Group Blog
Friday 7 November 2008, 09:00am
McAfee uses vPro for expansion
Posted by:
Security vendor McAfee has announced partnerships to take it into new areas. And Intel's vPro remote management technology is helping make that happen.
McAfee has signed up with network switch maker HP Procurve and virtualisation vendor VMware to put its scanning software into HP switches and the VMware Fusion hypervisor - and also with Intel to use vPro to manage desktop PCs better.
The vPro deal will "allow IT departments to discover and cure security problems outside of hours when PCs are turned off," according to ITPro. McAfee products will use vPro to report the health of PCs back to McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator management console, using fewer IT resources and allowing PCs to be switched off when not in use.
Digg
Slashdot
Del.ici.ous
Stumble
RedditThursday 6 November 2008, 09:00am
Xeon powers multi-core Java virtual machine
Posted by:
Aonix has added multicore support to make its PERC Ultra SMP run Java faster, in embedded and real-time applications for military, aerospace, and telecoms users.
Java was originally designed for multithreaded environments and Aonix says it couples well with its PERC virtual machine, so users can get the full benefit of multiprocessing without having to rewrite code designed for uniprocessor systems. It's all due to features like a real-time garbage collector that gives real-time microsecond response, the company says.
"Using an internally created and computationally intensive benchmark, PERC shows better than eight-times performance improvement on an eight-core multiprocessor system compared to the same test running in a single core" Gary Cato, Aonix' director of marketing said in a statement.
The secret is that all Java threads access the same shared objects so they can relocate themselves within memory. Threads can also migrate between processors, allowing load balancing between the cores. All this is based on Aonix's own patent-pending synchronisation technique, which makes sure that an application thread on one processor doesn't try to access an object which is being relocated by another process. All this needs specialised code sequences generated by a just-in-time compiler, and on an enhanced real-time garbage collection algorithm, which uses idle processors to relocate objects.
Wednesday 5 November 2008, 09:00am
HP takes Xeons for CAD
Posted by:
Computer-aided design (CAD) needs plenty of processor muscle, and Hewlett-Packard is lining up Intel Xeon processors for the job.
The HP ProLiant xw2x220c is a blade workstation - it lives in the datacentre, and is accessed remotely. It's part of a family introduced in April with the xw460c, a system designed for financial trading.
“We are now starting to focus on other customers, and this workstation [the ProLiant xw2x220c] is more focused on mechanical CAD,” Dan Olsen, a worldwide business development manager for HP blade workstations, told eWeek.
The xw2x220c has two independent compute nodes, each with a dual- or quad-core Intel Xeon processor and an Nvidia Quadro FX 770M discrete graphics card. Each node also supports two displays, has a dual-port gigabit NIC, and supports 32GB of main memory, and up to 120GB of data storage over SATA (serial ATA). It's available with Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux.
Tuesday 4 November 2008, 09:00am
Goodbye, 65nm?
Posted by:
The move to 45nm processors is going well - Intel says it is now selling more 45nm processors than 65nm chips - and several of the older Xeons are being phased out.
By July 2009 boxed versions of 31 quad- and dual-core 65nm processors will be withdrawn, according to TG Daily. Orders can be placed up until April, and thereafter the processors, which include Woodcrest and Clovertown cores, can be ordered in "tray" form.
Monday 3 November 2008, 02:00pm
vPro greens the cactus
Posted by:
"How green was my cactus?" asks Matthew Dickerson of Australia's Axxis Technology. Apparently it was a TV comedy series out there, but green isn't a laughing matter any more.
Dickerson tested Intel's vPro to assess its ability to reduce users' carbon footprint and cut costs. In the trial - reported in Australia's CRN, he replaced one PC at an Axxis client, with a vPro-enabled model.
"Power usage was cut by 68 percent (a reduction of 554kWh per year), power bills were cut by AU$120.87 per year and the replacement of one computer alone was the equivalent of taking one car off the road for 37 days," reports Dickerson.
Those savings scale up. If the client replaces all 50 PCs, that works out at AU$6,000 off the year's electricity bill, 27.7 tons of CO2 saved, and the equivalent of five cars permanently off the road.
CRN is a publication for resellers, so there's a subtext here: buying new equipment can result in money and environmental savings. "With tough economic times ahead, our clients want to make sure they are gaining value from every dollar," Dickerson concludes.
