This post was written by Mulah Johnson
Intel’s announced that its cloud-computing efforts this year will be centered on a new server that uses upcoming Nehalem technology. Nehalem is Intel’s new chip architecture currently used only in its Core i7 desktop processors. Mega data centers potentially mean mega-growth. The world’s largest chipmaker sees between 20 percent and 25 percent of server shipments going to mega data centers by 2012. Intel’s goal is to optimize this massive mesh of server hardware. Other technologies that Intel will roll out with Nehalem server chips include Virtual Machine Device Queues.
Hewlett-Packard (HP), Intel Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have announced an ambitious research initiative focused on studying the software, hardware and datacenter management issues surrounding cloud computing. The group’s new Cloud Computing Test Bed is aimed at creating a large, globally distributed testing environment that they hope will encourage unprecedented levels of research. Although several companies are already offering some cloud computing services, Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of research at HP and director of HP Labs, believes that substantial effort is needed.