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Server Power Play: Page 3 of 6

One system builder taking advantage of the motherboard is Ciara Technologies, Montreal. It developed the Nexxus 4000 Personal Cluster using the board. The Nexxus 4000 was developed through Ciara's VXTech division, which engineers new systems and also functions as a systems integrator.

The Nexxus 4000 houses four distinct systems in a tower chassis. It originally was developed using Intel's Caretta motherboard, but in July, Ciara also added dual-socket motherboards that use Intel's new Xeon Woodcrest processors. The design stacks two Caretta single-processor motherboards together on one blade, while the Xeon version holds two processors on one motherboard. The unit supports up to eight hard drives, integrates a UPS and plugs into a standard 110/220-volt AC outlet.

Patrick Scateni, vice president of VXTech, said the Nexxus 4000 offers the kind of number-crunching capabilities exclusive to high-performance computing research labs, which have larger budgets and can cluster hundreds of cheap computers together to harness compute power. "Smaller companies can afford this in terms of financial investment and space," he said.

For example, large financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch regularly run risk management simulations on powerful high-performance computing clusters, Scateni said. With the Nexxus 4000, smaller firms now have the same options. "These companies don't have huge data centers. We have high density but smaller constraints," he said. If necessary, the Nexxus 4000 can sit at the side of a desk.

Scateni said the single-socket Caretta motherboards are useful for some applications, which seem to scale up better with one CPU—for example, modeling and mechanical software.