Supermicro's Emerging Server Architecture
Scalability, Performance & Quality Are Key Ingredients For Its Success
20 July 2007 Source: www.supermicro.com
It's certainly a lofty goal for server administrators, but pushing a data center beyond the limits of standard server architecture has many tangible benefits. One is that applications run faster for business users, which means the business itself is running faster.
With optimization and better performance come more reliable, well-tuned systems that require less maintenance and additional hardware upgrades down the road. And optimization is a sure way to make management less time-consuming, as systems not only operate faster and smoother but interoperate better between server platforms.
Supermicro has helped lead the charge for more advanced computing with optimized I/O server board products such as the 1U Twin and the new UIO (Universal I/O) line, which is available in a bare-bones package or with specific components installed, such as a networking or a SATA RAID 5/6 daughter card. The primary advantage is in scalability and performance for small to midsized enterprises that are expecting growth or want to finely control data center expansion.
"I have the simple belief that a lot of data centers need higher quality, better performance, and better optimization, which is why I started the company in Silicon Valley in 1993," says Charles Liang, Supermicro's CEO. "We have been a very successful company when it comes to high-performance servers, and we are first to market with many of our products."
Current Innovations
The most recent Supermicro product is the Universal I/O board, which allows admins to add expansion cards at will and still benefit from the existing expansion slots available in the server rack. The UIO is, at least in part, a response to how data centers have changed in the past few years, with capital budgets that require managers to look for ways to expand without making wholesale changes in architecture every year. Liang says another trend is in application optimization, due to an increased demand by business units for more and more power for mission-critical tools.
"Companies have become more and more aggressive about server costs, and this is especially true in the channel market [where companies serve as a solution provider to other companies]," says Liang. "There's now a price-cost and performance sensitivity in the server market; companies aren't just looking for the lowest price but for a provider who can demonstrate the best performance at a given price. Cost is not the most effective way to select a server, but it is more important to look for optimization and power efficiency. With Universal I/O, there is also more scalability, with three options for expansion in the 1U form factor and seven expansion options in the 2U form factor."
Yes, It's Possible
Liang says the one challenge with Supermicro's Universal I/O product is just explaining that it is possible. In the relatively complex server marketplace, it's often hard for customers to grasp that a server board could be so "plug-and-play" with expansion cards, especially when so many other vendors are only offering replacement boards when a company wants to change its architecture. Liang says that the company has to train its salespeople to explain in detail how the product works, the advantages, and the flexibility it produces. Currently, Supermicro offers about 15 expansion cards and expects to offer about 30 to 40 expansion cards by the end of the year, such as new SAS and IP controllers.
The company has also recently announced a new SuperBlade enclosure product that will support up to 10 dual-processor or quad-processor compute blades.
Supermicro is proving, with its long history of performance products and the new Universal I/O products, that server optimization is not only a boon for server admins but can provide the flexibility and scalability that data centers are demanding.
Source: www.processor.com