and decommissioned.

“Cloud [computing] has to be built on a virtualised infrastructure so it can stretch to meet demand,” said Walter Falk, an IBM SOA executive, at Information Age's Business Applications and Infrastructure 2009 conference last week.

Super Micro Computer, a company that provides application-optimised server solutions, has released server building block solutions that are based on the 4W and 8W Intel Atom processor, states enterpriser.in.

They have been designed for embedded industrial PC applications that require extreme low-power and low-noise computing solutions. At the same time, Super Micro Computer states that its solution is also able to deliver the best expansion and storage features of any Atom-based platform.

According to Super Micro Computer, such solutions are ideal for storage and network appliances, or print and e-mail servers.

Via Technologies may try to extend the use of its Nano processors from netbooks to servers in a potential challenge to Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, although the battle will be an uphill one, analysts say, writes The Times.

Last week Via introduced a Nano-based motherboard for multimedia servers. It is Via's first server product based on the Nano chip, and some analysts said it could mark the start of an effort by Via to expand the chip's role in servers.

The Nano consumes less power and generates less heat than most server chips, but it is also less powerful. It runs at a maximum clock speed of 1.6GHz and is available in only a single-core edition.