The first servers on the base of 64 bit AMD processors appeared it the market in 2003. Immediately, they became participants of the comparing testing activities with Intel Xeon. Since that time multiprocessor systems on the base of AMD do not propose so much interest. There are different configurations on the base of Opteron, including inexpensive solutions.
The Company Etegro is using this approach for producing and selling servers, data storing systems, cluster solutions and workstations. Let us make a short overview for one of dual processor rack servers, created by this company. Hyperion RS150 is not an expensive dual processor server with the 1U rack height. The server is developed on the base of AMD Opteron system that supports the advanced technology Direct Connect. This technology is a good solution for dual processor rack servers, since it eliminates the system bus - a weak place for such servers. The systems support the Dual-Core technology and it is provided with two winchesters with a hot replacement function for each one. The server supports PCI-X and permits to install adapters for the high speed network InfiniBand.
In the standard configurations Etergo Hyperion RS150 includes: a system logic set AMD 8131 + 8111; two AMD Opteron 242 processors; a system bus Hyper Transport with a 2000 Mhz clock rate; a RAM: four DDR400 modules with a 512 MB memory volume; a network controller 2x Intel 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet; a video controller ATI Rage XL with a 8 MB memory. The server is provided with operation system SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.
The architecture and abilities of Opteron processors gives a possibility to build powerful rack optimized servers. It is a 64 bit processor and it is able to handle a 32 bit code as well. The AMD Opteron has a built-in dual channel memory controller that supports all standard clock rates for a DDR memory. Dual processor rack servers on the base of AMD Opteron do not require the North Bridge, since a controller, combined with Hyper Transport processors, is placed inside the processor. The speed of data transfer achieves 8 GB per second.
The Opteron kernel contains three integer blocks, three operation blocks and three x86 decoders. The processor supports the SSE2 system of commands, the AMD64 architecture supports a linear addressing with a 64 bit address length.
A front panel of dual processor rack servers comprises Power and Reset buttons. There are eight indicators of the system state, USB and COM cutoff points. Optionally, these servers can have a CD-ROM, but a default configuration does not contain it. There are two USB cutoff points, a COM port, a video output and one slot for an extension card, but it is already taken by the SCSI controller. Usually, dual processor rack servers have one power unit without the hot replacement function support.
There are many coolers inside the server. It is very hard to stay in a server room due to a hard noise, though this factor is similar for the other servers' models. Traditionally 1U processors do not have any active cooling. There are copper radiators for heat exchange purposes and there are no opportunities for the coolers hot replacing.