HP boots ServerWorks with new Xeon kit

64-bit ProLiant charge

HP looks set to upgrade four of its ProLiant servers with Intel's new 64-bit Xeon processor in the very near future, according to information from HP partners.

The HP ProLiant ML350, ML370, DL360 and DL380 (G4) servers should all start arriving shortly with the x86-64-bit Xeon chip code-named Nocona. HP will also upgrade its BL30p blade server with the chip. In the new kit, HP will be using chipsets from Intel as opposed to ServerWorks, which currently dominates HP's ProLiant line. HP will kick off the new ProLiant gear with 3.6GHz Xeons, according to the partner information.

Intel is currently the only vendor with a Nocona chipset prepped that we are aware of, which likely explains the absence of ServerWorks gear.

HP declined to comment officially on "unannounced products." ServerWorks declined to return our phone call. And Intel declined to rat out either its customer or partner. Luckily, we are not subject to the same code of silence these vendors' share.

Last month, Intel followed rival AMD to the x86-64bit market with the release of a new Xeon aimed at workstations. At the time, it promised to deliver a similar chip designed for two-processor servers within "60 days," and that is the part HP, along with a number of other vendors, will now pick up.

All of the HP systems listed above are dual-processor boxes with the DL servers being slimmer, lower-end kit compared to the beefier ML boxes. A sample configuration of the new DL380 G4 listed on a partner site shows the box shipping with the Intel E7520 chipset, 8GB of memory and 36GB Ultra320 SCI drives. HP will offer the DL360 server with both SCSI and SATA drives.

HP has already certified Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the new kit.

The Xeon systems will join HP's existing x86-64-bit gear based on AMD's Opteron processor. ®

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