Energy saving server

The new product from Leicestershire-based Avantek Computer is one of the first servers in the world to use ARM processors, offering exceptional performance with drastically reduced running costs thanks to its incredibly low power consumption.

The innovation is recognised as the future of server technology, and although multi-nationals such as Dell and HP are currently working on their own models, none are in a position to launch their rival products.

Tony Lees, Managing Director of Avantek Computer, says: “It’s fantastic for a small company like ours to be able to beat the big boys to the market with an innovative product that’s really going to point the way forward for server technology.

“The key advantage of the new Avantek server range is undoubtedly power consumption, as our users will discover to their benefit. At 5 watts per node, our servers use a fraction of the power of a traditional x86 server, which will use a minimum of 75 to 80 watts – or in many cases 120 watts – per node.
“Our new product is the ideal solution for a variety of different uses, including media serving, web hosting, research functionality and scale-out file storage, offering significant savings in running costs and helping users to lower their carbon footprint.”

As well as requiring far less power to operate than a traditional x86 server, the new Avantek server generates significantly lower heat levels and therefore takes much less energy to cool – offering further power and financial savings to users.

Based on ARM’s Cortex-A9 processor, the Calxeda EnergyCore SoC (Server on Chip) product, and solid state drives from Kingston Technology, Avantek’s new product is a rack-mounted 3U server.

The system comprises a total of 48 server nodes, each one quad-core, and provides a world first in one-to-one mapping with each node mapped onto its own memory and its own 240Gb to 480Gb Kingston Technology SSDNow KC300 drive, all in a neat 3U rack chassis.

Each node operates independently, for example to solve separate elements of complex research tasks. The built-in 80Gb fabric and cluster networking supplied as standard brings all the separate data back together. This is usually an expensive component in other products.
Four 10Gb Ethernet connections connect to an external switch, which provides a cost-effective and extremely fast alternative to the expensive InfiniBand technology. To fully populate the server, Avantek chose Kingston technology and is using 48 Kingston KC300 SSDs as the high SATA III read/write speeds allow maximum server performance.