AMD also recently announced a partnership with ARM to build 64-bit SoCs, putting AMD in the unique position of being able to offer x86, ARM and GPU technology in its chipsets. Combined with its 2012 acquisition of SeaMicro, a top company in the microserver-systems market, AMD is positioning itself as a potential future leader of both the SoC and microserver markets. 

Intel is also attempting to position its Atom processor for the microserver market, but its chip appears to be more evolution than revolution. In fact, it’s not a true SoC, but a 2 GHz lower-power version of existing x86 architecture; the Atom does not feature integrated SATA or network capabilities or other features of true SoCs. That being said, Hewlett-Packard’s Moonshot platform was launched in April as a “microserver” based on Intel Atom chips rather than the Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 chips demonstrated by HP in November 2011.

Nathan Brookwood, a research fellow at semiconductor consulting firm Insight 64, notes that while “some assume that a shift to ARM-based designs is needed to achieve the high processor density and performance-per-watt characteristics associated with the microserver category, Intel argues that its forthcoming 22-nanometer Avoton design can match or beat the metrics claimed by ARM-based competitors. This means the competitive situation in the emerging microserver market will heat up as 2014 progresses, with new 64-bit ARM fabric-based designs from suppliers like Calxeda and AMD, and new 64-bit x86 fabric-based designs from Intel. It is shaping up to be an interesting year.”

Microserver chassis vendors

Although a variety of microserver chassis based on SoCs from multiple vendors are now available, few are suited to Big Data applications. The two notable exceptions are based on the Calxeda EnergyCore ECX-1000 and the Intel Atom (low-power microprocessor).

Microserver chassis designed for the Calxeda EnergyCore SoCs have been available since late last year from Boston Limited (Viridis) and Penguin Computing (UDX1). Available in 2U and 4U configurations, these systems can support up to 48 SoCs and 72 terabytes (TB) of storage, or, in a single chassis, a reduced SoC count but close to 240 TB of storage. With up to four external 10 Gbps Ethernet ports to expose the native Calxeda network fabric, the Viridis and UDX1 systems can be networked together to build Big Data machines that scale to petabytes using a fraction of the power and space of traditional technologies.

HP is now planning to release a true microserver system based on the next-generation Calxeda chips as part of its Moonshot series later this year, which will support up to 45 Calxeda quad-server cards. However, design specs indicate that only 1 Gbps Ethernet is available to each server card, which will severely limit the communications possible between SoCs designed by other manufacturers. For Big Data applications, the Viridis and UDX1 systems are far more suitable, as they take advantage of the native Calxeda network-fabric interconnect.

AppliedMicro, Marvell, AMD, and others don’t have available microservers based on their SoCs at this time. AppliedMicro has demonstrated servers in partnership with Dell, but according to Dell spokeswoman Erin Zehr at TechCon 2012, “We don’t have any plans to make generally available an ARM-based server right now—that includes the AppliedMicro-based prototype.” Expect to see early systems using AppliedMicro’s X-Gene chip as well as Marvell and AMD’s SoC chips sometime next year.