While we are all well-behaved boys and girls, patiently waiting for an onslaught of Via Nano-based netbooks and low-cost laptops so we can give the, well, you know, to Intel and AMD, those sneaky people over at Dell have unveiled an entirely different type of computer using the Nano platform: a server.When talking about power-efficiency in processors and chips we often tend to think of laptops and especially netbooks, but that doesn't mean the server world cannot benefit from these types of chips as well. Dell has realised that, and today unveiled its XS11-VX8 server, which uses Via Nano processors. Users can stick 12 of these servers into a 2U chassis.
Via Nano processors are clocked anywhere between 1.0 and 1.8Ghz, using a 65-nanometer manufacturing process, and only consume 15W of power when the operating system is idle, and when running a full application load, it rises to only 20-29W (quite impressive). Nano chips are also fully 64bit capable, and have hardware virtualisation extensions.
The XS11-VX8, codenamed "Fortuna", is designed for what Dell calls "hyper-scaling", a scenario where for instance search engine and web hosting businesses need to stuff as many servers into an as little a space as possible. Often, these customers use 1U servers or simply tower models, but these are not space or power efficient. As such, Dell's DCS team (apparently known as a skunkworks team) set out to design a solution specifically for this market:
However, what usually catches most customers' attention is the form factor. With a size slightly larger than a 3.5-inch hard drive, Fortuna is a "hot-plug" server with its own dedicated memory, storage, BMC, and dual 1GbE NIC’s. The chassis exists to provide power, cooling, and a mechanism to mount in a rack. This provides unprecedented density – supporting six servers per rack unit (U) or 252 servers in a 42U rack.
This is a pretty interesting server, and priced at only USD 400, it's not exactly expensive either. It's also good news for Via, which has trouble competing with its Nano platform in a market dominated by Intel's Atom.
"The 'Llano' processor that AMD described today in an ISSCC session is not a CPU, and it's not a GPU - instead, it's a hybrid design that the chipmaker is calling an 'application processor unit', or APU. Whatever you call it, it could well give Intel a run for its money in the laptop market, by combining a full DX11-compatible GPU with four out-of-order CPU cores on a single, 32nm processor die."
"The scuttlebutt is that IBM seemed perfectly content to wait until May to launch the Power7-based Power Systems servers, but something changed and compelled the company to move up the announcement of its first machines using the eight-core processor to today. Big Blue is not in a habit of explaining its motives or its timing for product launches, but it seems clear that IBM wanted to get out in front of a whole lot of processor and systems launches that are expected between now and the summer."
Mozilla has announced that they are going to drop support for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger definitively. "Mac OS X 10.4 was released in April of 2005 and a lot has changed since then," Josh Aas writes, "We would like to take advantage of more modern technologies on Mac OS X and 10.4 support has been a hindrance. Where we can work around supporting 10.4, doing so consumes valuable time and effort. Neither Chrome nor Safari has to deal with this."
"The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs. Mr Ormandy has found a way to exploit this utility in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well as Windows Vista and Windows 7. The patch for this vulnerability will appear in the February security update. Five of the vulnerabilities being patched at the same time allow attackers to effectively hijack a Windows PC and run their own programs on it."
"Today, Clang completed its first complete self-host! We built all of LLVM and Clang with Clang (over 550k lines of C++ code). The resulting binaries passed all of Clang and LLVM's regression test suites, and the Clang-built Clang could then build all of LLVM and Clang again. The third-stage Clang was also fully-functional, completing the bootstrap."
With all the virtualization schemes running on top of Linux, how do they exploit the underlying kernel for I/O virtualization? The answer is virtio, which provides an efficient abstraction for hypervisors and a common set of I/O virtualization drivers. Discover virtio, and learn why Linux will soon be the hypervisor of choice.
"The Mono Project releases the first preview of Moonlight 3.0, giving application developers a first look at the open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight 3 technology for the Linux platform." Sadly, it's still Firefox-only.
"In a definitive defeat for film studios - and in a first case of its kind worldwide - Australia's Federal Court has ruled that ISPs have no obligation to act on copyright infringement notices or to disconnect subscribers after receiving multiple letters. If copyright holders want justice for illegal file-sharing, they need to start by targeting the right people: those who committed the infringement."
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, an advocate of Web 2.0, used Twitter early Thursday to announce his resignation. He was named CEO in 2006 as Sun faced a switch in strategic direction away from proprietary systems and toward open source code, including its valued Solaris 10 operating system. "Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it", he said in a tweet to his followers, reported the New York Times on its Web site at 1:12 a.m. Thursday. He added a bit of haiku: "Financial crisis, Stalled too many customers, CEO no more."
"The venerable GNU Image Manipulation Program is undergoing a significant transformation. The next major release, version 2.8, will introduce an improved user interface with an optional single-window mode. Although this update is still under heavy development, users can get an early look by compiling the latest source code of the development version from the GIMP's version control repository."