Demand of Servers

Various servers are installed for different purposes: Network Attached Storage (NAS), RADIUS server, Network Access Server, web server, FTP server, mail server, VPN server and IP-PBX server. Usually these advanced servers are equipped with multiple powerful processors and mass storage devices. They are mounted on the stack racks and placed in the separate IT rooms, where they run day and night and make big noises with the fans and transformers. Most of these servers are x86 machines. These servers have powerful performance and outstanding stability, rather than energy saving and environment friendly.

As broadband services are getting popular in daily life, we have to deploy many servers and client computers in our apartments, schools, chain stores, and branch offices. Yes, we can find many legacy PCs to meet the requirements. However, CO2 emission, power consumption due to outdated technologies, noises and even maintenance cost drive us to find the economical alternative solutions. Basically we just need some THIN servers, which should be small, low power consumption, no noise, and maintenance free. Yes, they should be as simple as a router or modem.

Standard for Small Size Factor Computers

We can find many small factor standards from PC industry. Mini-ITX and PC/104 are the major industrial standards for the small size computers. VIA quite actively defines various small factor computers: Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, Pico-ITX, Em-ITX and mobile-ITX. Its product lines are designed for POS, automotive PC, NAS, table-PC, UMPC and Net Book. Of course, VIA is an x86 suppliers. Although VIA emphasizes on low power x86 processors and small factor size OEM boards. X86 platform still requires much power than RISC platforms due to CPU structure and chipset. Additionally, these Mini-ITX boards add graphic chips and HDTV decoders, which are not necessary in most server applications.

RISC Advantage

Obviously, The RISC microprocessors have advantage on power consumption over x86. The RISC processors are usually delivered in the form of SoC with integrated peripherals, rather than the separate approach in x86 platform. It also helpful in reducing the power consumption in external chipset, EMC/EMI issues of clock and buses. So we can easily build a RISC based fan-less server with less power consumption and get rid of the noises by the fans. Of course, the RISC servers usually are not fully feature servers. The problem for the RISC server is, in most cases, the RISC boards are not available in standard small factor forms. The designers prefer to define their own specifications. It is an important reason why RISC server is not available as a general purpose server. Another reason is software compatibilities. Let us check out the products from Japan.

The General Purpose Thin Servers

Plat'Home Co., Ltd Japan has featured its RISC microprocessor based thin server families since 1996. The Plat'Home MicroServers have two families: OpenBlockS (IBM PowerPC 405GPr on 266MHz) and OpenMicroServer (RMI Alchemy MIPS au1550 on 400MHz). Recommended uses include small-scale web server, router and network monitoring, mail, VoIP, VPN and many more. The operation system is called SSD/Linux, which is a dedicated Linux distribution for solid state device (flash disk). Plat'Home offers prebuilt packages and a development environment for cross-compiling. The advanced user also can use cross tool chain to deploy custom applications. Based upon MicroServer, Plat'Home offers prebuilt firmware solution for advanced server monitoring and VPN connection.

Plat'Home successfully promotes two RISC platforms as general purpose thin servers. It fits everything on our wish list, except for cost. It is ironically to see its banner claim the MicroServers is an affordable solution for limited budget. The MicroServers are much expensive than the x86 box. The price for MicroServers ranges from 485USD to 1355USD ! I would rather to buy a VIA nano or Intel ATOM based board. If there is an affordable off-the-shelf OEM RISC board which follows standard dimension specifications, it would be a good candidate.

Solution From Freescale

The MPC8349E PowerQUICC II Pro family of integrated communications processors is an extension of the popular PowerQUICC II line. Based on a system-on-chip (SoC) architecture, the MPC8349E PowerQUICC II Pro Family integrates the enhanced e300 core and advanced features, such as DDR memory, Dual Gigabit Ethernet, Dual PCI and Hi-Speed USB controllers. With clock speeds scaling to 667 MHz, the MPC8349E family of processors offers the highest performing PowerQUICC II devices available.

Freescale offers the MPC8349E-mITXE reference platform for ODM and partners. It is ideal for hardware and software development for networking applications. It leverages Freescale’s highly integrated MPC8349E processor built on Power Architecture technology and leading-edge external components—a 5-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, four high-speed USB ports, four serial ATA ports, one Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slot, one MiniPCI slot and one compact flash memory slot.

Freescale offers various valuable reference designs with its partners based upon MPC8439E mITXE reference board. Jungo Software offers Office-in-a-Box software solution, Mediabolic offers Media Server-in-a-Box solution, and Axentra offers Digital Home Reference design. In one word, Freescale offers chip and reference boards, ISVs offers software solutions for various applications. I also get similar board information from MICROTEK Taiwan, an experienced ICE supplier.

I can not find MPC8349E mini-ITX board for the retail market. It is much suitable to act as communication oriented server or appliances, for example, to be a carrier level wire/wireless router or 3G basestation. Compare to the MPC8349E mini-ITX board, the existing ATOM mini-ITX board is getting much cheaper. Although the RISC OEM board has power advantage over x86, its cost and availability become a roadblock. However, I will still try my best to find the RISC boards with standard specification, so I can share standard accessories with PC world, including cases, power supply and storage media suitable for embedded applications. The principle should apply to other RISC platforms like ARM9, ARM11, Cortex-A8, Coldfire v3/v4 and MIPS. 

Software? Software is not an issue, try Linux !

Reference
Mini-ITX from Wikipedia
Freescale MPC8349E: PowerQUICC II Pro family
MPC8349E Platforms (PDF)
Freescale MPC8349E Office-in-a-Box Reference Platform Product Summary (Jungo)
Freescale MPC8349E-mITX Media Server-in-a-Box Reference Platform (Mediabolic)
Freescale MPC8349E-mITX Digital Home Center Reference Platform (Axentra)
Plat'Home Co., Ltd. (Japan)
Plat'Home on Wikipedia
FTP download for SSD/Linux on i386/powerpc/mips-el

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