Virtualisation will be one of the big themes at next
week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, along with the
growing challenge of how to cool servers.
Users are turning increasingly to virtualisation technology to
improve the utilisation of datacentre servers. In a global survey
of 1,221 enterprises, conducted by Forrester Research, 26% of users
had already implemented virtualisation, while 8% more will pilot it
by summer 2006.
The rapid adoption of server virtualisation can be attributed to
its ability to reduce costs while letting organisations make their
infrastructures more flexible over time, said Forrester.
Along with virtualisation, Intel will show users how it plans to
deal with the increasing problem of heat and power consumption in
datacentres. According to IDC analyst Daniel Fleischer, users are
unable to install more than 17 blades in a 48-blade rack due to
cooling problems.
In his keynote, Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner
will discuss the transition to the 65nm chip fabrication process
and the company's next generation micro-architecture.
Intel's goal is to develop a chip architecture that enables
energy efficiency through power optimisation, which reduces both
electricity consumption and the need for cooling systems in
datacentres.