GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of server hardware, today announced the launch of its complete line of barebone rack servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family.

This refresh in GIGABYTE's server hardware offering includes a large choice of dual socket systems based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 and E5-2400 product families. Customers can therefore narrow down their processor and system choice according to their specific needs in computing power and energy consumption.

AMD announced today that Dr. Suresh Gopalakrishnan, 49, has joined the company as corporate vice president and general manager of its server business, reporting to Dr. Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager, Global Business Units. In this role, Dr. Gopalakrishnan will lead AMD's server business and is responsible for driving the end-to-end business execution of server solutions worldwide. Andrew Feldman will continue in his role as corporate vice president and general manager of AMD's Data Center Server Solutions business, also reporting to Dr. Su.

"Today's data center operators and enterprises need to reduce cost and power consumption while increasing performance, and AMD has been working hard to meet these needs with our AMD Opteron processor family and SeaMicro fabric technology," said Dr. Su. "Under Suresh's leadership, we will accelerate our disruptive server strategy by leveraging our broad IP portfolio to deliver superior products designed to offer the world's best performance-per-dollar and power efficiency."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that its SAS-based Talos 2 SSDs will be showcased during Microsoft's North American TechEd (technology education) conferences. With this partnership, TechEd participants will get a firsthand look at the upcoming Windows Server 2012 and how it delivers the enterprise-class storage capabilities that IT departments require. OCZ Talos 2 drives will be highlighted in various Windows Server 2012 demonstrations showing their leading application performance and data access, high endurance and reliability, seamless integration of 2.5-inch form factors, and true dual-ported SAS capabilities.

Fusion-io today announced that it is enabling high performance database and virtualization solutions with seven new Fusion-powered HP IO Accelerator products for the industry-leading HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem platforms. Integrated into HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) servers, the new HP IO Accelerators can boost application performance to address organizations' growing requirements to cost-effectively accelerate data-intensive applications.

To enable enterprises to cost-effectively enhance their data infrastructure, one or more HP IO Accelerators can be easily integrated within servers according to application and organizational needs. The HP IO Accelerators sit inside the server, directly on the PCIe bus with CPUs and Memory, rather than external to the server in a storage array being accessed over much slower links. The IO Accelerators boost applications by bypassing traditional storage controllers and unlocking trapped compute cycles.

SGI, the trusted leader in technical computing, today announced the availability of a complete, managed GPU solution of its SGI Rackable servers with the new high-performance NVIDIA Tesla K10 GPU Computing Accelerator. Coupled with SGI Management and Performance Suite software, the solution is built, completely integrated, and tested in SGI's manufacturing facility so that it can be installed at the customer site and begin running application codes in less than a day.

The next-generation NVIDIA Tesla K10 GPU Accelerator is designed for throughput and performance per watt. It features two ultra-efficient GK104 GPUs that provide up to 2X performance per watt for single precision applications than its predecessor, the M2090. The NVIDIA Tesla K10 features two GK104 GPUs with 1536 CUDA cores each and 4 GB of memory operating at 160 GB/second per GPU. These GPUs are shown to be particularly well suited to single high precision workloads, including seismic processing, signal, image and video analysis, and radio astronomy.

Shacknews is reporting Diablo III is pretty popular. So popular, in fact, that the servers have been overloaded by the flood of clickmaniacs trying to play when it launched at midnight. As Diablo III requires players be online to play, even by themselves, there are a lot of sullen faces around this morning, staring glumly at 'Error 37' messages. Still, some are able to play. There's a little good D3 news in that Blizzard is helping out Australian fans who pre-ordered from GAME, after the failing retailer said it wouldn't honour their orders but would keep their money.

"Due to high concurrency the login servers are currently at full capacity. This may cause delays in the login process, account pages and web services," a Blizzard representative said of Error 37. "We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience while this is being resolved." A message on the login screen notes, "We're also aware of issues affecting character creation and are working to resolve them at this time." Hang in there, then. As for the land down under, after GAME entered administration earlier this week, it told Diablo III pre-orders that they wouldn't receive their game, but nor could they get a refund. Blizzard kindly stepped in to save them, explaining that those with proof of preordering can buy a digital copy through Battle.net then submit their GAME receipt for a refund. You'll need to buy before May 21, and send your receipt in by June 30, though.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of Crucial Load-Reduced DIMM (LRDIMM) server memory in support of the new Intel Xeon processor E5 family.

The rise of data center virtualization, cloud computing, and transactional databases has put additional strain on enterprise servers, causing them to struggle to meet user demands. Crucial LRDIMM server memory supports higher memory densities than standard DDR3 RDIMMs, allowing the addition of more DIMMs per channel, and providing flexible, scalable memory that allows applications to perform more effectively. By reducing the electrical loads presented to the CPU, Crucial LRDIMMs deliver up to twice the installed memory capacity for Intel Xeon processor E5 family-based servers, and increase memory bandwidth by up to 35 percent over standard DDR3 RDIMM modules, helping improve overall data center performance and efficiency.

HP today extended its HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) portfolio with new servers that deliver increased performance, simplified maintenance and improved data center uptime.

HP also announced new financial, support and partner programs, including the HP ProActive Insight Architecture Alliance, which brings together some of the world's leading technology companies to eliminate manual maintenance tasks and significantly improve data center efficiency.

Intel Corporation today announced the expansion of the Intel Xeon processor portfolio with new products designed to address a broad and emerging set of server requirements and provide IT managers with additional choice and flexibility.

To offer a range of energy-efficient and affordable solutions for server and workstation customers, the company introduced twenty-eight processors across three product families: eight processors from the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 product family and nine processors from the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 product family designed to complement the already available Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family. The company also announced availability of eleven processors from the Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v2 product family.

Dell today announced additions to the PowerEdge portfolio with new blade, rack and tower servers designed to deliver value and performance in demanding enterprise and mainstream environments. The new blade servers offer strong performance gains and improved efficiencies from the shared power, cooling and network infrastructure, and professional IT services. The new tower and rack servers are built to enhance customer IT infrastructures with enterprise-class capabilities and tailored chassis designs for small and midsize businesses.

Dell introduced industry-leading innovations in the PowerEdge 12th generation servers based on input gathered from more than 7,700 customer interactions in 17 countries across four continents. The company was the first-to-ship servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family with the first wave of PowerEdge 12th generation servers in March 2012.

Dell today announced that customers such as Morphlabs and Vibrant Media are using Dell microserver technologies based on Intel Xeon processors to power business-critical web 2.0, cloud, and content delivery networks (CDN), as well as high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Driven by the emergence of a growing hardware and application ecosystem, x86-based microservers are rapidly evolving from a niche solution to one with widespread awareness and value.

"We're constantly inspired by the unique ways our customers are leveraging Dell microserver platforms to drive specialized web 2.0, HPC and cloud computing applications," said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager, Dell Server Solutions. "As the microserver market and ecosystem have matured, customers like Vibrant Media have validated that microservers are a cost-effective, scalable platform in web 2.0 environments."

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation today announced the world's first web server implementation running on a 64-bit ARM v8-compliant processor. This demonstration of an open-source web server application represents another critical milestone for X-Gene, AppliedMicro's "Server-on-a-Chip" solution designed to power next-generation cloud-computing data centers and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). It also represents the first 64-bit ARM development vehicle for the ecosystem community that will aid in the acceleration of server system development.

Since first announcing X-Gene in October of 2011, AppliedMicro has evolved the initial multi-core server-on-a-chip (SOC) implementation to a full-scale server running real applications. This enables OEMs, ODMs, Cloud Service Providers, Independent Software Vendors and other development partners to conduct early stage performance benchmarking and software development in parallel with silicon development.

Acer America today announced a new commercial offering, the Acer AC100 micro-server. It delivers the latest server-class features and utilities in a compact form factor to suit the needs of small and medium businesses.

Featuring an easy to configure micro-tower enabling quick upgrades, the new Acer AC100 not only reduces the time and costs associated with maintenance, but also provides excellent expandability in its class. In addition to Energy Star certification, it boasts a high-efficiency 200W 80 PLUS power supply, which makes the AC100 more than 80 percent energy efficient at 20, 50 and 100 percent rated loads, reducing electricity use and bills.

At the sold-out Microsoft Management Summit, Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson spoke to nearly 5,000 IT professionals about their opportunity to deliver fast, reliable services with cloud computing. His keynote speech highlighted how customers around the world are already using Microsoft System Center 2012, available today for evaluation and purchase, to create private clouds. Anderson also discussed how IT professionals can evolve their roles with cloud computing to help their businesses be more competitive.

"Cloud computing gives IT professionals an opportunity to increase their strategic value to their businesses while building new skills," Anderson said. "Microsoft's private cloud solutions help IT professionals become cloud innovators for their companies, managing and delivering the applications people need to be productive across private, hybrid and public clouds."

Synology Inc. today introduced the Plex Media Server package, which provides selected DiskStation and RackStation users with a complete media solution, hundreds of channels of online content, and the capability to stream the content to user's iOS and Android devices, Windows and Mac computers, and Roku Media Streamers. The Plex media server is developed by Plex.

Plex Media Server package seamlessly streams media content stored in DiskStation and RackStation to various devices, offering users with the convenience of browsing and watching their video collections anytime, anywhere. "We appreciate Plex's effort to develop a package for DiskStation and RackStation users. The Plex Media Server package brings users unified and unsurpassed media experience which is cost effective, flexible, and easy-to-use," said Darren Lin, product manager of Synology Inc.

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., today announced that it has expanded its portfolio of Hitachi Compute Systems with the addition of the new Hitachi Compute Blade 500. The new blade server is the first Hitachi Data Systems product to incorporate the latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600. The open, flexible architecture and high-performance, high-availability features of Hitachi Compute Blade 500 make it an ideal platform for virtualized infrastructures and demanding cloud applications.

I-O Data unveiled a new USB 3.0 host card (model: USB3-PEX2S), which is designed to be server-grade, with out of the box support for Windows Server, including USB 3.0 SuperSpeed support for Windows 2003, 2003 R2 64-bit/32-bit; Windows 2008, and 2008 R2 64-bit/32-bit. The low-profile capable card provides two USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports, and appears to be driven by a Renesas-made chipset. It connects to the system bus over PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and draws auxiliary power from a SATA power connector. Slated for market launch in late-April, the USB3-PEX2S from I-O Data is priced at 3,885 JPY (US $48).

Synology Inc. today launched RackStation RS2212+ and RS2212RP+, the reliable 10-bay rack mount NAS servers designed with seamless scalability for small and medium businesses.

"Synology RS2212+ and RS2212RP+, the newest addition to the Plus Series line-up, are a highly dependable and scalable solution for small and medium business owners. It delivers high system availability and storage capacity for mission-critical workloads, enabling clients to run business-critical applications with continual service uptime," said Peter Chen, Product Manager of Synology Inc.

LSI Corporation today introduced the Nytro portfolio, a comprehensive family of solutions that combines PCIe flash technology with intelligent caching and management software to achieve accelerated application performance in datacenters and cloud environments.

The amount of data being stored and accessed worldwide is growing at an exponential rate, outpacing the ability of traditional storage architectures to keep up. This creates bottlenecks, throttling application performance and making it harder for companies to extract the full value from data. Nytro solutions allow datacenters to contend with massive data growth and speed the ability of databases and other applications to access data and provide real-time analytics and reporting.

Synology today announced RackStation RS812+ and RS812RP+, expandable 4-bay rackmount NAS servers bringing high performance, scalability, and reliability to small and medium businesses.

"Synology RS812+ and RS812RP+ are built to address the needs of businesses that require high performance and maximum system uptime to run mission-critical applications," said Peter Chen, Product Manager of Synology Inc. "They ensure business continuity with an array of redundancy and availability features," added Chen.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today launched a new line of DDR3L ECC SO-DIMM server memory modules, boasting low voltage, large densities, and rapid processing capability. They are designed and engineered especially for cloud computing solutions, and can greatly minimize the power consumption of a wide range of network systems.

A new kind of server is becoming increasingly needed for website hosting and mission critical applications. Micro-servers are a new type of server suited for the special workloads of data centers. Starting in the second half of 2009, many large data centers and information service suppliers have begun to use micro-servers. Micro-servers are taking an increasingly important role in small site dedicated hosting, lightweight web serving, and simple content delivery. Many semiconductor manufacturers have announced plans to enter the micro-server market, and are expected to release new low-power processors for use with high density servers.

Worldwide factory revenue for the high performance computing (HPC) technical server market increased by 8.4% in full-year 2011 to reach a record $10.3 billion, up from $9.5 billion in 2010, according to the newly released International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide High-Performance Technical Server QView. The 2011 results exceeded IDC's forecast of 7.2% year-over-year revenue growth.

Unit shipments in 2011 declined 6.9% year over year as average selling prices grew, indicating a continued shift to large system sales. IBM and HP ended the year in a statistical tie for leadership with 32.6% and 32.1% of overall factory revenue market share, respectively. (Note: IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide server market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.)

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, is proud to announce its launch of 16 GB DDR3-1600 Registered DIMM (RDIMM) and 8GB DDR3L-1333 Low Voltage RDIMM modules. Fully compatible with the latest generation of Intel Xeon and Core i7 processors, the cost-effective DDR3 memory modules provide increased memory density and higher performance, while significantly reducing power consumption.

As Transcend's highest density DDR3 module, the 16GB DDR3-1600 RDIMM is constructed with top quality 4 Gb DDR3 1 Gbx4 35nm DRAM chips that deliver stable performance and durability. A single 16 GB memory module can lower power consumption by a staggering 75% compared with using four 4 GB modules, thereby saving energy and costs. The 16GB DDR3 module is rated at 1600 MHz with low latency of 11-11-11-28 and an operating voltage of a mere 1.5V. Offering memory bandwidth up to 12.8 GB/s and the flexibility to expand maximum capacity to 96 GB (per processor), the 16GB DDR3-1600 RDIMM module allows administrators to create a robust infrastructure that runs memory-intensive applications such as virtualization and cloud computing with ease.

AMD today announced the latest solution as part of its ongoing Web/Cloud initiative with the launch of the new AMD Opteron 3200 Series processor. Dedicated Web hosting customers seeking enterprise-class reliability have a new choice that delivers:

- Great value with up to 38% better price performance and up to 19% less power per core than the competition;
- ECC memory and server reliability features at a low price-point;
- Fast hardware payback -- in as few as 7 months hosting fees can cover hardware costs -- up to 14% quicker than with the competition;
- Efficient economics for the Cloud with twice the core density per rack.

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS112j, the most economical, power-saying and quiet 1-bay NAS server designed to serve as users' private cloud and multimedia center.

"Synology DS112j comes at an entry-level price point, but makes no compromise in the richness of features offered by Synology," said Darren Lin, a product manager of Synology Inc. "It is a gateway to Synology's unique cloud services and applications, making it easy for users to keep their data in sync across all their PC, mobile devices and DS112j, and carry terabytes of multimedia files anywhere," Lin added.