TechInsight Magazine
Next-Gen Enthusiast. Intel’s Core i7 3000-series processors represent the company’s most modern high-end platform, incorporating up to six cores, 15 MB of L3 cache, and 40 lanes of PCIe.Intel stunned enthusiasts early in 2011 when it launched its second-generation Core i7, i5, and i3 processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. Despite the fact that they were priced aggressively, the new CPUs delivered incredible speed increases. Now, the company's most enthusiast-oriented products are inheriting the same fundamental design, with the added benefits of extra execution cores, more shared L3 cache, higher clock rates, and tons of PCI Express connectivity. As a result, the power users who stuck with their high-end machines, opting to hold off on Sandy Bridge, now have a compelling reason to upgrade.
Smashing Bottlenecks With New Tech
High-Capacity Flash Storage. Just-announced 20 nm NAND from Intel and Micron facilitates density not yet seen in the solid-state storage space. These eight 128 Gb die hold up to 128 GB of data.The fact that we've covered storage technology throughout 2011 is incredibly telling. What was once a fairly even-paced industry absolutely rocketed forward once solid-state drives started finding their way into more business-oriented applications. Quickly, an infrastructure of supporting cards, controllers, and software emerged to help resellers and their customers make the most of flash-based storage. That's not to take anything away from conventional hard drives; they're still the backbone of most servers, delivering the best price per gigabyte of capacity. Today, mixed environments are proving their mettle.
Performance Computing Get Ahead Of The HPC Curve
Big-Time Compute Density. Microway’s NumberSmasher cluster combines Intel Xeon processors, fast InfiniBand interconnects, and high-speed storage in a potent computing platform.
We make a clear distinction between storage servers, rack-mounted machines, and even entry-level pedestal boxes perfect for an SMB. Although those are practically very different, the VARs who build and maintain one type of business-oriented solution are often well-qualified to take care of the others. Stepping into the world of high-performance computing is not like that. Resellers who get involved not only need expertise on the hardware side, but they should also be able to address unique software applications. We're here to help get your feet wet with the tenets of HPC.
Allies In The Channel Help VARs Succeed
Server Building Blocks. When Intel launched its Xeon E3-series processors, its EPSD group quickly populated the ecosystem with boards, add-in cards, and chassis to support the CPU.No reseller is an island. Relationships mold every aspect of your work, and vendors are every bit as important to success as customers. Although the channel sees a lot of competition from tier-one businesses, VARs enjoy the benefit of localization, which makes it easier to understand what SMBs are trying to do first-hand and address those needs with the right solution. A number of very channel-oriented companies are with you on that quest, going out of their way to design programs that not only help keep resellers educated, but also help them do battle in a very competitive marketplace.
