Intel: 21 OEMs Signed on for New Xeon E7 v2 Chip

Intel (INTC) said that Cisco Systems (CSCO), Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), IBM (IBM) and Lenovo are among 21 heavyweight OEMs set to bring to market more than 40 new and augmented systems based on the chip giant’s new high-end Xeon E7 v2 processor, formerly code-named Ivytown.

The OEM lineup, which also includes big names Bull, EMC (EMC), Fujitsu, Oracle (ORCL), Unisys and ZTE, is supplemented by 16 analytics software vendors supporting the platform, including Microsoft (MSFT), Pivotal, Red Hat (RHT), SAP (SAP), HP Vertica and others.

The chip giant is aiming the Xeon E7 v2 squarely at the high-end server market, positioning it as offering new capabilities to process and analyze large, diverse amounts of data for information previously thought to be inaccessible. The 22nm chip, built on the Ivy Bridge framework, is targeted specifically at the data-intensive analytics, business intelligence and high-performance computing segments to compete with IBM’s Power processors, among others.

In addition, Intel for sure has the nascent Internet of Everything in its sights, pointing to the $32 billion market potential of Big Data and services combined by 2017, driven by information pulled from some 30 billion connected devices. The chipmaker is banking on IoE-associated companies investing in high-performing technologies and analytics solutions both to save and make money, offering up that it expects internally to increase sales by up to $500 million by 2016 from deploying the technology.

“Organizations that leverage data to accelerate business insights will have a tremendous edge in this economy,” said Diane Bryant, Intel Data Center Group senior vice president and general manager. “The advanced performance, memory capacity and reliability of the Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family enable IT organizations to deliver real-time analysis of large data sets to spot and capitalize on trends, create new services and deliver business efficiency.”

Intel said the Xeon E7 v2 family features triple the memory capacity of the previous generation for far faster and thorough data analysis, twice the average performance and four times the I/O bandwidth. The processor is built for up to 32-socket servers in configurations up to 15 cores and up to 1.5TB of memory per socket. In particular, the performance improvements will help businesses running CRM and ERP applications to operate more efficiently, Intel said.

Two of the big name hardware OEMs already have announced new high-end servers based on the chip. HP took the wraps off its new ProLiant DL580 Generation 8 server, a machine geared to data-intensive environments scheduled to be available in March for $13,079.

And, Dell rolled out a new addition to its server lineup based on the E7 chip with the PowerEdge R920, its highest performing server to date, capable of handling mission-critical workloads such as ERP, CRM, e-commerce and large databases. The system is slated to be available before the end of this quarter.