We first talked about The Machine in June 2014. The plan of Hewlett-Packard was to create a new type of server based on memristors and photonic technology, eight thousand times more powerful than a conventional platform. The restructuring of HP in November 2015 forced several aspects of the system to be modified, but the Enterprise division has managed to finish its prototype, which seems to confirm that the future of servers will not be driven by processors, but by non-volatile memory.
Users generate an ever-increasing amount of data, and "the cloud" needs to respond to that. Maybe it's not appropriate to talk about a "lack of capacity" yet, but it's clear that the traditional Web infrastructure is making a bit of noise. Many companies talk about "change the paradigm", a magic phrase to describe a revolutionary technological leap, however progress is slow. One of the most promising projects is The Machine, run by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, one of the halves that emerged from the "classic" HP after its formal split in November 2015. HPE finally presented the prototype a couple of days ago, and although everything seems to indicate that The Machine won't reach the market as an individual product, what really interests us is the technology inside.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/2VG59FYkPdMBy far, the most striking aspect of The Machine is the amount of installed memory. Its 8 terabytes (which several portals report as DRAM, but actually it's NAND Flash) are on average thirty times more memory than a typical server, and such an amount reflects the architectural changes that HPE has implemented: Everything revolves around memory, and the ability to process its content at high speed. That's when photonic technology comes in, with the help of the X1 module. This little devil can transfer up to 1.2 terabits per second over a distance of thirty meters, and if we add the possibility of incorporating hundreds of terabytes of non-volatile memory, we're talking about a platform 8,000 times faster than traditional architectures in commercial environments.
Why are there no memristors in the prototype? The answer is simple: They aren't ready. In fact, they still have a good amount of development time ahead, assuming they can reach a commercial profile. Even so, HPE intends to launch its own non-volatile memory to the market before 2019, with performance that should be on par with normal DRAM, without sacrificing retention. The message of HPE and The Machine is simple: Abandon our dependence on processors, leave behind architectures more than six decades old, replace copper tracks, and adopt a vision focused on memory and light.
