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First impressions of Xi3’s 'microserver in a box' populating a data center container
MP Divakar
3/29/2012 6:39 PM EDT
In the AMD booth on the DESIGN West exhibit floor, Xi3, which makes computers in a radically different form factor and mother board designs, unveiled its plans to enter the data center market with its microservers. The demo featured a complete "data center in a container," with 224 microservers—8 two-rack unit (RU) chassis, each containing a 28 microservers.
For the form factor of the container and the number of RUs, this offering appears to be the densest with the possible exception of blade servers. Xi3 is planning to announce the product availability later this year.
The microservers are arranged in four rows across each two-RU chassis (see below). The number of RUs in a network cabinet or data center on wheels can possibly go higher than 224, but this would require validation of cooling. More information on higher server population configurations is forthcoming from Xi3.
Next: Cooling
For the form factor of the container and the number of RUs, this offering appears to be the densest with the possible exception of blade servers. Xi3 is planning to announce the product availability later this year.
Figure 1. Front View of the data center with one of the bays removed.
The microservers are arranged in four rows across each two-RU chassis (see below). The number of RUs in a network cabinet or data center on wheels can possibly go higher than 224, but this would require validation of cooling. More information on higher server population configurations is forthcoming from Xi3.
Figure 2. Close up view of a 2-RU chassis.
Next: Cooling
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Neo1
3/30/2012 1:50 AM EDT
A good compact form but I see som potential issues of heat disspation when scaled. The either have to resort to chilled air circulation or alter the air movement across the chasis.
It would be interesting to know how much compute capacity in flops/sqmt this measures vs other offerings.
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CriKit Cloud
3/30/2012 7:53 AM EDT
This type of solution is very cool and a lot of engineering obviously went into it. Prospects should be concerned about lock in and system reuse however. I recently created a more COTS version that sits on a desk and sips 100 Watts per compute node http://www.crikit.info . We will be showing a 40Gbe version at CloudFair in Seattle in April. These types of compact, energy-efficient devices that run cloud software for on-premise and hybrid cloud configurations are the future of SMB and departmental computing. Very interesting times in computing. Moore's Law in action.
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docdivakar
4/3/2012 4:45 PM EDT
Thank you for that interesting bit of info on CriKit.
As a matter of curiosity, what would be the interconnect for 40Gb Ethernet? CXP?
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sharps_eng
3/31/2012 2:12 PM EDT
This does not seem very innovative except in style and marketing material. Launching a new design without the highest-speed next-generation interfaces makes it look like packaging exercise, as does the lack of tech specs in this press release.
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docdivakar
4/3/2012 4:35 PM EDT
There is no doubt quite a bit of engineering has gone into Xi3's boxes. I did press for more detailed specs but was told it would be available in the coming weeks. On its website, Xi3 provides the specs for the modular computer but not the microserver:
http://xi3.com/tech_specs.php
Xi3's demo was in AMD's booth... I do know the Xi3 Microserver uses a dual-core 64-bit AMD CPU
Incidentally, the "3" in Xi3 stands for the three-part motherboard!
MP Divakar
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