Xeon 6 Review, AMD AI Roadmap, Lenovo AI Servers, More...

Intel Xeon 6 Review (Sierra Forest – 6780E, 6766E)

The Intel Xeon 6 family of server CPUs was launched a few weeks back, replacing the former “Scalable” branding. There are two lines of chips: Sierra Forest, which offers E cores, and Granite Rapids, which offers P cores.  Check out our review for the new Intel Xeon 6.

Lenovo ThinkSystem SR685a V3 and SR680a V3 GPU Servers

The Lenovo ThinkSystem SR685a V3 and SR680a V3 GPU servers are the company’s latest 8-way GPU servers, tailored to meet diverse enterprise AI needs. Despite having distinct model names, they share a modular foundation, allowing for interchangeable components within each system. Get the details for the Lenovo ThinkSystems.

We have a video deep dive too on YouTube.

AMD Instinct Accelerator Family Showcased At Computex 2024

During her Computex keynote address, AMD’s Chair and CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, unveiled significant advancements in the AMD Instinct accelerator family. The company announced an expanded multiyear roadmap for the accelerators, promising annual improvements in AI performance and memory capabilities. This marks a new era of innovation for AI and data center workloads.

Read AMD's news for details on the Instinct accelerator family.

The HL15 Homelab Server Goes Shhhhh with New Noctua Kit

The pursuit of high performance, especially in a homelab, often comes at the cost of noise. However, with 45HomeLab’s latest partnership with Noctua, this trade-off is now a thing of the past. We had the pleasure of testing the new 45HomeLab HL15 chassis equipped with Noctua fans, and the results were nothing short of impressive. Get the low down on the Noctua fans in the HL15 Homelab Server.

Veeam Launches Veeam Data Cloud Vault Cloud-Based Storage Service

Veeam Software introduced Veeam Data Cloud Vault, a cloud-based storage service that enables users to securely store backup data off-site in an immutable and encrypted format. This service provides an additional layer of protection for critical information, ensuring data security and integrity.  Read more about Veeam Data Cloud Vault.

Object First Ootbi Video

We've been testing Ootbi by Object First in our lab since before its commercial release. The platform is one of the easiest backup appliances we've ever used; even system updates are as simple as a few clicks. Ootbi is also built with zero-trust security as a core foundation. In this video, we discuss more deeply what that means, with a little help from Veeam's Rick Vanover, and just how easy it is to deploy and manage Ootbi. Be sure to check out the podcast for even more on Object First.

Veeam Ransomware Report: Victims Unable to Recover 43% of Affected Data

Ransomware remains an ongoing threat for organizations and is the largest single cause of IT outages and downtime, as 41% of data is compromised during a cyberattack, according to the latest Veeam 2024 Ransomware Trends Report. Read the latest on Ransomware and what's in Veeam's report.

NVIDIA Empowers Taiwanese Electronics Manufacturers With Advanced AI Technologies

NVIDIA has announced that leading Taiwanese electronics manufacturers are leveraging its technology to transform their factories into more autonomous facilities using a new reference workflow. This innovative workflow integrates NVIDIA Metropolis vision AI, NVIDIA Omniverse for physically based rendering and simulation, and NVIDIA Isaac AI for robot development and deployment. Here's the latest for NVIDIA Isaac AI.

Arista Collaborates With NVIDIA To Demonstrate Advanced AI Data Center Technology

Arista Networks has announced a groundbreaking technology demonstration to create AI Data Centers that align compute and network domains into a single, managed AI entity. This initiative, undertaken in collaboration with NVIDIA, seeks to build optimal generative AI networks that offer lower job completion times by allowing customers to uniformly configure, manage, and monitor AI clusters across critical components, including networks, NICs, and servers. Read more about the Arista-NVIDIA AI Data Center.

Object First Drops Larger 192TB Ootbi, 1.5 Software Release

Object First announced a significant enhancement to their Ootbi storage solution, increasing the storage capacity to 192TB on a single node. This new capability unlocks up to 768TB of usable immutable backup storage per cluster.

Get the latest from Object First.

NVIDIA, Computer Manufacturers Unveil AI Systems Powered by Blackwell Architecture

NVIDIA, alongside top global computer manufacturers, has introduced a range of systems featuring the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture. These systems, equipped with Grace CPUs and NVIDIA networking, are designed to drive the next wave of generative AI advancements in AI factories and data centers.

Read more about Blackwell-powered systems.

Taiwan’s Leading Medical Centers Embrace AI For Healthcare Transformation

Taiwan’s premier medical institutions, the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH), are set to revolutionize biomedical research and patient care by adopting accelerated computing and generative AI technologies.

Read how Taiwan's medical centers use AI.

VAST Data and Arista Networks Announce Optimized AI Infrastructure Collaboration

VAST Data has announced a strategic collaboration with Arista Networks to provide an optimized AI infrastructure that combines low latency, high-bandwidth, lossless Ethernet switching with a secure, high-performance data platform. 

Read more about the VAST/Arista collaboration.

NVIDIA NIM Now Available to Transform AI Development With Inference Microservices

As generative AI applications become increasingly complex, often utilizing multiple models for generating text, images, video, and speech, NVIDIA NIM enhances developer productivity by offering a standardized method for integrating generative AI into applications. 

Read more about NVIDIA NIM.

Microsoft And Broadcom Expand Partnership To Support VMware Cloud Foundation On Azure VMware Solution

Microsoft and Broadcom are broadening their collaboration to support VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscriptions on Azure VMware Solution. This expansion allows customers to utilize their VMware Cloud Foundation licenses on Azure VMware Solution and their data centers, providing flexibility to adapt to evolving business needs.

Read more about Azure and VCF.

TEAMGROUP T-FORCE Z540 Review (2TB)

We have seen a few Teamgroup SSDs, but the T-Force Z540 is the first Gen5 drive to pass through our lab. This Gen5 M.2 is available in three capacities: 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB.

Read the details on the T-Force Z540.

Ampace Andes 600 Pro: Yes, I needed RGB on my Power Station

The Ampace Andes 600 Pro portable power station is the latest on the review desk from Ampace Technology, a company focused on its innovative energy solutions and lithium-ion battery technology background.  Read the review for Ampace Andes 600.

VMware Workstation Pro and Fusion are Now FREE for Personal Use!

VMware has announced VMware Workstation 17 Pro and VMware Fusion 13 Pro would be free for personal use! The news, delivered by Michael Roy, Product Line Manager for VMware’s Desktop Hypervisor products, is huge for the tens of thousands of students, hobbyists, and casual users of these two incredible products.

Get the details on free VMware software.

Leaders and Innovators in EUC: Lenovo and The Future of End User Computing

In this series of articles, we will interview leaders and innovators in End-User Computing (EUC). We will delve into their current and future EUC products, providing unique insights into the EUC industry and the trends that they are seeing in EUC. For this piece, we talked to Lenovo’s Senior Solutions Manager, Andy Nieto to kick off the series. The initial discussion occurred during IGEL Disrupt, with a follow-up conversation later.

Read the first in a series focused on End User Computing.

Social Media Highlights

Gen5 enterprise SSDs are dominated by EDSFF designs, We have a Supermicro 1U server with 16 E3.S.

Kingston 96GB DDR5 modules are a big part of a 1U server project we're working on.

ASMR unboxing a pair of Intel Xeon Platinum 8592 CPUs for an upcoming project.