Australia's Defence Department has issued a tender for 20 of what it calls "Supermicro Superservers."
The tender does not offer any explanation for why the servers
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are needed, but does say it has
already tested its desired configuration, namely:
- "Use of Intel Nehalem X5550 CPU’s (or higher equivalent Intel CPU).
- Density of 8 physical CPU’s per two standard rack units.
- Dual redundant power supplies.
- Minimum three SATA 3.5” hard disk drive capability per 2 CPU’s.
- 12GB DDR3 memory per 2 CPU’s.
- Installed 3.5” Enterprise Class 500GB hard disk per 2 CPU’s.
- Remote Management Interface (IPMI) using ethernet interface.
- Maximum height of any one component of two standard rack units."
The department hopes to receive the servers at a South Australian address four weeks after making its choice, but the purpose for the servers is not known or, indeed, mentioned in the unusually brief tender.