In today's competitive environment, enterprises are looking to gain competitive advantage through their IT investments.

IT managers are faced with the challenges of growing need for high density computing, superior performance and constant pressure to lower costs. The cost of electricity is the second highest data center cost, second only to labor. Lowering power of each system while maintaining optimal performance enables IT to increase compute density within the enterprise, reduces operational costs of powering and cooling the servers. Built-in power management in the compute devices will be a major factor that ensures lower power consumption in the enterprise infrastructure.

Today's high performance, high density rack and blade servers are creating new power and thermal challenges in the datacenter. While they are more manageable, scalable than prior platforms, they introduce power and thermal loads that are substantially higher than those currently deployed systems, thus testing the cooling infrastructure in the enterprise and rapidly escalating the utility costs.

Some of the key technological advancements from leading companies such as Intel, that have enabled for improved power management in enterprise systems are Enhanced Intel InSpeedStep Technology and Demand based switching. Demand based switching technology allows the servers to dynamically adjust processor voltage and core frequency while maintaining application performance which can result in decreased average power consumption and decreased average heat production. Other advancements such as dynamic power management enables power delivery to key processor subsystems to be dynamically managed during runtime, to continuously optimize performance - power efficiency based on workloads.

At the same time, enterprise infrastructure security continues to pose an even bigger challenge. With the advent of e-commerce, enterprises are relying on their compute systems to run their businesses, and increasingly mission critical components of the enterprise infrastructure are now vulnerable to hackers and malicious viruses. To counter these challenges enterprises are seeking more robust and reliable security solutions.

Some of today's most critical information technology (IT) requirements in the enterprise are:
*Reducing desk-side visits/downtime due to PC security or manageability issues
*Improving asset management
*Reducing high utility costs and addressing the need for high density computing
*Optimal server utilization

To meet these requirements, manufacturers need to deliver energy-efficient performance platforms that deliver superior performance with technological advancements such as built in power management features, manageability, virtualization support, and security that will help reduce system energy costs, lower power consumption, enable better server utilization, and help manage assets

Today's PCs, Laptops, Workstations, and Servers from leading manufacturers such are Intel, are meeting customer requirements by delivering platforms that are not only leading in performance but deliver integrated capabilities with energy-efficiency. Energy-efficient performance is about delivering the most performance and capabilities with superior energy-efficiency.

The best results are delivered through an integrated intersection of innovation in silicon, platform and software technologies and core processor architectures. Intel the leading provider of desktop, servers and mobile devices for the enterprise is innovating in all these areas in addition to working with key players in the industry to deliver energy-efficient platforms for the enterprise that combine high performance, energy efficiency and expanded capabilities.

The result is a new generation of compute platforms -PCs that can support remote management and security — capabilities that are effective even if PC power is off, an operating system is down, hardware components (such as a hard drive) have failed, or management software is not yet installed. Workstations and servers that can be utilized more efficiently through deployment of virtualization technology and that are more energy than previous generation, and mobile laptops that continue to be deliver extended battery life by optimized power usage.

This article discusses the holistic approach that allows for innovations in silicon, platforms, software and processor architecture that is enabling leading manufacturers such as Intel to provide these benefits to the enterprise IT.

Silicon advancement

The compute industry has been following Moore's Law and doubling transistors every two years An increase in compute density per footprint now allows manufacturers to explore and embed innovation into platform hardware to address those critical problems. By moving from a 90-nm CMOS process technology to 65-nm CMOS, manufacturers have doubled the number of transistors that can fit into the same physical area. Leading processor manufacturer Intel through its rapid advancements of process technology, 90nm to 65nm, 65nm to 45nm, its research and development of strained silicon, reduction of leakages though transistor gate dielectrics has improved transistor performance and reduced power. This has resulted in new breed of energy efficient processors that not only deliver superior performance, are energy efficient but also have more embedded innovation that provides IT the best in class solution to meet today's IT platform requirements.
This gives designers significantly more compute resources to engineer and deliver technologies that have, up till now, been out of reach. However, it is not a simple matter of designing for density without addressing the power challenge. To address this challenge every variable in the silicon manufacturing process is being examined to ensure energy-efficient performance is delivered.

Recently, Intel & QinetiQ have successfully produced an 85nm transistors using indium antimonide (InSb). Tests demonstrate that this material can reduce power consumption by 10x and improve performance by 50 percent compared to current transistors. Innovation at the silicon level will be critical for delivery of energy efficiency for mobile devices, business PCs, servers and workstations.

New platform capabilities

Compute platforms in the past did not offer as many integrated capabilities that today's platforms do. Increasingly, leading silicon manufacturers like Intel are finding innovative ways to address customer challenges by designing advanced capabilities that are embedded in the silicon, micro-architecture and software layers. The advances in hardware capabilities are enabling powerful new usage models for streamlining and automating IT processes.

Hyper-threading and 64-bit computing are examples of technologies that have gained industry acceptance and are now part of most standard platform deployments in the enterprise. Some of the newer advanced integrated capabilities such as Virtualization, I/O acceleration technology, Manageability, that have traditionally required tremendous overhead to implement and maintain can now be supported in hardware. These integrated technologies offer benefits such as scalability, reliability, security, and flexibility to an enterprise customer while reducing overall power consumption.
Single core, dual core, and now quad core and multi-core processors, with each generation of architectural advancements compute platforms in the enterprise deliver exponential performance, in addition to break through energy efficiency i.e. performance per watt. For example, today's standards based multi-core processor servers can run new workloads that previously required high end symmetric multiprocessing systems. In today's complex IT environment complex business processes, business analytics, data mining, databases which were previously deployed on proprietary architectures can now be migrated to lower costs industry standard multi-core platforms.

Virtualization Technology

Virtualization Technology allows one physical compute device (server, workstation or PC) to function as multiple virtual platforms. Energy-efficient processors today include silicon level support for virtualization or hardware assisted virtualization technology. In an IT datacenter environment it offers tremendous benefits, IT managers can consolidate infrastructure for increased server utilization and simplification, and effectively manage resources and network downtime without impacting productivity. By enabling multiple applications, Operating Systems (OS), to be consolidated on one server IT organization can consolidate their server infrastructure so that there are fewer systems to power and cool and more room for expanded compute capacity in existing environments. On business desktops, critical security applications can run in the background in a virtual partition, even while IT users are using their OS for compute intensive applications.

Manageability
With increasing threat of malicious virus attacks on the enterprise network, built in security is the top IT requirements from platforms Traditionally "in-band" security and manageability solutions have been deployed in the enterprise, but the software only "in band" solutions are installed at the OS layer they are severely limited on the ability to diagnose problems when OS is down or to have secure communications with.

Today's leading technology providers are making solutions to address this issue, for example with Intel Active Management Technology available in latest business PCs (Intel Core 2 Duo PCs with vPRO technology), have "in-band" manageability and "out-of-band" manageability that allows for a more secure hardware based channel for secure communication that works below the OS, at the firmware and hardware level. This enables effective, reliant, remote management and administration even the system is shut off.

Additionally, integration of more secure, non-volatile memory in an execution environment that works below the OS level is tamper resistant to hackers, viruses and other security threats. Non-volatile memory also enables for more efficient asset management through storage of hardware, software assets information thus leading for more secure discovery, inventory, monitoring and recovery of enterprise assets. Integration of these technologies at a processor level has also allowed leading manufacturers to deliver the benefits of high-end security to mainstream PCs, without the corresponding overhead in support costs.

Such platform innovations provide efficient platforms that are not only lower in power consumption and higher performance but enable for allow for capabilities that provide business critical benefits.

Architectural Innovation

Architectural Innovation enables delivery of energy-efficient platforms.
Some of the key technologies at the micro-architecture level from Intel that have enabled delivery of energy efficient performance platforms include enhancements to dynamic execution via implementation of a wider execution code allowing core to fetch and dispatch of up to four instructions simultaneously thus enhancing efficiencies and a new capability called macro-fusion that combines certain common x86 instructions into a single instruction for execution
Traditionally energy-efficient platforms have been the hallmark of mobile compute devices. With the rising cost of cooling, enterprise platforms are expected to deliver better performance/watt while continuing to deliver cutting edge technological innovation. Intel with its 65nm Core Microarchitecture is applying the breakthrough and innovation of power management technology, enhanced performance for multi-threaded applications from mobile compute devices to servers, and desktops.

Combined with additional capabilities such as, intelligent power management and advancements such as the Intel Advanced Smart Cache and Memory Access helps these platforms deliver high performance and low power consumption under heavy workloads. These core architectural technologies enable efficient performance hence contributing to overall platform performance. With these innovations built in it is hardly surprising that today's leading energy-efficient platforms are built on Intel Core Microarchitecture.

Continuing this focus on increased performance while optimizing for energy efficiency quad core processor based servers and desktops will provide further choices to IT for datacenter and enterprise deployment. This new generation of high-performance and low power desktops, servers, workstation platforms will reduce footprint and lower power consumption in the enterprise and datacenter, thereby reducing cooling requirements and reducing costs.

Ecosystem Enablement

Ecosystem Enablement: is a holistic approach to providing energy-efficient performance.
An optimized platform is a combination of well architected processor, system design and tuned software. To truly deliver the promise of energy-efficient performance applications need to be optimized. In addition to all the innovations discussed prior, this can be achieved by ensuring applications tune and design for next generation architecture.

For example, applications that can exploit the parallelism delivered by multi-core processor can enhance application performance. Software companies need to make sure their applications are exploiting platforms capabilities (e.g. multi-core, virtualization), especially as new workloads, new usage models evolve in the enterprise that will enable IT to position efficient IT as a competitive advantage to the enterprise.

Leading platform provider, Intel is investing in the entire ecosystem of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), OS vendors, Independent hardware vendors (IHVs), industry standards organizations and firmware vendors to truly provide the benefits of energy-efficient performance to their customers by delivering a truly optimized and balanced platform. , For instance, software development tools such as Intel Compilers,

Performance Libraries that aid software vendors by providing tools that accelerate development and maintenance of threaded application on Intel processors and performance analyzers such as VTune that assist developers in tuning for optimum application performance and energy efficiency. Ultimately, enterprises can realize the true benefits of energy-efficient platforms by ensure their overall hardware and software platform can deliver energy-efficient performance. For instance, drivers can be designed to be power-conscious and put their devices in a low-power state as needed. They can also be tuned to not interfere with a CPU's low-power states. Applications can also help by minimizing CPU clock cycles and enabling a CPU to get back faster to a lower-power wait state after performing a function.

An holistic approach for energy-efficient performance platforms as one adopted by leading companies such as Intel is needed to address the requirements of the future and meet IT needs.

As discussed above, the delivery of energy-efficient performance platforms is a combination of ensuring that compute platforms provides the optimal performance, energy efficiency at every level and finally ensuring that the integrated technologies provide end user benefits that help maintain uptime, lower TCO, while providing for technology advancements that benefit IT end users.

Widespread deployment of energy-efficient platforms is not without its challenges, pricing based on cores or sockets will be the software licensing challenge that the industry will need to address as multi-core processing gets mainstream. Apart from leading platform providers like Intel, not all processor manufacturers are making the level of investment in research and development, state- of-the-art manufacturing that is needed to provide long term, sustainable, energy-efficient platform innovations needed for mainstream IT. In making the choice for platforms for enterprise, IT users benefit from standardizing with leadership platforms.

Summary:

In July 2006, the U.S. Congress approved legislation instructing business to give high priority to energy efficiency as a factor in determining best value and performance for purchase of servers1. While Washington may have recently discovered that higher efficiency server not only reduces electricity bills but utilize less power for cooling, businesses have long found that these energy-efficient performance platforms provide tremendous benefits.

Enterprise's need for energy-efficient performance platforms will continue to grow as power costs rise. As IT costs increases, IT will seek to unify their infrastructure through deployment of best in class energy-efficient performance platforms from leading manufactures that have made the investments in manufacturing technology, research and development, in enabling software, OS vendors, to deliver platforms that provide long term energy-efficient performance solutions for the enterprise. In this case, going green or deploying energy-efficient performance platforms has business, and environmental benefits. ENS

Kirti Devi is marketing manager in Intel's Server Group. She has held numerous marketing roles over her ten years at Intel. Devi holds a bachelor of science in mathematics, physics, and chemistry and has an MBA in marketing and in international business. Devi can be contacted at .

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