For the past seven years, Lightfleet has been working on a technology that employs light signals to replace the cabling and switches typically used to connect various server nodes in a blade server. And as of December, it had delivered its first unit–to Microsoft’s Research’s labs.

Lightfleet’s first product is code-named Beacon, a 32-node server that uses dual-core Intel processors along with standard off-the-shelf disks, memory, and storage all in a package that stands about 16 inches tall on a server rack (9U in server speak)… [READ FULL ARTICLE ]