Rackable prods new server at enterprises
Party like it's C2005.
By James Niccolai, IDG News Service | Published: 08:29, 22 October 2008
Rackable Systems, best known for providing servers to large Internet companies, is aiming for a bigger slice of the enterprise market with its new C2005 server.
The company said the build-to-order server was its "most versatile yet," meaning customers can configure the C2005 with the storage, I/O and processors that best suit their needs, be that for an enterprise database application or a specialised program for crunching search queries.
The options include a variety of motherboards based on microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as several local storage options, including 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch solid-state drives.
Like many of its other systems, Rackable is pitching the C2005 as a highly dense and energy-efficient server. It uses the company's unusual half-depth design, which lets customers mount the servers back-to-back and cool them from a column of air in the centre of a server rack, which Rackable says is more energy efficient.
Last year, Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon accounted for almost two thirds of Rackable's revenue, according to a regulatory filing. It is now trying to expand its share of the enterprise market.
"It is one of the key goals of the company to grow our customer base and the market we go after beyond the traditional Internet companies into areas like financial services companies, oil and gas, what you consider more enterprise-class customers," said Saeed Atashie, Rackable's senior director of server products
Its products compete with servers from HP, IBM and Sun, among others. Those companies have been stepping up their efforts to attract more business among Internet companies, and Rackable in turn is targeting their enterprise base.
The C2005 is a 2u server that can have up to five expansion slots for RAID controllers, 10Gbit Ethernet cards, and InfiniBand and fibre-channel host adapters. The management LCD can swing forward to expose a bay that can hold a single 3.5-inch hot-swap hard drive or two 2.5-inch hot-swap hard drives. A second modular area can house any of the following:
- Four 3.5-inch drives and one expansion slot
- Four 2.5-inch drives and three 3.5-inch drives and one expansion slot
- Eight 2.5-inch drives and five low-profile expansion slots
- Two 3.5-inch drives and five low-profile expansion slots
Rackable said the C2005 is suited for enterprise database and application servers, which often require expansion cards, as well as Internet businesses and HPC (high-performance computing) customers. Pricing starts from a few thousand dollars, Atashie said, but can increase considerably depending on the configuration.
