Nashville Technology Council

Nashville Tech Story (11/19/09)

Last week, Intel’s Roadshow made a stop in Music City.  I thought it a bit strange to have their roadshow following CMA’s at the Sommet, but come to find out it was a genius move.  They coupled their CMA tickets for clients and got to see some great country music as well as tout their new technologies.

The event itself was interesting.  Intel is really pushing the envelope on chip speed and size.  I learned about ticks and tocks.  Ticks are minor processor improvements, whereas tocks are large scale changes in size and momentum.

Some of their new healthcare technologies pique my interest.  They are working on bedside monitoring and clinician input modules to feed the electronic health record.

The average data center cost $1,000/square foot to build.  For every dollar spent on the data center it requires $8 for maintenance.  For every dollar spent on hardware, it requires $.50 in power and cooling.  Wow!

The Intel chip of today is the Nehalem EX and the future is the Westmere EX – Expandable.  Both are built on the Boxboro Platform.  It will continue to change the data center environment.  I was most impressed by their energy efficiencies in their new chip.  They are talking about 90% energy cost reductions and an 8 month payback as an ROI.  That is planning tough to beat.  If you are planning a tech refresh, you may want to check with the local Intel rep and have them provide you with their Excel tools to help you plan the refresh.

For more information or to download the presentations, click here.