Johannesburg, 13 Dec 2006
Where it was previously considered somewhat of a dark art and one dominated by extremely specialised players, the barriers to entry in the server space have been lowered substantially and the dynamics that made it such a specialised area have changed.
Today, any reseller with a sound understanding of their customers' needs and a well-qualified, albeit generally qualified technical team, can provide services and sell solutions in the server space.
Corne Kruger, IBM product manager at Tarsus Technologies, says a handful of initiatives, such as the recent changes in processor naming conventions, have contributed to the relative simplification of the server market.
"Looking at Intel and AMD's offerings," Kruger says, "it's relatively easy today to tell what the performance of one processor versus another is, thereby allowing resellers to accurately gauge which servers are best suited with which processors in certain environments.
"For example, the Intel Xeon 5050 has a clock speed of 3GHz, a 667MHx Front Side Bus and comes with two 2MB level two caches (one for each processor). The Xeon 5060, on the other hand, features a 3.2GHz clock speed, 1 067MHz Front Side Bus and also has two 2MB level two caches.
"The same goes for the AMD's Opteron 2210 and 2214. The former is a 1.8GHz processor, with an 800MHz Front Side Bus and two 1MB level two caches (one for each core). The latter is a 2.2GHz processor with the same refinements as its sibling.
"Whereas before, the resellers would need to weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of each characteristic, like clock speeds, bus speeds, cache sizes and the likes, today they simply look at the processor number and can tell which one is the better performer.
"So, the fact that the Opteron 2214 carries a 'higher' product number than the 2210 means that it's the faster performer, other specifications aside. The same goes for Intel, where the 5060 is clearly the faster of the two options," he explains.
Kruger says initiatives like this have been life-changing for many resellers. "They have helped us get away from clock speed as a performance indicator. Since it has been proven time and again, that clock speed is no longer the only important factor, this processor numbering convention speaks of the overall performance and not just one specific aspect of performance."
"While resellers now have a sure-fire way of recommending the right processor for the job, they also have the ability to look up the exact specifications on the vendors' Web sites should they desire to do so. The new naming conventions also guarantee that resellers are able to offer customers what they want," he adds.
Kruger does warn, however, that although the new naming conventions are useful in telling one vendor's products from the other, resellers and their customers should treat much of what vendors say with relation to competitors with some scrutiny.
"Benchmarks are one area where a certain amount of 'poetic licence' is used. For that reason, I recommend that both resellers and customers regularly check the independent benchmark results freely available on the Web from reputable sources such as Tom's Hardware Guide and Anandtech.
"The combination of easier to use product numbers and reputable results from independent Web-based publications form a strong foundation for resellers to recommend the best solution for their customers," he concludes.
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