August 20, 2012 -- Codethink, Ltd. has announced the Baserock Slab, its first-generation high-performance power-efficient ARM server. Each Baserock Slab server features eight energy-efficient quad-core ARM processors with high-speed network fabric and local storage, with support for both mSATA and SATA drives, all in a half-depth 1U chassis.

Baserock Slabs can be racked back-to-back to provide a processor density of 64 cores per U, up to 2432 cores in a full-height rack with power distribution and switchgear. While the Baserock Slab was designed for building ARM-based embedded systems, they also serve as energy-efficient and highly concentrated cloud or appliance servers.

"The Baserock Slab, developed with Cogent Computer Systems, Inc. is designed to maximize parallel horsepower, with high-density, fast processors, fast switching and fast local storage," said Paul Sherwood, CEO of Codethink.

The Baserock Slab server delivers its performance because of the Marvell ARMADA XP, the first quad-core ARM processor designed for enterprise-class cloud-computing applications, that drives higher CPU utilization and offers demand-based scaling. The eight system-on-modules (SoMs), designed and manufactured by Cogent, are linked together via a Marvell SDN-ready (software defined networking) high-speed Ethernet switch.

"Codethink and Cogent have collaborated to deliver a great multi-processor server integrated by a high-performance and intelligent network fabric for SMP ARMv7-A clustered cloud servers," said Ted Weatherford, Senior Director and Product Line Manager, Cloud Services and Infrastructure (CSI) Business Unit at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.

Availability

Baserock Slab ARM-based servers will ship in the coming weeks.

Posted by: John Miklosz