Intel Corporation signaled that it intends to take direct aim at the heart of the data center market with the latest release of its workhorse Xeon processor, the 5600 series. The processor giant says a single Xeon 5600 processor-based server can replace up to 15 single-core servers, and reduce energy consumption by up to 30 percent. Taking a cue from analysts and vendors discussing the need to reign in server sprawl (a lot of caused by Intel-based servers), Intel is looking at the green data center and server consolidation market as an area of opportunity. And the increased competition only makes things better for data center managers.

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