In a bid to strengthen its positions in the server market, Intel Corp. has announced that it would join the so-called Server System Infrastructure (SSI) group that develops common designs of server platforms in the development of Modular Server Specifications. The result of the decision will help Intel to faster deliver new products to the market and will also allow to faster ramp up new offerings.

The Modular Server Specifications simplify and lower the cost of product development by providing design guidance that enables server builders to develop compliant and interoperable building blocks at the blade, chassis and manageability software level. As a result, systems running new chips from Intel Corp. will be able to take advantage of earlier-developed modules, which will enable the company to ramp up its new server technologies quicker.

One of the reasons why Intel could not ramp up its Core 2-based server chips really rapidly last year was the fact that the company did not have proper reference designs for its new Intel Xeon processors. As a result, the ramp of the new server technology took longer than expected.

“Intel is proud of our history of more than nine years of contributions and association with SSI. As part of our commitment to leading energy-efficient computing, Intel is an active participant in the specification that will drive new cost-effective, flexible, industry standards-based platforms based on the Intel Xeon processor into the server market,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president, digital enterprise group, Intel.

The Modular Server Specifications are designed by the SSI organization, an industry initiative with more than 185 members. This announcement includes design specifications for compute blades, mezzanine cards and system management interfaces. The latest specifications build on previous successes of SSI, which include energy-efficient power supplies and optimized server board form factors for pedestal and rack-mount server platforms. All design specifications from SSI are made openly available to the broad market.