Via believes modern-day servers use too much power and is seeking to fix the problem with the introduction of new hardware. In what is nearly a first for the company, it is introducing a low-power 2U rackmount server, the NSR7800, designed for network storage providers. The server is based off the C7 processor and built to handle up to eight internal hard drives, all served through the Via platform which includes dual gigabit LAN. A nice start for NAS use, and the very low power consumption Via offers helps tackle an increasingly difficult problem in server environments: power demands and heat.
One hurdle that the company will have to overcome is getting their hardware into the datacenter in the first place. They may be a pioneer of low-power computing and might have an edge over Intel and AMD in their newer Nano CPUs, but enterprise environments and servers are not normally Via territory. They are going after small and medium sized businesses initially, which, though easier than the enterprise, is still not an easy place to overcome industry giants. HP, IBM, Dell and many others are all popular vendors for even small business servers, so the chipmaker will have to convince them as well as businesses that their power profile is worth it.
Will Via pull it off? They certainly have the groundwork in place. The hardware they have been specializing in for years is exactly what server environments increasingly need. Small form factors, low power demands, high integration and more. You can read more about Via's new servers in the press release.
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