Kontron launches 10-Gbit node blade

Kontron has officially released its latest AdvancedTCA 10-Gbit node blade, the Kontron AT8050.

It incorporates a single quad-core Intel Xeon processor L5518 with a 60W power envelope, as opposed to a dual-CPU configuration.

Clients can still make use of one available AdvancedMC slot for further feature extensions, and maximise the amount of available memory at 24Gbits DDR3.

Registered ECC VLP SDRAM and up to 48Gbits DDR3 are available, and clients can upgrade their existing node blades with the Kontron AT8050 without having to upgrade their chassis platforms, which would be necessary to cool several dual-socket-designed quad-core node blades.

The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, based on the latest Intel microarchitecture, includes an integrated memory controller with DDR3 support and Intel Quickpath, Intel Turbo Boost and Intel Hyper-Threading technology.

These and other microarchitecture products help increase performance by reducing memory bottlenecks, executing more instructions per clock via improved caches for faster processing per core, and optimising for specific workloads by using cache and Intel Turbo Boost technologies.

There are up to eight cores or 16 threads for simultaneous multi-threading, which makes this Intel quad-core processor ideally built for virtualisation configurations.

Compliant to PICMG 3.1 Option 9 and Option 2, the Kontron AT8050 features 10 + 10 Gigabit Ethernet on the fabric interface, plus two 10/100/1,000 Mbits/s Ethernet on the base interface and two 10/100/1,000 Mbits/s Ethernet via the front panel or RTM.

Expansion features include one AdvancedMC mid-size slot supporting PCI Express x4, and SATA/SAS interfaces.

The associated Intel 5520 chipset, which supports up to 36 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 and directly assignable I/O for virtualisation (VT-d), offers significant enhancements to accelerate I/O traffic and lower CPU use in both native and virtualised environments.

Standard with Kontron blades are full IPMI and supervisory features for remote control capability, with power on-off, clean shutdown, and warm reset/cold reset controls via any IPMI channels including LAN when the payload power is off.

Also available is the Kontron RTM8050, a rear transition module built with an SAS controller to support a hot-swappable SAS/SATA hard disk on the RTM and/or an SAS/SATA AMC module populated in the Kontron AT8050's one AMC slot.

The Kontron AT8050 is available with Kontron pre-integrated AdvancedTCA OM platforms in 2U, 5U, and 13U heights, which may be fully tested and integrated with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, Wind River PNE Linux 2.0, and high-availability middleware from Enea to produce a 'TEM-ready' platform for accelerated system development.

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