TMCnews Featured Article
September 11, 2012
Telecom Platform Deployment Gets a Boost from Sandy Bridge Processors
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
Application developers continue to focus on bringing to market those solutions that meet the needs of business users. The challenge lies not in finding applications that will accommodate the typical business environment but rather the right computer technology that will support the computing requirements of the application. Now that telecom platform deployment is a part of business computing, the scope of any project must utilize a comprehensive approach.
As highlighted in this NEI (News - Alert) blog post, Intel (News 
- Alert) began development of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture in 2005, and beginning in January 2011, computer users starting raving about the Xeon Sandy Bridge that has replaced the Nehalem microarchitecture. The E5 family processor also affects telecom platform deployment.
Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA (News - Alert)) platforms are likely to see a boost in applications running on them through the use of the E5 family. While the Xeon was fast, the new E5-2600 chips include eight cores of processing power that deliver a 55 percent faster performance than the Xeon 5600. Telecom platform deployment and enterprise markets will benefit greatly from these increased speeds.
E5 also addresses concerns over greater efficiency, delivering 70 percent better performance per watt than any of its predecessors. With this kind of performance, it easily meets the power specifications outlined by AdvancedTCA.Considered one of its biggest attributes by some telecom experts is the E5’s ability to increase bandwidth while reducing latency. Telecom platform deployment will also be greatly enhanced through the E5’s functionality in reducing bottlenecks. Intel has developed a PCI (News - Alert)-Express 3.0 with 40 lanes in each processor.
Throughput is increased through the Quickpath Interconnect, which also reduces the I/O latency by around 30 percent. A dual-processor unit creates even greater improvements in telecom platform deployment by opening up 80 lanes, which can bring gains of 200 percent in throughput over what was previously achieved.
Each blade in the new system can deliver speeds of 10Gb per node, which means applications related to wireless video would finally get the speeds they need to deliver the experience users want. The E5 is also bringing more muscle to the game in the way of memory upgrades. Enterprise servers using 24 slots can get up to 768 Gb of memory. Smaller motherboards will see an increase of up to 256 Gb in their 16 slots.
According to a recent study, the E5-2600 family has caught the eye of many companies who plan to bring the processor onboard. Roughly one third of companies will be using the E5 within a year. Of the companies involved in telecom platform deployment, about 35 percent will be implementing the E5. Data storage companies and security companies look to be the largest adopters early on with around 68 percent bringing the E5 onboard within the next two years, followed by about 60 percent of telecoms expecting to run on the E5 in the next two years as well.
As the demand for greater functionality and multimedia on the go continues to grow, companies are taking a closer look at telecom platform deployment and how it fits into their overall strategy. With access to Sandy Bridge, the experience is likely to get much more exciting.
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Edited by Jamie Epstein
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