Re-Architecting the Data Center: The Intel Xeon Processor Scalable Family

Re-Architecting the Data Center: The Intel
Xeon Processor Scalable Family

The Intel Xeon Processor Scalable Family
Represents the Biggest Data Center Platform Advancement in this Decade

By Lisa Spelman

We
are in a time of tremendous change. Digital experiences have permeated every
aspect of our lives, and companies are increasingly succeeding or failing based
on their ability to use technology for competitive advantage in the market. A
driving force of this transformation is the explosion of data fueled by a
growing number of end devices and richer data streams. Although transparent to
most people, the data centers and networks that empower us to transform that
data into valuable information are critical for enabling new digital
experiences and gaining deeper insights to the world around us.

As
the capabilities and capacity of data centers and networks advance, they allow
us to do incredible things, like sequencing the genome in less than a day, then
using artificial intelligence to make precise health care recommendations for
each patient’s unique condition. Like enabling content providers to make
personalized consumer recommendations, then streaming that content to the
viewer in real time. Like enabling cars to gather real-time data, then
leveraging that data to make driving safer and more enjoyable. Like letting
retailers know exactly where and what inventory is available, then offering
shoppers augmented reality and personalized offers in real time. These
data-driven insights and experiences unlock extraordinary value for businesses,
consumers and society at large.

At
Intel, we take our role as the provider of the foundation of data center
computing seriously. That’s why this summer, we will unveil our next-generation
Intel® Xeon® processor family (code-named “Skylake”), which represents the
biggest set of data center platform advancements in this decade. To reflect the
magnitude of the innovations we are bringing to market with this platform, we
will rename the family the Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family.

The
new Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family represents a major architectural leap
forward in processor architecture and platform advancements, delivering
workload-optimized performance for compute, network and storage. The Scalable
family provides the foundation for the next generation of cloud infrastructure
to fuel applications as wide-ranging as analytics, artificial intelligence,
autonomous driving, high-performance computing and network transformation. As
we have with every generation of Intel Xeon processor delivery, the Scalable
family will also feature breakthrough performance, security and agility.

The
Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family is re-architected from the ground up and
will be the successor to the Intel Xeon processor E5 and E7 product lines. It
will incorporate unique features for compute, network and storage workloads,
and impressive performance gains of up to 3.9x higher scalability for
virtualized workloads as compared with the 4-year-old systems widely used in
the market today, allowing customers to run more and a more diverse variety of
workloads on each system.

The
Scalable family will feature integrated performance accelerators such as Intel®
Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512) and Intel® QuickAssist
Technology (Intel® QAT), as well as Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel®
VMD), a new platform capability designed to deliver seamless management of
PCIe-based (NVMe) solid state drives, such as the recently launched Intel®
Optane™ SSD DC P4800X and Intel® SSD DC P4600 drives. Intel® VMD enables a “hot
plug” capability that minimizes service interruptions during drive swaps.

The
Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family will offer four levels of performance and
capabilities, with a wealth of configuration choice with regard to which
integrations and accelerators customers need, and a new tiered model based on
metals (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) to make the options simple and
efficient to choose.

This
new platform also builds on the exhaustive work we’ve been doing with the
ecosystem over the past decade to ensure a choice of fully optimized, easy-to-deploy
solutions in the marketplace. We are working closely with our Builders ecosystem
to create a wide range of workload-optimized solutions that will take full
advantage of the new capabilities and performance of the Intel Xeon Processor
Scalable family.

We
believe the Intel Xeon Processor Scalable family – which is already being
embraced by a wide range of cloud providers and leading enterprises around the
world – will be a catalyst for organizations to modernize their data centers,
offering much greater flexibility and choice in how data center technologies
are adopted and deployed, and reducing complexity and test and validation
overhead.

We
look forward to sharing more details about when we launch the Intel Xeon
Processor Scalable family this summer.

—

Lisa Spelman is vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon
products and data center marketing at Intel Corporation.