Armari 1040C8B

You can keep a close eye on general system health, monitor critical system components and send out warnings if problems are detected. Both pager and email alerting is supported and you can choose from fan speeds, voltages, temperatures and chassis intrusion items that you want to monitor. Remote control facilities are provided so you can access the server from another system, gracefully shut down the OS, control power and redirect the server's console.

The 1040C8B is a remarkable system with an unbelievable processing quotient that shows clearly just how far AMD has come in the dual-core server processor game. Furthermore, although the Supermicro motherboard has required a substantial redesign to find enough room for the four processor sockets, this hasn't been at the expense of expansion potential. The low-profile chassis still offers the same options for PCI slots as less well-equipped servers and, although it loses a drive bay to cater for the larger power supply, there's still a triplet of RAID-protected hot-swap drives provided for fault-tolerant storage. If you're looking for a very high-density processing platform using tried and tested technology then Armari's 1040C8B has an awful lot going for it, and it costs a lot less than most Xeon MP solutions.

Author: Dave Mitchell