A Closer Look At Intel's New Sandy Bridge Server Boards

As promised, Intel has reached out with a little bit more information on its new line of Intel Xeon E5 Sandy Bridge server boards for channel partners. The general gist: Intel wants to help channel partners build their businesses on services and hardware from its Enterprise Platform and Services Division (EPSD), and it’s accelerating its software platform while providing higher-performance motherboards to help get them there.

Intel EPSD head Lisa Graff led her presentation by explaining what her division has made available to VARs in 2011 thus far. The focus largely has been on expanding Intel’s service and software offerings. Between the Intel Enabled Server Application Alliance Intel Enabled Solutions Acceleration Alliance (ESAA), which puts together third-party application “recipes” for these so-called channel servers, the Intel Multi-Server Manager, which, well, guess what it does, and the Intel Server Continuity Suite, which continues to build toward completion through early 2012, Intel’s focus has been on less hardware and more tools to make life easier.

And now enter what Graff referred to as “the new family” of server boards compatible with the forthcoming Intel Xeon E5 line of processors, with details taken from her presentation:

Intel EPSD also took the lid off its new extended family of server systems:

As I noted in my previous post, Intel is aiming these at four key market segments: HPC, cloud/data center, embedded/appliance and small business. The Copper Pass and Canoe Pass systems, for instance, are designed to be cheap and flexible for the SMB, while the premium Grizzly Pass might be better suited for cloud and data centers.

The overall roadmap has these available to Intel partners in the first part of 2012, so stay tuned.