Roundup: Calxeda, Ciena, Intel

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Calxeda 480-core server reference design.  To begin the Austin South by Southwest (SXSW) festival Austin-based Calxeda gave a peek at its first reference design, which is based on the ARM Cortex A9 quad-core SOC (Server On Chip) design. Between Calxeda, Marvell and SeaMicro the low-power processor is taking on the data center market full force. Using the quad-core SOC design Calxeda will enable OEMs to design servers as dense as 120 ARM quad-core nodes (480 cores) in a 2U enclosure. Including DRAM the average power consumption per node is expected to be 5 watts, or 1.25 watts per core.  The claim is that they will provide a performance advantage of 5X to 10X the performance/watt and (even higher when price is factored in for a metric of performance/watt/$) of any products they expect to see when they bring the product to market. With the success of Apple's iPad and recent iPad2 release Engadget says that the iPad2 may contain a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor.  Just don't expect any more iPad Colocation soon.

Ciena powers 100G Internet2 network. Ciena (CIEN) announced a partnership on a 100G national network in support of the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) project. Internet2 is significantly upgrading its national backbone network through a federal stimulus grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Enabled by the partnership with Ciena Internet 2's 100 Gigabits per second network will increase to 8.8 Terabits per second.  Using Ciena's ActivFlex 6500 Packet-Optical Platform the increased capacity will help connect community anchor institutions such as schools, libraries, hospitals and colleges to next-generation Internet-based applications utilizing the Internet2 Network.  “We are excited about the directionless, colorless ROADM capabilities and the focus on intelligent automation as it reflects the need for flexibility, scalability and resiliency as is required by the anchor institutions, research sites and education campuses we serve.  These capabilities will be critical to supporting the diverse application needs of the users on our network," said Robert Vietzke, executive director of network services at Internet2.

Intel acquires SySDSoft. Intel (INTC) announced that it has acquired most of the assets of SySDSoft, a privately held software company based in Cairo and hired approximately 100 of the company’s electrical engineers and computer scientists. Egypt-based SySDSoft's IP solutions enhance and accelerate Intel's 4G LTE efforts with the addition of leading software development and design capabilities.  “As we enter an era of multi-communication broadband solutions, Intel’s products and technologies will be important to our vision of billions of connected devices,” said Dr. Hermann Eul, president of Intel Mobile Communications. “Intel is making the necessary investments to further enhance its existing world-class wireless product portfolio and to offer the most reliable platforms to our customers that will work seamlessly across a range of global networks."