Fabric Computing - Why AMD Bought SeaMicro

[caveman-jim]

Fabric – noun; framework, structure. Everyone knows fabric when it comes to cloth, but when it comes to computing, not as many people understand the concepts of fabric computing.

But AMD does. We understand it so much that today, we made a significant investment in fabric computing with the purchase of SeaMicro. SeaMicro has been known in high-density computing circles as a company with a unique fabric solution that leverages industry standards to help tie multiple computers together into a fabric that helps drive down the cost of deploying, operating and expanding computing resources.

The basis of the SeaMicro technology is the interconnect fabric. A custom ASIC allows multiple computers to be linked together via their PCI Express bus. This fabric allows a large number of servers, to be tied together in a fabric within a dense chassis, all sharing a high-performance connection to networking and I/O peripherals. Servers go from being a large box to a small card as they are aggregated into this environment. Card-based servers are infinitely easier to deploy and manage because there are fewer discrete components and more sharing. The days of overprovisioning a rack of servers falls by the wayside, with a new paradigm that helps customers better utilize their data center space, power and resources.

So, what does this acquisition mean for AMD? Clearly, we are moving from a being merely a silicon provider to delivering systems-level integration and capability. When you look at the IP that AMD has at its disposal, large cores like “Bulldozer” and the upcoming “Piledriver”; smaller, energy efficient cores like “Bobcat” and the upcoming “Jaguar”; as well as leading GPU technology, it all means that we have the ability to build a variety of CPU and APU products that can be integrated into servers. And the unique fabric solution from SeaMicro helps AMD tie all of these pieces together.

Read the full article at AMD At Work Blog.

[caveman-jim]

With this purchase, AMD are not aiming to compete with their own partners, but move to create more IP for their platforms and expand their offerings.

[sandorski]

Interesting move, kinda shrewd as well. Intel has lost a company making Servers with their Atom processors(at least eventually) and AMD has gained a company that will use one of its' own processors.

[caveman-jim]

I remember AMD downplaying Bobcat and many little-core servers, it's interesting how that has turned out to be a key strategy under the new CEO.

[Dr. Zhivago]

Seems like a great move. I hope it pans out.

[sandorski]

I hear that one of the guys from SeaMicro was on the development team for Opteron. Not sure of the significance of that, but it's an interesting other tidbit.