AMD today unveiled its new AMD Opteron 6300 Series server processors based on its next-generation "Piledriver" core architecture. The new AMD Opteron processors deliver superior performance and scalability for virtualized server platforms that are central to private and public cloud deployments, big data systems and high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. The AMD Opteron 6300 Series processors strike the ultimate balance between performance, scalability and cost effectiveness to help IT organizations lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

The AMD Opteron 6300 Series processors offer industry-leading performance in SPECjbb2005, a server benchmark used to evaluate Java performance, with up to 24 percent higher performance versus the prior generation AMD Opteron 6200 Series processors. Java is a critical element of the software ecosystem for next-generation data centers. Performance per watt is up to 40 percent higher than the prior generation solutions(2), which means businesses running robust large-scale software systems will be able to enjoy high performance as well as low TCO.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, and Intel, a world leader in computing innovation, today announced the inclusion of Crucial server memory modules in the Intel Demo Depot Program. This service lends fully configured Intel Xeon-based servers to customers for evaluation and testing prior to final purchase. As a brand of Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest memory manufacturers in the world, Crucial supplies the Intel Demo Depot Program with DDR3L registered DIMMs ranging from 8 GB to 16 GB densities, in speeds of 1600 MT/s and 1333 MT/s to support Intel's latest generation of servers.

The Intel Demo Depot Program consists of more than 200 servers and is available to interested customers throughout North America. Potential customers procure evaluation servers for 30-day periods to test equipment and proof-of-concept trials. Servers are also used by various technology manufacturers for demonstrations at tech-focused tradeshows and customer demos by Intel field account engineers.

ARM, Red Hat, Inc. and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation today announced a collaboration that aims to develop a disruptive 64-bit server design platform to dramatically lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of cloud computing, data centers and enterprises.

Fully compliant with the ARMv8 architecture, the AppliedMicro X-Gene Server on a Chip has been purpose-built for cloud and enterprise server deployment to deliver unprecedented low power, high performance and integration, with the goal of changing the way servers are designed for cloud, data center and enterprise applications.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, is actively engaged in developing support within the Fedora community for the new 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, also known as AArch64.

Today at the O'Reilly Strata Conference + Hadoop World, Microsoft Corp. announced new previews of Windows Azure HDInsight Service and Microsoft HDInsight Server for Windows, the company's Apache Hadoop-based solutions for Windows Azure and Windows Server. The new previews, available today at www.microsoft.com/bigdata, deliver Apache Hadoop compatibility for the enterprise and simplify deployment of Hadoop-based solutions. In addition, delivering these capabilities on the Windows Server and Azure platforms enables customers to use the familiar tools of Excel, PowerPivot for Excel and Power View to easily extract actionable insights from the data.

"Big data should provide answers for business, not complexity for IT," said David Campbell, technical fellow, Microsoft. "Providing Hadoop compatibility on Windows Server and Azure dramatically lowers the barriers to setup and deployment and enables customers to pull insights from any data, any size, on-premises or in the cloud."

As an extension to its ARM-based server ecosystem enablement and to further application development and testing to this technology, Dell today announced a donation of an ARM-based server concept to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the volunteer community that develops, stewards and incubates nearly 150 open source software projects and initiatives.

Dell believes ARM infrastructures demonstrate promise for web front-end and Hadoop environments, where advantages in performance per dollar and performance per watt are critical. Dell customers use many of Apache's open source software products, including Hadoop, Cassandra, and the Apache HTTP Web Server as part of their big data and cloud computing solutions, so Dell is providing this community with an ARM-based server concept running Calxeda EnergyCore. This server is accessible to all Apache projects for software development and native porting of applications.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced today it has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America for the eighth consecutive year. The company has also been added to the FTSE4Good Index Series. These most recent acknowledgements highlight AMD's commitment to ethical and sustainable business practices.

"AMD is proud to be ranked among the world's leading sustainable businesses and to have our commitment to ethical business practices recognized by these influential investment indexes," said Tim Mohin, director, Corporate Responsibility at AMD. "This recognition is a testament to AMD's overall commitment to delivering products that enable our customers to address today's critical technology challenges while operating ethically and sustainably."

AMD today announced that Citrix Systems, Inc. has verified the new AMD SeaMicro SM15000-XE micro server as Citrix Ready to run Citrix XenServer 6, a complete managed server virtualization technology that enables companies to cost-effectively consolidate servers and ensure business continuity.

Citrix Ready is a product verification program that demonstrates compatibility with Citrix Application Delivery Infrastructure. AMD completed a rigorous process to ensure compatibility with the industry-leading XenServer platform, which is widely acknowledged as one of the fastest and secure server virtualization products in the industry.

AMD today announced that it will host the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's fifth annual Data Center Efficiency Summit on Oct. 24 at AMD headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Thanks to AMD's efforts to reduce data center power with solutions such as the SeaMicro Freedom Fabric, AMD was chosen to host the one-day event that brings together hundreds of data center experts, technology vendors and government leaders to learn about the latest data center innovations and to share best practices.

With its acquisition of the breakthrough SeaMicro micro server technology, AMD has put itself at the forefront of data center efficiency technology. Andrew Feldman, former CEO of SeaMicro and now corporate vice president and general manager of the Data Center Server Solutions group at AMD, will be the host representative and deliver the opening speech.

This coming Tuesday Microsoft will release a total of seven software updates (one rated 'Critical' and six rated 'Important') to address bugs that could lead to Remote Code Execution, Denial of Service attacks or Elevation of Privileges.

These new patches address vulnerabilities found in Windows (XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003, Server 2008 (R2)), Office, SQL Server, Communicator, Lync, SharePoint Server, FAST Search Server and Groove Server. For more info check out the Security Bulletin Advance Notification for October 2012.

HP today unveiled two new HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) four-socket servers that facilitate customers' move to cloud while delivering increased compute power in less space and a return on investment within three months.

The industry's first four-socket servers to incorporate HP ProActive Insight Architecture, the HP ProLiant BL660c and DL560 Gen8 servers significantly reduce the time spent on maintenance tasks through high levels of automation and continuous monitoring of system health, saving IT staff more than 30 days of administration time a year.

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS413, a 4-bay NAS server that incorporates the latest technologies to minimize power consumption. It is well-suited for small and medium-sized businesses to centralize data backups and synchronize files across different platforms with minimum time and effort.

"Synology DS413 has emerged as an emblem of eco-friendly design and innovation, providing businesses with energy efficient data management solutions," said Jones Tsai, Director of Hardware Design at Synology Inc. The DS413's system hibernation mode is unparalleled within the industry. In this mode, the DS413 consumes merely 3.3 watts, and can be brought back to full operation within seconds via web access using Synology's state of the art technology. In system hibernation mode, fans and hard drives also come to a halt, creating a completely quiet working environment. A further demonstration of outstanding power-saving design, the DS413 consumes only 13 watts and 35.6 watts respectively during hard drive hibernation and in full operation.

Ciphertex, the leading provider of secure, portable storage systems will exhibit the new CX-10K-NAS secure server at the HTCIA conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

The HTCIA conference will provide Ciphertex the opportunity to demonstrate the CX-10K-NAS and discuss its many applications that will benefit the forensic community. During the acquisition of suspect data, Ciphertex encrypted products ensure collected evidence remains unaltered throughout the forensic process using advanced AES-256Bit encryption, from acquisition to the presentation of evidence and eventual archival. The CX-10K-NAS functions as a central storage location of suspect data with the performance necessary to sustain multiple concurrent workflow requests. While performing e-forensics the CX-10K-NAS allows for multiple investigators to simultaneously examine digital evidence reducing the duration of analysis and overhead costs to maintain an investigative team. The CX-10K-NAS connects directly to existing network environments utilizing 10GbE or 1GbE interfaces that support transfer speeds of 1000 MB/s and allows for effortless implementation.

AMD today announced the availability of three pioneering innovations that firmly cement the company as the leader in fabric computing, micro servers and data center technology. The first innovation is a new chassis, AMD's SeaMicro SM15000 server, which extends fabric-based computing across racks and aisles of the data center to connect to massive disk arrays supporting over five petabytes of storage capacity. In addition, AMD is announcing a new generation of compute cards for its industry-leading micro servers based on AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon "Ivy Bridge" processors. These innovations continue the AMD tradition of providing industry-leading density, power efficiency and bandwidth for tomorrow's data center.

"We continue to drive innovation to meet the changing needs of the data center. The rise of virtualization, cloud computing, and big data require a new generation of compute in which networking and storage are equal partners in the solution. This does not fit the mold of traditional servers," said Andrew Feldman, general manager and corporate vice president of the Data Center Server Solutions group, AMD. "We are at the beginning of a new wave of computing that requires data centers to become pools of computing and storage resources with the flexibility to expand in both dimensions. The SM15000 system removes the constraints of traditional servers and allows data centers to expand compute, networking and storage independently. By supporting the newest generation of processors, the SM15000 server will continue our tradition of being the highest-density, and most power efficient micro server in the market."

QNAP Systems, Inc. today officially launched its latest business-class TS-x69L series Turbo NAS. The new TS-x69L series, available in 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8-drive versions, is powered by a high performance dual-core Intel Atom processor, equipped with 1GB DDR3 RAM, which can be upgraded to 3GB optionally. With support for SATA 2.5", 3.5" HDD and SSD up to 4TB, and with dual USB 3.0 ports for high-speed backup, the TS-x69L NAS series is compatible with Microsoft Windows OS, Linux/UNIX, and the latest Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and provides the levels of performance and high-capacity storage required by SMB users.

The TS-x69L series is equipped with 512MB DOM (Disk on Module) with dual firmware image design for system downtime prevention. In the event of corrupted firmware caused by accidental power loss during system boot, the NAS will boot with the backup firmware and then automatically recover the failed one for continuous system uptime.

D-Link today announced its newest installment to its high-performance ShareCenter storage solutions - the 4-Bay Cloud Storage 4000 (DNS-345) - is now available. Offering superior performance with a fast CPU to simultaneously support multiple user streams, more memory to boost performance, four drives for up to 16 TB of storage, and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for high speed data transfer and failover, the Cloud Storage 4000 is a robust storage, back-up and recovery solution. When combined with D-Link Cloud Cameras, the Cloud Storage 4000 also enables a full-featured network video recorder (NVR) which supports real-time monitoring, recording and playback of surveillance video.

The Cloud Storage 4000 creates a personal Cloud portal via the free and user-friendly mydlink cloud app, enabling users to store, safeguard, share, and remotely access or stream their digital documents, music, videos, and photos from anywhere in the world on their iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, or Microsoft Mobile OS device. In addition, the mydlink cloud app supports two-way data syncing, ensuring users have the latest data on their ShareCenter and computers.

AMD today announced that it has worked closely with Microsoft throughout the Windows Server 2012 development process to deliver an exceptional server solution powered by its award-winning AMD Opteron processors. AMD Opteron processors are ideally suited to deliver unparalleled server price performance, maximizing productivity and delivering compelling total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers.

Both companies have optimized their respective hardware and software technologies to address the rapidly expanding demands of today's business computing environments, from extensive virtualization and the continued move to cloud computing to managing increasingly larger amounts of online data. For example, Microsoft makes extensive use of servers powered by AMD Opteron processors in its Windows Azure public cloud. With Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, customers can now enjoy unprecedented scalability with support for up to 64 virtual processors and one terabyte of memory per virtual machine and support for up to 4,000 virtual machines per cluster.

The new ThecusOS 5.0 has been released! This means that users will be able access more innovative functions with their Thecus NAS. Dedicated Thecus users know that Thecus NAS utilizes the best and most up-to-date hardware. The new ThecusOS 5.0 is the key piece that will unlock the most efficient and advanced NAS on the market. Ultimately, Thecus is a well-known innovator in the storage industry and ThecusOS 5.0 sets higher limits.

Infortrend today announced the North American availability of two new product lines in its EonNAS family of unified storage solutions, the EonNAS Pro and EonNAS 1000 Series. Although NAS is fast becoming the storage solution of choice for the SOHO and SMB markets, when it comes to data protection, current offerings from other brands come up short. Infortrend's new EonNAS Pro and EonNAS 1000 Series, running on ZFS file system fill this void by offering an unprecedented collection of advanced data protection features -- including data deduplication, corrupt data self-healing, snapshot and pool mirror -- bringing enterprise-level data protection and storage features to the SOHO and SMB markets.

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.