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Oracle releases non-engineered x86 servers

Not hyperconverged, not leading edge and not very exciting for most customers

Oracle may make a heap of noise about its engineered stacks-in-a-box, but appears to have decided there's still some cash to be wrung out of the standalone x86 server market … when they're designed to suit the needs of a particular industry.

That industry is telecommunications, upon which Oracle last week lavished new Netra M3 servers. The X3-2 (formerly known as the Netra X4270 M3 server) now packs a pair of Xeon E5-2600 processors into a 2U chassis that can also house eight hard disks, four 10GbE ports and six PCIe 3.0 doodads. Big Red reckons it's the “Only rackmount x86 server from major vendor to comply with Telco and military restricted depth requirements.”

There's also a new X3-2B Server Module, primarily notable for also scoring the E5-2600 upgrade. 10 of the servers can slot into Oracle's Netra 6000 enclosure.

Interestingly, Windows Server 2012 is not recommended for use on either, although the usual assortment of Linuxes and VMware are good to go.

Both devices are NEBS Level 3 Certified and have also passed ETSI testing, a combination Oracle reckons makes them ready for duty in telco-land's demanding environments. It's probably a good thing Oracle has a market in mind for these boxes, because they don't look to be much more than this year's model packing this year's Intel model. Oracle's Engineered Systems look like they get more love from its hardware design teams. But it also looks like at least some customers in telco-land don't want Oracle's engineered offspring, preferring pretty-much generic x86 servers in configurations the likes of Dell, HP, Cisco and the cool hyperconverged kids might suggest it's a bit rustic. ®

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