Today SRC Computers announced the commercial availability of its reconfigurable server for hyperscale centers and web operations, the Saturn 1 Server. SRC claims that the Saturn 1 Server can perform 100 times faster than traditional microprocessors while using much lower power.
Today SRC Computers announced the commercial availability of its reconfigurable server for hyperscale centers and web operations, the Saturn 1 Server. SRC claims that the Saturn 1 Server can perform 100 times faster than traditional microprocessors while using much lower power.
Headquartered in Colorado Springs, SRC Computers was founded in 1996 by Seymour R. Cray, the founder of Cray Research and often referred to as “the father supercomputing.” SRC specializes in reconfigurable processors and are the only vendor that also provides a tightly integrated ANSI standard C and Fortran high-level language-programming environment with both development and debug capability. Aside from the Saturn 1 Server, SRC also offers scalable servers, rack mount systems and airborne/portable computing solutions.
Seeing the microprocessor as the bottleneck that can no longer keep up with hyperscale and cloud computing, SRC Saturn 1 Server is designed to change the limits of the traditional general-purpose microprocessor. The new server achieves its performance and efficiency by eliminating “unnecessary baggage of traditional microprocessor designs.” Using industry standard programming language, such as C, users can create a reconfigurable customer processor for the specific command, making software into hardware and using only the logic necessary. The Saturn 1 Server can use the remaining space to run multiple instances of the same task at the same time. SRC claims that there is no competition for resources and results in 100 times better performance while lowering energy consumption and heat production.
SRC also states that hyperscale web services companies can port applications to Saturn 1 Servers in as little as three days. The markets that would reap the most benefit from this technology would be financial services, seismic data processing, real-time transaction processing, signal processing, mobile device infrastructure, hyperscale computing, and big data analytics. One of SRC’s existing customers stat that they saw a performance increase more than 500 times with the new Server.
Benefits include:
- Every Saturn 1 Server thread is repeatedly processed in the same amount of time, making programming easier, predictable
- Processing time accelerated 100x or more
- 45 watts per Saturn 1 Server vs. 4500 watts for an equivalent performance mP server and server cooling
- 1:100 server ratio for same performance. Less data center real estate, less energy, less cooling, less lighting
- Initial CAPEX on Saturn 1 Servers 75% less expensive than mP
Availability and pricing
The Saturn 1 Server is commercially available today and starts at $19,995 per server.
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