Group Blog
Wednesday 24 December 2008, 09:52am
Two Intel cores beat four of AMDs
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Benchmarks of the Core i7 Intel Nehalem processor are causing some excitement - can two of Intel's cores really beat four of AMD's?
Apparently so, according to benchmarks at Anandtech. Both HP and Fujitsu-Siemens published SAP benchmarks of Xeon 5570-based systems, and the results got exciting: "The SAP numbers are absolutely astonishing, as Intel's dual socket is able to outperform quad socket [AMD] Opteron machines," says Johan de Gelas at Anandtech.
A 3 GHz Nehalem outperformed the latest Opteron by a margin as high as 80 per cent reports Gelas, a result which may be due to hyperthreading. The Fujitsu-Siemens Primergy server ran 16 threads on eight cores in the test, which boosts SAP performance a lot, because "the SAP application has very low IPC [inter-process-communication] and is very parallel".
"Hats off to the Intel engineers," says Anandtech, and we'd have to agree.
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RedditFriday 12 December 2008, 12:01am
AMT anti-theft tech delivers “poison pill” to stolen laptops
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Lenovo has launched laptops which are a lot harder to steal, and the technology is powered by Intel's vPro.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T400, launched in early December, is the first to use Intel's Anti-Theft PC Protection, according to eWeek.
The laptops include a variety of features including a "poison pill" to disable a laptop that has been reported stolen. Intel announced the Anti-Theft feature in April, but Lenovo is the first to deliver it.
The laptop has Absolute Software's Computrace software in its firmware and this works with vPro technology in the laptop to track the device. If the laptop remains disconnected from corporate servers for too long, or if there are too many failed log-in attempts, the software can be triggered by policy. This can disable the machine and wipe or encrypt the hard drive.
The “poison pill” is reversible - when the laptop is returned the IT department can restart it and decrypt the hard drive with a special password.
"Security has been something that has been talked about, but we have not seen the rubber hit the road," said IDC analyst Richard Shim. "Now, we are starting to see these new technologies come out that enable security features such as restricting access to a notebook if it has been lost or stolen, encryption to prevent access to this information or in some cases just destroying the data on the system."
Thursday 11 December 2008, 12:01am
Thin clients enabled by Intel vPro
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Lenovo has come up with latest version of the thin client concept - a diskless desktop machine, called a secure managed client (SMC), that looks and feels like a PC but has its applications and data elsewhere on the network in a storage array.
Remote management is a key part of the project and Lenovo is building it on vPro processors from Intel. Although the storage is separate this is actually a full-blown PC, so the system doesn't get into the complications of altering operating systems and other aspects of the machine, explains NetworkWorld.
"The secret sauce of the SMC solution is the software interface between the desktop PC and the storage array," says NetworkWorld's Linda Musthaler. "The Lenovo SMC Management Software is used to centrally manage all SMC users, images and the storage array. During the desktop device boot up sequence, this software goes and gets the appropriate OS and application software and pushes it to the desktop based on the end user’s profile. Desktop management software ensures that the devices are well managed to reduce the cost of support."
Watch this one, it could be a big deal.
Wednesday 10 December 2008, 12:01am
Green IT made easy with AMT and vPro
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Being greener is actually very simple in principle. It comes down to things as easy as turning off lights and PCs when they aren't in use.
Of course, it's not as simple as that in the real world, because you need to find another way to keep those machines updated, even when they are switched off. But management software company Kaseya thinks it should be easy: even small companies can get remote management with Intel vPro, including remote power control, if they go with a managed service provider using suitable software.
This can save $70 per year, per machine, as well as the staff savings from making maintenance easier, says Dan Shapero, Kaseya’s VP of marketing. “What we’re hoping is by making it really easy to set power management policies, it doesn’t turn into a chore for users,” he says.
Tuesday 9 December 2008, 12:01am
Intel Nehalem “so fast it’s almost silly”
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The dual-socket server variant of the Intel Nehalem Xeon architecture is "so fast it's almost silly", according to TechRadar.
The tech website got a quick taste of Nehalem Xeons for some "guerrilla benchmarking" in a dual-socket system running at 2.8GHz with 24GB of memory. The system scored a scorching SPECfp value of 160 - compared with 90 for the current Penryn-based Xeons running at 3.4GHz. Since the speed will be up to 3.2GHz by the time the processors are commercially available, the eventual speed will be even better.
The big improvement is in the new QuickPath bus, which replaces the front side bus, and the integrated memory controller, replacing a discrete one in current architectures. As a result, the memory bandwidth is "borderline biblical", says TechRadar, "clocking up 35GB/s in SiSoft Sandra's quick and dirty bandwidth benchmark".
By comparison, AMD's Shanghai gets only 105. It reaches 190 if you run four sockets, but the Nehalem two-socket score is likely to improve. "In other words," says TechRadar, "as good as AMD's new Shanghai chip is, it appears that Nehalem EP will slap it around with a wet fish."
There's a longer comparative posting at Anandtech, but Johan de Gelas there admits he is comparing desktop Nehalems with server Shanghais.
