Intel's Post-2017 "Purley" Enterprise Platform Detailed

Intel's future enterprise computing business, post-2017, could see a unification of its 2-socket (2S), 4-socket (4S), and >8-socket (8S+) platforms unify into one, codenamed "Purley." The platform will consist of multiple SKUs, but a common socket type (Socket-P), and a new interconnect technology replacing InfiniBand, which will wire the sockets and core-logic across multiple server blades, together. Called Omni-Path Interconnect, the tech appears to be fiber-optic at the physical layer, with extremely thin cables, and bandwidths could start at 100 Gbps, for the first generation. The controller driving it will be codenamed "Storm Lake." The inter-socket communication will be care of a newer 10.4 GT/s UPI interconnect, each socket will feature three such UPI channels. The platform will support up to eight sockets per blade, with more sockets across neighboring blades over Omni-Path.