Intel and its server system plans

This is particularly so for the server market.

And that's precisely what Intel does with its distributors, system integrators and PC customers.

Roadmaps the INQUIRER saw earlier this week show its system level plans up to the first quarter of 2003.

There's plenty of new codenames to think about, while others will be familiar from before.

For 1U systems, we'll see the Woodruff (S845WD1) board, which uses the 845 chipset and fits into third party cases, then in the second half of next year - probably Q3 - we'll see the Westville board, Xeon using the Plumas E7500 chipset and the SR 13000 (Coronado-W).

Coos Bay has just been made available and supports two-way Pentium IIIs, using the Serverworks HE-SL chipset and the SR2200 (Stayton-T) chassis.

Again in the 2U space, Intel will launch a version of the Westville for the Xeon using its E7500 chipset but this time based on the SR2300 Stayton-W chassis.

In Q1 of next year, we'll see the Shasta (SRSH4) four way board, supporting four Xeons, Serverworks' Grand Champion chipset and the D'Iberville II chassis.

As far as the RAID market grows, this month Intel is releasing the Bisbee (SRCU32), supporting two channel Ulta 160SCSI, 64/66 80303 IOP (Zion), the BBU standard and 64-256MB SDRAM.

In Q3 of next year, Intel will shift people to the Chillito II (SRCU 42), a two channel U320 SCSI PCI-X 64/133 solution, using the 600MHz Xscale (Verde) and support 64-1GB of DDR memory.

Chillito I, which launches in Q2 next year, is a two channel Ultra320 SCSI solution with PCI-X 64/133, and again using the 600MHz Verde (Xscale chip).

Intel will also launch the Palo Verde (SRCMRX) in the second half of next year - described as a low cost ROMB card for Westville/Hodges, with will turn two onboard SCSI channels into RAID.

Intel is very proud of its IA-32 server management products coming next year. There are four of these with the codenames Mount Bachelor, Sisters, Barstow and Kilchis.

Mt Bachelor, ISM version 2.X, has Win2K support, paging regardless of server state, remote access via modem, remote diagnostics, remote utilities, service partion boot and hot plug PCI support. It will support the following platforms: Koa, Ocotillo, Aspen-K, Cypress, Sitka, Aspen, Lancewood, Nightshade, Palmetto, SaberR, Baytown and Tupelo.

Sisters supports ISM version 3.x, includes direct control via a local area network, and can handle real time sensor readings, file upload and BIOS upgrades, remote firmware upgrades, and secure remote access. Sisters only supports Intel's Koa platform.

Barstow is based on ISM 3.5, and has all the ISM version 3.x features plus Koreal localisation, and IPMI 1.5 compliance. It will support Coos Bay, Shasta and Dodson.

Kilchis, which arrives in the first half of next year and will support ISM 5.x, so includes the features of 3.5 plus serial over LAN, CLI (command line interface), so called easy install, email alerts and Intel's Smart Tool. It supports Westville, Hodges and Bryson. µ