OnLogic Sees AMD Demand Rise As New Ryzen, EPYC Servers Launch

‘AMD has definitely made a splash. We see a lot of customers coming in specifically looking for AMD, and it‘s really because of the performance that’s available on the platform,’ OnLogic’s Maxx Garrison says of the company’s new Ryzen- and EPYC-based industrial servers for edge computing workloads.

OnLogic, a maker of industrial servers and PCs, has launched new customizable industrial servers running on AMD’s latest Ryzen and EPYC processors as the company sees increasing demand for systems powered by the chipmaker’s products and for PCIe 4.0 capabilities.

The South Burlington, Vt.-based company’s new AMD-based server lineup, announced Tuesday, consists of the 2U MK200-60 and 4U MK400-60, both of which can support up to a 64-core AMD EPYC processor, as well as the 1U MK100B-40, 1.5U MK150B-40 and the standalone MC850-40, all of which can support up to a 16-core Ryzen desktop processor.

[Related: Partners: Intel Still Strong Despite 7nm Delays, AMD Gains]

The new products — which target AI, deep learning, data analytics and advanced automation workloads for edge computing — represent a major expansion beyond the company’s servers that run on Intel processors and the company’s existing AMD-based offerings, which include a set of mini PCs that launched last year.

Maxx Garrison, product management lead for OnLogic’s server line, said the new servers represent an expansion of the partnership it started with AMD about two years ago, which also corresponds with an increase in demand for AMD-based systems from customers.

“AMD has definitely made a splash. We see a lot of customers coming in specifically looking for AMD, and it‘s really because of the performance that’s available on the platform,” he said. “So I would say that the brand is important, but not for every customer. Our sales process is really to find the right solution for the customer, so if they come in without a preference [for AMD or Intel], we’re really looking at what their use case is and what the best system to meet that need is.”

OnLogic has also seen demand for servers with PCIe 4.0 connectivity, which is currently a capability only AMD’s latest processors possess while Intel has yet to release server and desktop CPUs with the feature.

“PCIe Gen4 has been a request from a number of our customers, whether it‘s for very high-bandwidth networking or advanced storage or high-end accelerators for machine vision, and we’re seeing a growing need for it,” Garrison said.

Garrison said the Ryzen-based industrial servers are entry-level systems focused on providing more “value for the performance,” but there are limitations around core count and expandability. The EPYC-based servers, on the other hand, can support much higher core counts and more expansion slots.

For the EPYC-based MK200-60 and MK400-60, the servers support dual 10-gigabit Ethernet and come with eight DIMM slots for DDR4 memory, internal or hot-swap SATA, SAS and NVMe storage options, integrated IPMI for remote management as well as seven PCIe 4.0 x16 slots.

The Ryzen-based MK100B-40, MK150B-40 and MC850-40 servers, on the other hand, come with up to four DDR4 ECC and non-ECC SO DIMM slots; up to eight SATA3 or two PCIe 4.0 x4 by OCulink ports; one M.2 port; one PCIe 4.0 x16 link and one PCie 4.0 x4 link from the AMD processors; dual 10-gigabit Ethernet; and integrated IPMI for remote management with KVM and dedicated LAN.

OnLogic’s modular servers are built from the ground up for industrial companies, often for automation use cases, which have accelerated this year due to the coronavirus pandemic creating a need for distancing between workers and fewer workers in facilities.

For instance, OnLogic is seeing an increased need for edge computing to run machine learning applications for automated guided vehicles in shipping and logistics warehouses.

“There‘s no question that the world has changed pretty dramatically over the last few months, and we’re seeing certainly a lot of adoption of this type of technology, where previously it might have been a slower curve,” said JP Ishaq, product development manager at OnLogic.

Ishaq said AMD has been a “tremendous” partner for OnLogic so far by providing engineering resources as well as sales and marketing resources to help get the word out.

“They‘ve been tremendous in supporting our growth in this area and giving us early access to designs, technology, etc. in order to really move us forward for this collaborative launch,” he said.