HP to use low-power CPUs in its servers

PALO ALTO, USA: HP announced a new industry programme comprising of a new server development platform, customer discovery lab and partner ecosystem.

HP's new programme, dubbed Project Moonshot, combines HP Converged Infrastructure technology to allow the sharing of resources -- including storage, networking, management, power and cooling -- across servers.

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Project Moonshot is designed to fuel the advancement of low-energy server technology, while promoting industry collaboration for 'hyperscale' computing environments such as cloud services and on-demand computing.

Project Moonshot is based on its Data Center Smart Grid and EcoPOD product lines and its infrastructure is an extension of ProLiant brand of servers, which incorporates traditional x86 processors from Intel and AMD.

"Companies with hyperscale environments are facing a crisis in capacity that requires a fundamental change at the architectural level," said Paul Santeler, vice president and general manager, Hyperscale Business Unit, Industry Standard Servers and Software, HP. "HP has a strong track record of leading market transitions that enable our clients to stay ahead of the technology curve, maximize their ability to innovate and speed their time to market of new services while reducing costs and energy use."

The new HP server development platform, Redstone Server Development Platform, is the first in a line of HP server development platforms that feature extreme low-energy server processors.

Initially incorporating Calxeda EnergyCore ARM Cortex processors, future Redstone versions will include Intel Atom-based processors as well as others.

HP Redstone is designed for testing and proof of concept. It incorporates more than 2,800 servers in a single rack, reducing cabling, switching and the need for peripheral devices, says the company in a release.

The initial HP Redstone platform is expected to be available in limited volumes to select customers in the first half of next year.

The HP Discovery Lab enables clients to experiment, test and benchmark applications on the HP Redstone Server Development Platform, and other extreme low-energy platforms, as well as on traditional servers.

The first lab is scheduled to open in Houston in January, with additional sites planned to open in Europe and Asia. With remote or onsite access, clients can work directly with HP engineers and industry peers to learn about the benefits of extreme low-energy servers for their specific application needs.

The HP Pathfinder Program, part of the HP AllianceONE partner programme, is dedicated to client discovery efforts across the data centre. It also encourages development of elements of the Project Moonshot programme within open industry standards.

The programme includes independent software vendors -- compute, storage and networking partners who contribute hardware, software and technical expertise. Initial participants are expected to include AMD, ARM Holdings, Calxeda, Canonical and Red Hat.