Amid growing speculation that the company is on the verge of going private, Dell at last week’s Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara, Calif., unveiled a new server prototype that allows both 64-bit ARM processors to be installed on the same motherboard as traditional x86 chips. The company also demonstrated management software based on the Open Compute Project standard that allows both processer varieties to be remotely controlled from a single console.
The prototype, named Iron, is the newest in Dell’s exploration of ARM-based servers for the hyperscale data center market. The architecture has drawn interest for its potential to offer energy-efficient processing of high-volume Web requests, such as are typical in search or social networking applications.
Copper, the company’s previous iteration, supported 32-bit processing and four ARM servers per board. Iron improves on these specs via AppliedMicro’s x-Gene chip, which not only pushes to 64-bit computational power but also increases the number of nodes per board to six.