PowerPC blade server spawns rugged cousin

The PowerNode5 is a rugged 6U VME clone of the IBM JS20 blade design.

Thales is making a fully rugged version of the current generation PowerPC blade server.

The PowerNode5 is a rugged 6U VME clone of the IBM JS20 blade design.

This new product provides a very high level of performance with a full binary compatibility with IBM JS20 blades servers, in a form factor fully adapted to any of today's embedded systems requirements.

"This product aims at applications being developed on the standard IBM blade server and needing to be deployed in tougher conditions".

"The Thales expertise in the ruggeddisation domain was successfully put to test to overcome the challenge of fitting such powerful silicon into the existing 6U VME envelope".

"Unlike some other vendors, we at Thales, believe that the incremental nature of the VME ecosystem is not yet over and that leading edge processor technology can still fit side to side with legacy equipments".

"This new product is here to prove it", said Alain Albarello, General Manager of Thales Computers.

The PowerNode5 is available in standard convection cooled and rugged conduction cooled versions for harsh environment applications.

PowerNode5 features two IBM 970FX processors clocked at 1.6GHz - even the rugged conduction cooled version - and up to 2Gbyte DDR SDRAM ECC memory with an outstanding 6.4Gbyte/s memory peak bandwidth.

The end user can initially develop applications on a low-cost standard IBM blade server and easily port the application to the PowerNode5 system.

The Red Hat Linux SMP BSP supported on the PowerNode5 is a key feature in promoting software productivity.

Additionally, the PowerNode5 offers a smooth migration path from existing PPC G4-based platforms with customers able to easily and efficiently preserve their legacy software investments.

compared with current G3/G4 technologies, the G5 architecture offers improved performance that enables the end-user to optimise software application development based on new hardware advances.

"This new product retains full compatibility with all customer applications which were designed around our specific software to fit large multiprocessor Linux based architectures".

"This software insulation layer remains the same on this newer product and this is excellent news for all our customers with strong legacy requirements", added Valerie Bertheau, Vice President of Marketing for Thales Computers.

The product is available as a board component (the PowerNode5) or pre-integrated in large systems (PowerMP5) with full data transport and management software based on standards such as MPI and HTTP and runs Red Hat Linux or Wind River VxWorks.

In addition, the PowerNode5 features an onboard serial RapidIO switch fabric that allows the end-user to build a powerful and scalable signal processing calculator based on the PowerNode5 building block as well as two Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Pricing for the PowerNode5 starts at $11,260 subject to specifications.

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