kW of Power.  BTU of Cooling. Square feet of Datacenter Space.  What do they have in common?

Power, Cooling and Space are resources – more specifically, constrained resources that are available to support the delivery of compute capability. As datacenter managers look at their projected compute capacity in the coming years, it becomes clear that these scarce resources will eventually run out – in fact it’s estimated that 70% will run out of power or cooling capacity in the next two years. Adding power or cooling capacity is expensive and there likely isn’t any budget for that, especially in today’s economic environment. If there isn’t budget for adding resources, there surely isn’t funding to build additional datacenter space. So how does IT get past this impasse?

By making more efficient use of the constrained resources with Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500.

In the launch announcements and blogs over the course of the last week, you have heard about the cool features and improvements delivered by the Xeon® 5500.   9X the performance of older single core products.  Significantly reduced power consumption at all points of the load line between idle and max utilization.  Interesting nuggets by themselves, but when taken in the context of the datacenter, they are powerful capabilities that IT can use to address their resource constraint issues.  Let’s look as two scenarios at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Scenario 1: Same Compute, Less Resources – Assuming an installed base of single core servers, you can replace the legacy servers with approximately 89% fewer Xeon® 5500 servers – fewer servers take up less datacenter space, consume less power and require less cooling – in fact, now you have headroom to add servers to meet growing compute requirements moving forward.

Scenario 2; More Compute, Same Resources – For those that that crave all of the compute capacity they can get their hands on, deploying Xeon® 5500 servers would increase compute capacity by 9X in the same power, cooling and floor space constraints (again, assuming a single core installed base) and consume approximately 18% less power than the legacy servers.

The kicker is that although it seems somewhat counterintuitive, when you run the numbers it actually makes financial sense to refresh old servers with Xeon® 5500 servers.  We estimate that the power and OS savings associated with Scenario 1 can pay off the investment in as little as 8 months, and those OPEX savings continue for the life of the server.

For both scenarios, Xeon® 5500 also delivers improved energy efficiency with Integrated Power Gates and Automated Lower Power States, which automatically and dynamically adjusts power and performance to the specific needs of the work being done. Throw in system level instrumentation capabilities to report and cap system power, and you can further reduce your operating costs by adjusting the HVAC output to the specific heat output of the servers in real time.

Power, cooling and space resources aren’t likely to start growing on trees, but Xeon® 5500 is a key to enabling a more efficiency datacenter,  to getting more out of every kilowatt, BTU and square foot that are available and to driving Datacenter Efficiency.

The recently introduced Intel® Xeon® 5500 Series Processor, formerly code named Nehalem brings a number of power management features that not only improve on energy efficiency over previous generations, such as a more aggressive implementation of power proportional computing.  Depending on the server design, users of Nehalem-based servers can expect idle power consumption that is about half of the power consumed at full load, down from about two thirds in the  previous generation.

A less heralded capability for this new generation of servers is that users can actually adjust the server power consumption and therefore trade off power consumption against performance.  This capability is known as power capping. The power capping range is not insignificant.  For a dual socket server consuming about 300 watt at full load, the capping range is in the order of 100 watts, that is, for a fully loaded server consuming 300 watts, power consumption can ratcheted down to about 200 watts.  The actual numbers depend on the server implementation.

The application of this mechanism for servers deployed in a data center leads to some energy savings.  However, perhaps the most valuable aspect of this technology is the operational flexibility it confers to data center operators.

This value comes from two capabilities:  First, power capping brings predictable power consumption within the specified power capping range, and second, servers implementing power capping offer actual power readouts as a bonus: their power supplies are PMBus(tm) enabled and their historical power consumption can be retrieved through standard APIs.

With actual historical power data, it is possible to optimize the loading of power limited racks, whereas before the most accurate estimation of power consumption came from derated nameplate data.  The nameplate estimation for power consumption is a static measure that requires a considerable safety margin.  This conservative approach to power sizing leads to overprovisioning of power.  This was OK in those times when energy costs were a second order consideration.  That is not the case anymore.

This technology allows dialing the power to be consumed by groups of over  a thousand servers, allowing a power control authority of tens of thousands of watts in data centers.  How does power capping work?  The technology implements power control by taking advantage of the CPU voltage and frequency scaling implemented by the Nehalem architecture.  The CPUs are one of the most power consuming components in a server.  If we can regulate the power consumed by the CPUs we can have an effect on the power consumed by the whole server.  Furthermore, if we can control the power consumed by the thousands of servers in a data center, we'll be able to alter the power consumed in that data center.

Power control for groups of servers is attained by composing power control capabilities of power control of each server.  Likewise, power control for a server is attained by composing CPU power control as illustrated in the figure below.  We will explain each of the constructs in the rest of this article.

Conceptually, power control for thousands of servers in a data center is implemented through a series of coordinated set of nested mechanisms.

The lowest level is  implemented through frequency and voltage scaling: laws of physics dictate that for a given architecture, power consumption is proportional to the CPU's frequency and to the square of the voltage use to power the CPU.  There are mechanisms built into the CPU architecture that allow a certain number of discrete combinations of voltage and frequency.  Using the ACPI standard nomenclature, these discrete combinations are called P-states, the highest performing state is nominally identified as P0, and the lower power consumption states are identified as P1, P2 and so on.  A Nehalem CPU supports about ten states, the actual number depending on the processor model.  For the sake of an example, a CPU in P0 may have been assigned a voltage of 1.4 volts and 3.6 GHz, at which point it draws about 100 watts.  As the CPU transitions to lower power states, it may have a state P4 using 1.2 volts running at 2.8 GHz and consuming about 70 watts.

The P-states by themselves can't control the power consumed by a server.  The CPU itself has no mechanisms to measure the power it consumes.   This mechanism is implemented by firmware running in the Nehalem chipset. This firmware implements the Intel(r) Dynamic Node Power Management technology, or Node manager for short..  If what we want is to measure the power consumed by a server, looking only at CPU consumption does not provide the whole picture.  For this purpose, the power supplies in Node Manager-enabled servers provide actual power readings for the whole server.  It is now possible to establish a classic control feedback loop where we compare a target power against the actual power indicated by the power supplies.  The Node Manager code manipulates the P-states up or down until the desired target power is reached.  If the desired power lies between two P-states, the Node Manager code rapidly switches between the two states until the average power consumption meets the set power.  This is an implementation of another classic control scheme, affectionately called bang-bang control for obvious reasons.

From a data center perspective, regulating power consumption of just a single server is not an interesting capability.  We need the means to control servers as a group, and just as we were able to obtain power supply readouts for one server, we need to monitor the power for the group of servers to allow meeting a global power target for that group of servers.  This function is provided by a software development kit (SDK), the Intel(r) Data Center Manager or Intel DCM for short. Notice that DCM implements a feedback control mechanism very similar to the mechanism that regulates power consumption for a single server, but at a much larger scale.  Instead of watching one or two power supplies, DCM oversees the power consumption of multiple servers or "nodes", whose number can range up to thousands.

Intel DCM was purposely architected as an SDK as a building block for industry players to build more sophisticated and valuable capabilities for the benefit of data center operators.  One possible application is shown below, where Intel DCM has been integrated into a Building Management System (BMS) application.  Some Node Manager-enabled servers come with inlet temperature sensors.  This allows the BMS application to monitor the inlet temperature of group of servers, and if the temperature rises above a certain threshold, it can take a number of measures, from throttling back the power consumed to reduce the thermal stress on that particular area of the data center to alerting system operators.  The BMS can also coordinate the power consumed by the server equipment, for instance with the  CRAC fan speeds.

With this discussion we have barely begun to scratch the  surface of the capabilities from the family of technologies implementing power management.  In subsequent notes we'll dig deeper into each of the components and explore how they are implemented, how these technologies can be extended and the extensive range of uses for which they can be applied.

Sometimes the next step up is a big one. The Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series (formerly codenamed “Nehalem”) is one of those kinds of steps.

Over the last few years 10 Gigabit has started to take off, but there have always been some negative mutterings: “Why do I need 10 Gigabit?”, “Why do we need this much bandwidth?” or “My server can’t support 10 Gigabit per second bidirectional traffic anyway.” Despite the volume of 10 Gigabit products shipped, there is still the reality that if you intend to use the entire 20 Gbps (10G both directions) or heaven forbid you try to use 40 Gbps with a dual port product; you will likely be sorely disappointed with the results.

The reason for this is simple. Most current mainstream servers and 10 Gigabit products don’t support the intense usage models needed to drive that much network I/O and they also don’t have the memory architecture to unleash the full potential of dual 10 Gigabit links.

Luckily, that all just changed with Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series.

In addition to the great processing improvements that the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series brings to the table, Intel has also introduced our third generation 10 Gigabit product, the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller which provides two ports, and new capabilities and enhancement to the 10 Gigabit product landscape that help unshackle the new processor from its predecessor’s network I/O handcuffs and unleashes blazing performance in a variety of usage models. These improvements, coupled with the new architecture of the Xeon 5500 provide a symbiotic processor-networking combination that makes new usages possible and expands server and datacenter computing by a big leap… not just a baby step.

One of the key changes with Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series architecture is a step function improvement in the internal system I/O. The new local memory controller design, faster cache architecture, and support for DDR3 help push Xeon 5500 to be able to support peak memory bandwidth of ~32 Gigabytes, per socket. In a dual socket system this provides for ~64 Gigabytes of bandwidth which is dramatically more than the previous generation server configuration. In addition, the new Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI) improves the speed both for inter-Processor communication as well as a faster path to the I/O hub. Finally, PCI Express* 2.0 I/O Bus support has been added to improve the entire data path from Processor to the 10 Gigabit Ethernet link.

Taken together, the above improvements are a performance game changer for 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

The chart below** shows the previous generation Intel® Xeon® paired with the previous generation Intel 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller compared to the latest platform using the newest Intel silicon for both processor and networking. Not only is the performance better in 1-4 port configurations, but the performance scales dramatically better to above 50 Gigabits per second of total LAN throughput in a four port configuration vs. *just* 17 Gigabits on the previous generation! A complete platform architecture solution makes this huge improvement possible.

Now, it’s great that Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series coupled with the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet can deliver such raw performance, but there is the forever nagging question of usage model. Luckily, the new headroom breathes new life into both Virtualization and storage over Ethernet usages (both of which I’ve talked about here and here) and provides new opportunities to more efficiently utilize your network link.

Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series allows the vision of consolidation in the datacenter to scale new heights, increasing the number of Virtual Machines (VM) that can effectively live inside a single system enclosure. Each incremental VM will add additional network I/O that is already starting to exhaust a 4 or 8 port single gigabit interface configuration with today’s server capabilities. As more VMs are added in the Xeon 5500 generation, 10 Gigabit will no longer be seen as optional; it will be required. For its part, the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller supports Intel® Virtualization Technology for Connectivity (Intel® VT-c) to improve overall system performance in virtualized server environments. Intel VT- c includes hardware optimizations that help reduce I/O bottlenecks, boost throughput and reduce latency. Components of Intel VT-c include VMDq, and VMDc. VMDc consists of SR-IOV which I’ve covered before, and the ability to support VM mobility; a critical usage model for modern a IT deployment. All together, server systems can support more VMs, more throughput, more flexibility and better performance in a datacenter environment.

Finally, the additional capabilities of the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller product surrounding support for FCoE offloads and full support for the new Data Center Bridging (DCB) standards provide an opportunity for storage convergence over Ethernet in either a datacenter using a Fiber Channel SAN environment or an IT environment more focused on iSCSI. On the performance side of things, iSCSI acceleration along with FCoE data path offloads are supported in the Ethernet controller, and on the processor there is support for the CRC instruction set which insures iSCSI data integrity while minimizing processor overhead.

The ability to converge at least part of the additional storage infrastructure onto Ethernet is just another factor driving massively increased data rates over Ethernet… luckily, the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series and the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller solutions are up to the task.

Over the past few days, there has been a lot of noise around Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series and the many other platform components that help it shine its brightest. Improved processing power, memory controller bandwidth, faster and redesigned FSB, and improved 10 Gigabit networking all converge together to provide a fantastic performance, convergence, scalability and power story. Intel’s strong history in the server and processor markets, coupled with over 25 years in Ethernet makes this latest release a natural evolution of technology. Together these capabilities, along with the improved 10 Gigabit features and performance, are helping to transform the datacenter. It will be denser, more power efficient, more performant, and more consolidated with capabilities like FCoE and iSCSI.

As for “Why do I need 10 Gigabit?” We have the answer, and it’s the new Xeon®.

Ben Hacker

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** Source. Intel. Mar 2009. Up to 2.5x performance compared to Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series. Performance result of a bandwidth intensive network benchmark (IxChariot). Network throughput was measured on 64KB I/O size transfers between the test system and multiple network targets. Intel pre-production system with two Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series CPUs (2.93 GHz), 12 GB memory (6 x2GB DDR3 - 1066MHz) vs. Intel Production system with two Intel® Xeon® processors X5365 (3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB), 8 GB memory (8 x 1 GB DDR 2 - 667). Windows Server 2008, stock unmodified installation.

Everyday people are facing exploding volumes of data that they need to manage. As the model size continues to grow, they need to figure out how to maximize the efficiency of data movement and where possible to move processing to data, rather than data to processing. I see this as a constant issue for most of my customers and therefore part of my job is to provide system benchmarks to help people understand how to choose the most efficient platforms for their data-intensive computations. I recently co-authored a technical white paper on Data Intensive Computing that will provide you a bit more insight on this topic. Feel free to download at: http://www.sgi.com/pdfs/4154.pdf.

This week Silicon Graphics posted a large number of standard and application benchmarks for the SGI® Altix® ICE platform and the Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series (codenamed Nehalem). You can find both the standard and application benchmarks on http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/ice.

As we ran the benchmarks we were able to achieve superior application performance through a combination of different factors, most important being the innovative memory system of the new Intel processor family and the improved ICE platform network topology and I/O. On the website you will find a variety of application benchmarks including MD.Nastran, LS-Dyna, Abaqus, Radioss, Fluent, Gaussian and NAMD just to name a few.

I’ve written about the big data problem and asserted some ideas on what makes up an ideal infrastructure. Let’s look at the some progress I think is relevant.

At SGI we’ve been wrestling with the big data problem for many years now and we’re continuing to building and integrating systems with the attributes we feel are ideal for data intensive computing. More recently we’ve been encouraged by the potential of Intel’s 5500 series Xeon Processor (code named Nehalem) to take on the data intensive computing problem. We have run various “Data Intensive” performance benchmarks using the SGI Altix ICE platform along with the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series to see how well the combination would handle real world Data Intensive Computing.

The results have been outstanding and represent material progress in sustainable efficiency for big data problems. The new system delivers reliably scalable performance gains of up to 140 percent over current generation systems across a variety of data-intensive applications

So, can we outrun the data avalanche? We can discuss that more in the intel.com/server discussion room, but I think the answer is that we don’t really have a choice if we want to survive. It is just a matter of figuring out the best approach to keeping one step ahead of the huge amounts of data cascading towards us and if I have my way, a better quality of live by feeling less stress from that data yoke on my shoulders.

I recently co-authored a technical white paper on Data Intensive Computing that will provide you a bit more insight on this topic. Feel free to download at http://www.sgi.com/pdfs/4154.pdf....

Datacenter Dynamic Power Management – Intelligent Power Management on Intel Xeon® 5500

With newly released Intel Xeon® 5500 Processor family, it comes with a new breed of datacenter power management technology - Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager (Node Manager in short).

As a former datacenter engineering manager, I had personal experience of the management issues at datacenters, especially dealing with power allocations and cooling – we often assumed the worse case scenario as we could not predict when the server power consumption will peak. When it did peak, we had no way to control it. It is like driving with blindfold and hope for the best outcome. The safest bet was to make the road as wide as possible - leave enough headroom for the power budget, so that we would not run into power issues. But it resuled in under utilized power, or stranded power, that is quite a waste.

Over the course of last several years, we met with many IPDC (internet portal datacenter) companies. We heard over and over again of their datacenter power management challenges, which was even worse than I experienced. Many of the IPDC companies we talked with leased racks from datacenter service providers under strict power limits per rack. The number of servers per rack they can fit had direct impact to their bottomline. They did not want to under-populate the racks, as they had to pay more rent for the same amount of servers; they could not over-populate the racks as it would be over the power limits. Their power management issues could be best summerized as the following:

·        Over-allocation of power: Power allocation to servers does not match actual server power consumption. Power is typically allocated for worst case scenario based on server nameplate. Static allocation of power budget based on worst case scenario leads to inefficiencies and does not maximize use of available power capacity and rack space.

·        Under-population of rack space: As a direct result of the over-allocation problem, there is a lot of empty space on racks. When the business needs more compute capacity, they have to pay more for additional racks. There are not enough datacenter spaces for them to rent. As a result, they had to go to other cities even other countries – increased operational cost and supporting staff.

·        No capacity planning: There is not effective means to forecast and optimize power and performance dynamically at rack level. To improve power utilization, datacenters needs to track actual power and cooling consumption and dynamically adjust workload and power distribution for optimal performance at rack and datacenter levels.

This is where the Node Manager comes to play. Let’s take a look at what Node Manager and its companion software tool provided by Intel for rack and group level power management – Intel® Data Center Manager (DCM) will do:

Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager (Node Manager)

Node Manager is an out-of-band (OOB) power management policy engine embedded in Intel server chipsets. Processors carry the capability to regulate their power consumption through the manipulation of the P- and T-states. Node Manager works with the BIOS and OS power management (OSPM) to perform this manipulation and dynamically adjust platform power to achieve maximum performance and power for a single node. Node Manager has the following features:

·        Dynamic Power Monitoring: Measures actual power consumption of a server platform within acceptable error margin of +/- 10%. Node Manager gathers information from PSMI instrumented power supplies, provides real-time power consumption data singly or as a time series, and reports through IPMI interface.

·        Platform Power Capping: Sets platform power to a targeted power budget while maintaining maximum performance for the given power level. Node Manager receives power policy from an external management console through IPMI interface and maintains power at targeted level by dynamically adjusting CPU p-states.

·        Power Threshold Alerting: Node Manager monitors platform power against targeted power budget. When the target power budget cannot be maintained, Node Manager sends out alerts to the management console

Intel® Data Center Manager (DCM)

DCM is software technology that provides power and thermal monitoring and management for servers, racks and groups of servers in datacenters. It builds on Node Manager and customers existing management consoles to bring platform power efficiency to End Users. DCM implements group level policies that aggregate node data across the entire rack or data center to track metrics, historical data and provide alerts to IT managers. This allows IT managers to establish group level power policies to limit consumption while dynamically DCM provides allows data centers to increase rack density, manage power peaks, and right size the power and cooling infrastructure. It is a software development kit (SDK) designed to plug-in to software management console products. It also has a reference user interface which was used in this POC as proxy for a management software product. Key DCM features are:

·        Group (server, rack, row, PDU and logical group) level monitoring and aggregation of power and thermals

·        Log and query for trend data for upto one year

·        Policy driven intelligent group power capping

·        User defined group level power alerts and notifications

·        Support of distributed architectures (across multiple racks)

What the combination of DCM and Node Manager will do to datacenter power management? Here is the magic part… With the DCM at group and rack level setting policies, Node Manager can dynamically report the power consumed by a server and adjust it within certain range, so that the overall power consumption of the rack or a particular server group could be managed within a given target. Why this is important? Let me use a real example to explain it:

IPDC Company XYZ (a name I cannot disclose in public) has a mission critical workload at their datacenter that runs 24x7 and there are workload fluctuations during the day. The CPU utilization is mostly at 50~60%, with few cases that it will jump to 100%, typical for datacenter operations. To be on the safe side, the current solution is to do a pre-qualification of the Xeon® 5400 server for the worst case at 100% CPU utilization which ran at ~300W. They used 300W for power allocation, which was considered significantly lower than the nameplate value of the power supply (650W).

With Xeon® 550, for the same workload at 100% throughput, the platform power consumption goes down to 230W, a 70W reduction from the previous generation CPU – a good reason to switch to a new platform due to the advance intelligent power optimization features on Xeon® 5500. But the story does not end there…

On top of that, we further analyze the effect of power capping using Node Manager and DCM. After many tests, we noticed that if we cap at 170W and the performance of impact for workload at 60% CPU utilization and blow is almost negligible. This means, that we 170W power capping, the platform can deliver the same level of services most of the time, with 50W less (230W-170W) power consumption. For occasional spike that is above 60% CPU utilization, there will be some performance impact. However, since the Company XYZ operates at below 60% CPU utilization most of the time, the performance impacts are tolerable. As a result, we can squeeze more power from the power allocation using the dynamic power management feature of Node Manager and DCM.

What does this mean to the Company XYZ? Well, we can do the math. The rack they lease today has the limit of 2,200W/rack. With the current Xeon® 5400 servers, they can put upto 7 servers per rack at 300W per server. With Xeon® 5500, they can safely put 9 servers at 230W per server – a 28% increase of the server density on the rack. Top it up, by using Node Manager and DCM to manage the power at rack level with power limit of 2,200W and dynamically adjust the power allocation among the servers, we can put at least 12 servers at an average of 170W power allocation per server – a 71% increase of the server density comparing with the situation today! This means a great saving for the Company XYZ. In this case, the power consumption of each server on the rack could go above 170W, or lower than 170W. DCM dynamically adjusts the power capping policy while holding the line for entire rack power consumption below 2,200W.

Of course, the power management result varies from workload to workload. There has to be workload-based optimization in order to achieve the best result. Also, we assume that the datacenter should be able to provide sufficient cooling for devices that consume power within the given power limit. Even though, the result we get from this test could not be applied universally to all IPDC customers, we have finally had a platform that can dynamically and intelligently monitor and adjust the platform power based on workload. For datacenter managers, you can manage power at rack level and datacenter level with optimized power allocation to fully utilize the datacenter power. Are you ready to give it a try?

Yesterday – Intel officially launched the Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor (formerly codenamed “Nehalem”) for servers and workstations. One of the most exciting uses of this new platform will be as a key building block in cloud computing infrastructure. Whether you’ve bought into the hype of cloud computing or are a jaded IT realist – you can’t afford to pass up this list of 10 reasons the Intel Xeon 5500 processor is perfect for the cloud.

1. Efficiency. To get the greatest efficiency – the leaders of large-scale Internet providers place their datacenters next to hydroelectric power or other low-cost energy sources. Each watt saved flows straight to the bottom line. Similarly – cloud computing companies intensely scrutinize their server purchases – weighing some variation of this question: how much performance (and by extension, revenue) can I squeeze out of the equipment – versus the cost of procurement and operations. This is the essence of “efficiency”. And now – with Intel’s new Xeon 5500 processor – there’s great news for anyone building efficient cloud infrastructure. The Xeon 5500 can deliver up to 2.25X the computing performance at a similar system power envelope compared to Intel’s previous generation Xeon 5400 series¹. (By the way – the Xeon 5400 is no efficiency slouch – as it’s been leading the industry-standard SpecPower results for two socket systems since the benchmark was created.²) Need more evidence of Xeon 5500 efficiency? Look no further than the amazing results announced by IBM – a score of 1860, which is a 64% leap over the previous high score for a two socket system.³ Results like this clearly demonstrate that the Xeon 5500 has the extremely efficient performance that cloud operators are seeking.
2. Virtualization performance. If a cloud service provider has leveraged a virtualization layer in its architecture - the performance of virtual machines and the ratio of VMs to servers are key concerns. Enter the Xeon 5500 which boasts a stellar jump in virtualization performance, up to 2 times the previous generation Xeon 5400 series⁴ allowing virtualized clouds to squeeze even more capability out of their infrastructure.
3. Adaptable. Cloud computing environments tend to be highly dynamic as usage ebbs and flows during the day, some applications scale rapidly while some shut down, and so on. To meet such shifting demand – it’s critical to have adaptable cloud building blocks. And here Intel’s Xeon 5500 shines: this processor has unique new intelligence to increase performance when needed (Intel Turbo Boost) and to reduce power consumption when demand falls (Intel Intelligent Power Management Technology).
4. Designed for higher operating temperatures. Across the datacenter industry – there’s growing interest in the notion of running datacenters at warmer temperatures to conserve energy. For cloud computing mega-datacenters, this concept has been in practice for several years. But it’s not just the datacenter staff that needs to handle warmer climates - the equipment must tolerate the conditions as well. Intel’s Xeon 5500 has been designed to run at higher temperatures providing one more piece of the puzzle to enable more efficient cloud infrastructure environments⁵.
5. 50% lower idle power. Cloud computing providers – like airlines and phone companies – need to run at the highest utilization possible to maintain a healthy P&L. Yet there are times when usage – and thus server utilization – drops and at these times, cloud service providers desire processors with low power consumption. The Xeon 5500 processor now boasts an idle power that’s up to 50% lower than the prior generation systems, reducing energy costs⁶.
6. Advanced power management. Intel has incorporated special platform level power technologies into the Xeon 5500 platform – which open new avenues to managing server energy consumption beyond what’s already built into the processor. Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager is a power control policy engine that dynamically adjusts platform power to achieve the optimum performance-power ratio for each server. By setting user-defined platform energy policies – Node Manager can enable datacenter operators to increase server rack density while staying within a given power threshold. While results vary based on the type of application and server – Intel demonstrated up to 20% improvement in rack density by using Node Manager in a recent proof-of-concept with Baidu, a leading search engine⁷.
7. High Performance Memory Architecture. Cloud computing and other highly scalable Internet services are often relying on workloads where it makes more sense to keep large volumes of memory in DRAM, close to the CPU, rather than on slower, more distant hard drives. “Memcached” – a distributed caching system used by many leading Internet companies – is but one example. The Intel Xeon 5500 offers several exciting memory architecture benefits over the previous generation: (1) Up to 3.5X the memory bandwidth⁸ by leveraging an integrated memory controller and Intel Quick Path Interconnect (QPI), (2) supports a larger memory footprint (144GB versus 128GB), and (3) DIMMs and QPI links automatically move to lower power states when not active. In these new caching and distributed workloads, where large memory architectures are crucial, the Intel Xeon 5500 offers real advantages.
8. Perfect when paired with SSDs. Few technologies get datacenter gurus more excited than solid state drives – which can offer impressive performance gains over their rotating hard drive cousins at far lower energy consumption. But with SSDs that can read 1000 times more data into the CPU versus a HDD – you want a ravenous processing beast to handle the traffic. And – you’re catching on to the blog theme – the Xeon 5500 can provide up to 72% better performance using SSDs than even the previous generation Xeon systems⁹. Intel Xeon 5500 is truly a perfect engine to complement SSDs.
9. Ideal for optimized server boards. For cloud infrastructure – where every watt is a pernicious tax – you need more than just an extremely efficient processor such as the Xeon 5500. You also need an optimized server platform that has been stripped of every unneeded feature, configured with world-class energy efficient components, and designed for reduced airflow that minimizes the use of fans. One such product is an Intel server motherboard – codenamed “Willowbrook” which has an impressively low idle power below 70W, considering it’s a dual Xeon 5500 performance rocket¹⁰.
10. A competitive lever for cloud operators. Lastly, for a service provider scaling out its infrastructure – systems based on Intel Xeon 5500 processors could offer a competitive advantage versus service providers whose servers are 2 to 3 years old. Because of the performance leaps in Intel server processors in the past few generations – Intel Xeon 5500 based servers can handle the same performance load as up to three times the number of 3-year old dual core servers¹¹. The benefit is clear: providing the same performance level but with far fewer servers means a leg-up on those service providers with more antiquated, less efficient infrastructure.

If you have made it through this lengthy top 10 list – you should have a better sense for the advantages of Intel’s latest processor for cloud computing environments. Of course, the best way to really see the benefits is to get an Intel Xeon 5500 based system from your preferred vendor and test with your own code.

^{1 - 11}For Footnotes, Performance Background, and Legal information, please refer to the attached document.