Intel is reorganizing its enterprise CPU branding from the traditional Xeon E5 and E7 SKUs into a new Xeon Processor Scalable family that is stratified into Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze tiers. The transition comes prior to Intel's looming release of the new Skylake-SP lineup (another change from the previous -EP branding).
Lisa Spelman, Intel's vice president and general manager of Xeon products, penned an editorial outlining a few features of the new servers, which promise to offer up to 3.9x more virtualization workload scalability compared to four-year-old server platforms. Spelman also mentioned a new Volume Management Device (VMD), which Intel designed to improve management of the company's latest SSDs, such as the 3D XPoint-powered Intel DC P4800X we recently tested and the recently-announced DC P4600 series. It also allows for hot-plugging.
Intel's E7 family (four- to eight-socket) now falls into the Gold category, while the E5 family (two- to four-socket) slots into the Silver category. Intel will add as-yet undefined products into the upper and lower tiers in the future. Intel didn't release specifications for the new Skylake-SP models but listed integrated QuickAssist (QAT) AVX-512 accelerators, new on-die interconnects, and memory controller as key features. Intel also lists FPGAs, Nervana (ASICs), Xeon Phi, and silicon photonics as complimentary platform features.
