The Server Room Blog

'You are not Alone' - When it comes to moving from RISC

eoin.j.mcconnell@intel.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:18:41 GMT

Change is hard, but it can be done and the benefits of change usually outweigh the concerns which were on our minds before we made the change.

When making the change from running your solution on a RISC architecture to running that solution on a Xeon architecture, the biggest concern usually relates to whether that solution will run at the same level as on the previous architecture. I'm not talking about performance specifically, but usually the question is around whether operating systems like Linux, Windows, and Solaris on Xeon will meet your business needs for yourmission critical solutions.

Like the underlying improvements in the microprocessor, I believe that there have also been major fundamental improvements in the operating systems that run on both today's and the soon to come next generation microprocessors (sorry, my obligatory Nehalem-EX advertisement... coming soon in 2010). A decision made many years ago to run your solution on Unix/RISC was made based on comparing all the different variables at that time to pick what was right for your business. At that time you likely decided that your solution would not run on these operating systems, these operating systems were not suitable for your mission critical workloads etc. Probably right decision at that point, but like everything else decisions get revisited based upon the here and now and what may have been the right solution in the past (and right decision) may not be the right solution for your needs now.

I wanted to share some thoughts specifically on Redhat Linux today. Lets take a little look at Redhat Enterprise Linux. Current versions of Redhat can deliver what is required for your critical solutions. RHEL is ready and here are some of the reasons cited by Redhat in recent webinars on this topic and my interpretation of their comments

Hosts real-time global mission-critical infrastructures and operations 24 X 7 - its tried and tested by other Enterprises
Enables 5x9s availability in highly secure environments - pretty important to most critical solutions
Contributes measurable reductions to TCO and enables, agile, standardized, and virtualized infrastructures - TCO benefits through standardization
Has major ISVs on-board with the majority of 3rd party Unix applications have Linux and/or Windows versions available - the ISVs that traditionally delivered applications to you based on Unix, also have versions supported on Linux/Windows
Many customer unique applications are developed with programming languages such as C, C++, JAVA, or J2EE and can be migrated to Linux and / or Windows - your applications can be moved
Hosts most major database systems standard for your infrastructure - all the major databases run and run well on Linux

One of the other things we encounter a lot is around whether the technical considerations to move from one operating system environment are too high to overcome and outweigh the benefits of moving. There are always technical considerations and things that you need to know to move from one environment to another. However you are not alone in trying to understand these technical considerations. Redhat have done a phenomenal job of documenting the challenges of moving from say Solaris to Linux and have developed a great Strategic Migration Planning Guide. This is available on request. In recent webinars Redhat outline some of the things that you need to consider for the following technical categories

- Development Environment; Kernel tuning; Security; Filesystems; Debugging, tracing, Profiling; Command Differences; Deployment methods; Software Management; Virtualization; Application considerations

In addition to the current versions of Redhat running on Intel architecture, we are also working very closely on future versions that will take advantage of the 20+ new RAS features that are planned for Nehalem-EX - more on that in a future blog

You are not alone, resources, tools and expertize exist to help you make that move and reap the business benefits while still delivering to the requirements of your business. Check out Redhat online tools for more information that dives deeper into all the areas for consideration http://www.redhat.com/migrate/solaris_to_linux/

We think Redhat Linux and Xeon are ready to run your mission critical workloads and solutions...What do you think?

Why upgrade your hardware when migrating to SAP ERP 6.0?

ennis.p.skillern@intel.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:10:06 GMT

Why upgrade your hardware when migrating to SAP ERP 6.0? Because it makes simple, practical, business sense that is all. SAP has identified several key reasons why customers are concerned about migration and several among them are as follows:

· Cost, Cost, Cost

o HW infrastructure cost is highlighted as one of the key barriers of migration

· Business Justification

o Is there a compelling business reason to upgrade the hardware?

· Additional risk of business disruption

o Migration of ERP environment is complex enough…how much more risk is there when upgrading your hardware?

From a cost perspective, the perception that hardware is a barrier to migration can be easily overcome. Based on research, the hardware cost as a percentage of the overall migration cost is only about 7%. That means 93% of the cost is in licensing, consulting, etc, etc. HW costs are only the “tip of the iceberg” and the real $ investment lies elsewhere in the equation.

Is there a compelling business reason to upgrade your hardware? Well…frankly, it does not make sense not to do it. One, we showed above that the hardware investment is minimal compared to SW licensing, consulting, service, etc. Two, the hardware requirements of ERP 6.0 are significantly higher than previous versions. ERP 6.0 requires up to 2.5x more CPU performance, 2.5x more memory and 1.5x more I/O! You will need the increased performance and scalability that Intel provides in our microprocessors. While the ERP performance requirements have increased 2.5x, Intel performance with SAP has increased 10X! Oh, btw…energy efficiency does matter and in your new ERP environment you will be able to consolidate servers and save on power and cooling costs. TCO will be significantly reduced and from hardware investment standpoint, you are likely going to recover the cost of the servers in a very reasonable timeframe.

From my discussions with the IT community, their major concern and number one focus area is to prevent business disruption and downtime. This costs companies real and significant money. The fact is that an ERP migration is a complex enough project managing the strategic, functional and technical portions. Adding a server infrastructure change increases fundamental risk. But, the key here is that it is done often and done successfully. Intel IT has published several whitepapers on the subject and communicated “Best Known Methods” to minimize that risk. A quick summary is inserted here:

Challenge:

• Convert Intel’s Worldwide Warehouse Management Software

• Upgrade from SAP* ERP version 4.7 to 6.0, change the DBMS, and perform a Unicode* conversion as well as a hardware upgrade

• Minimize downtime

Benefit to Intel IT:

• SAP ERP 6.0 improves Intel supportability

• Increases ease of integration to SAP NetWeaver* 7.1 Suite

• Provides access to Enhancement Packs and Enterprise Services

• Intel^® Itanium^®-based servers provide access to 128 GB of memory for database and SAP operations and significantly increased performance from true 64-bit processing

Key Results:

• Reduced downtime of upgrade by 50% by using Intel Architecture

In summary, upgrading your server infrastructure when migrating your ERP environment is a very, very complex task, but form a business perspective, it should be fairly easy to see the true benefits from combining the ERP migration and hardware upgrade at the same time.

How does a Real Server improve your life?

keith.e.lauritzen@intel.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:22:18 GMT

I’d like to introduce myself as a product line manager at Intel who has spent almost a decade ensuring we are creating the best servers to solve small business challenges. Part of my role is to influence future generation products and I’d like to learn more about your challenges, needs and desires so I can ensure we address them in our next generation products.

Here is a story I have heard in the past: “Ah geez, What Now? A customer just called to tell me they tried to enter an online order for my product and my web site is nowhere to be found. I am lucky they called, but so much for spending a Saturday at my kid’s baseball tournament! Now I need to drive an hour to my downtown office to restart and possibly fumble with my server. You would think that the desktop system that I am using as a server would just work so I can spend my free time with my family and my work time growing my business.”

I can’t count the number of times I have heard a similar story from customers and colleagues that are trying to grow a small business, manage their own computers and have a personal life. The answer to their problem is simple, buy a real server based on Intel®Xeon® Processors that is designed to keep your business running 24/7. Our latest Xeon processors and chipsets are not only validated to run 24/7, but include features such as support for error correcting code memory and RAID for server operating systems that ensure dependability and differentiate a real server from desktop system used as a server. However, a small business should not care about all this technical jargon. I believe they only care that their server runs 24/7 without failure, enabling them to focus on business growth and life.

What are your small business challenges? I’m all ears.

Keith

Reporting live from the Intel booth at Oracle OpenWorld

jason.t.beane@intel.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:23:43 GMT

At Intel, we not only pack a lot of performance in a small form factor, we also pack a lot of great demos and theater presentations into our booth at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco (South Moscone, booth #1621). We have 5 demos from 5 of our customers—Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun—and 3 other demos showcasing Wind River, Intel’s SOA Expressway product, and last, but certainly not least, Intel’s amazing and upcoming Nehalem-EX processor, which you heard Michael Dell praise in his keynote this morning.

Over the course of the three days of our booth at OOW (Monday through Wednesday this week), we will have over 35 brief presentations that will help you plan your requirements for your next generation data center. They are short and sweet, and you can ask all the questions you want. If you simply attend a presentation and get a few more stamps form our demo stations, you can enter to win one of two netbooks that will be given away at the end of each day.

Outside of our booth, you may find us presenting in various partners’ booths and we hope to see you in a session we are having later today (see info below). We had an amazing session yesterday from resident Intel genius, Steve Shaw. The huge room was filled to capacity. At this other session today we will be giving away a netbook. Here are the logistics for today’s session:

ID#: S309892

Title: Ten Ways to Improve J2EE Application Performance on Multicore Systems

Track: Oracle Develop: Enterprise Java and Oracle WebLogic

Date: 13-OCT-09

Time: 17:30 - 18:30

Venue: Hilton Hotel

Room: Yosemite B

We hope to see you around somewhere at Oracle OpenWorld, but if for some reason we miss you entirely, please visit www.intel.com/server for more info on Intel’s fantastic products. Also, please visit Channel Intel on youtube for some videos from the event.

Windows* Server 2008 R2: Great improvements in energy efficiency

dave.r.hill@intel.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:13:55 GMT

If you hadn’t heard, Microsoft* and Intel spent a lot of effort optimizing Windows* Server 2008 R2 (and Windows 7) to improve energy efficiency by reducing system power consumption at idle and under load. For more details, check out the presentation from the Intel Developer Forum a few weeks ago titled Microsoft and Intel: Innovations in Hardware and Software to Help Deliver New Technology Experiences. This presentation (and other IDF presentations) can be found at intel.com/go/idfsessions (search for SPCS003 using the session ID number). There is good information on the operating system optimizations that were done to reduce power consumption. Slide 22 has an excellent comparison of the power consumption of Windows Server 2003 vs. Windows Server 2008 R2 running on the same Xeon® 5500 series processors. It shows that using WinSrv2008 R2 reduced system idle and peak power consumption by ~60W!! In addition, Hyper-V* 1.1 now uses the power management features of Intel processors to reduce power consumption during periods of low utilization.

This is a great time to show your customers the energy efficiency benefits that come with upgrading to WinSrv2008 R2 at the same time they refresh their server infrastructure with Xeon® 5500 based servers.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others

Selecting the Right Xeon Processor Just Got Easier

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:33:51 GMT

Since we started the Ask An Expert discussion thread in the Server Room a couple years ago, I found that the community often asked for guidance between selection of server system type and processor number as IT professionals sought to make the best purchase for them.

As I responded to these threads, I realized there were a lot of the same questions occurring over and over again. I then thought that having a selection tool to allow the community to guide themselves through a few questions to help narrow the options might be a valuable.

Sometimes the world (ok Intel) moves too slowly for me. My brainchild on this was something I wanted to have done about a year ago with the first 45nm quad-core processors (Xeon 5400). However, our server and corporate marketing teams got a little distracted by the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) processor launch.

However, after much delay I’m proud to introduce this simple, interactive Xeon Server processor selector tool that can help you choose which server system type and processor would be ideal for your application and business goals. With Three Easy Steps, you can narrow your choices.

Step 1: Identify the business environment, application type and primary purchase criteria
Step 2: Compare and Choose the processor family (7000, 5000, 3000)
Step 3: Compare and Choose the specific processor within that family

In this 3^rd step you can look at price, performance, power and feature set across multiple CPUs to help you narrow. Take a short cut and look at the most popular CPUs or expand your options and look at the whole range of offerings.

We also have a Workstation Selection Tool (this tool was what triggered the idea to create a server one)

Other IT and business value assessment tools from Intel include:

Chris

Follow me on twitter

Enter the Intel® XEON® Workstation Sweepstakes

william.h.lea@intel.com — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:49:41 GMT

Hi All,

You found the Intel XEON Workstation Sweepstakes!

Click HERE to start the quiz and submit your entry today !

Good Luck to all.

Calculating ROI – Helping IT Make Informed Decisions

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:06:45 GMT

We created a server refresh ROI estimator tool to help IT managers make sense of the significant OpEx savings they can achieve by making targeted investments in new server hardware. In my previous blog when we introduced the ROI tool back in April 2009, I talked about the capabilities of the estimator and the benefits of server refresh. In the first 3 months, we have had nearly 4,000 users of the ROI estimator and of those users almost 800 users have printed reports to share with others in their organizations. The feedback we have received from users has been very encouraging.

CIO for major US hospital: “This would help my IT staff justify the financial value of the technology investment they are proposing. This has been a barrier to freeing up capital internally”
IT Manager for major US bank: “I used to have regular funding for technology refresh projects. It was a given for my budget. However, with the increased constraints on capital, I now have to justify this type of spending”
Technology Sales Consultant: “This tool helped me work better with my customer to gain a deeper understanding of their server environment and allowed us to jointly identify high ROI investments to improve their infrastructure”

I have also heard many constructive suggestions for improvement. As a result, we have continued to evolve the tool based on feedback from users.

Tool Training – How to Use: We heard that the benefits of using the Savings Refresh Estimator spanned many functional roles, making us realize that the use models for this type of tool and what users were looking for would vary dramatically from person to person. This has challenged us to look at ways to streamline the user interface (something we continue to work on) for different users and analyses. In the interim, we are in the process of developing a video training guide to help users understand how to use the tool to get maximum benefit. We have a pdf training guide today that can help you get started now.

PowerPoint Output: What would we do without powerpiont? J We received feedback on the desire to make the output of this tool more sharable inside IT organizations and with business partners in a powerpoint format as a way to communicate the opportunity and benefits for server refresh investment. So, we now have a powerpoint output option in the reports section that breaks down the benefits of server refresh for a variety of audiences from executive staff to facilities to finance. Everyone inside your business can benefit from server refresh and now you can show them how.

Secure Analysis: We received feedback that many users wanted access off-line either as a way to use in meetings when connectivity was challenged or to protect internal data from exposure online. We now have the ability for you to run the tool on your laptop to support these use models.

More … More … More Functionality. We heard lots of requests and ideas to expand the level of functionality and analysis capabilities. We have to balance scope, complexity Keep these requests coming. The following changes are incorporated into today’s estimator.

Virtualization to Virtualization Refresh Scenario – now included
Virtualization Loading: Can edit and change VM/server new and old
Custom Performance Data – enter you own performance data to better model what you expect to see in your biz
Depreciation Cycle – no longer fixed at 4yrs .. can adjust
Memory Sizing: information added to allow user analysis
Processor Description: allows user to cross reference data to other more familiar terminology.

Accuracy / Approach: We have also heard some feedback challenging us on different ways to look at refresh scenarios, especially as we learn more about how people are looking at and using virtualization and sizing their environments after refresh. Sizing is a very customer-centric and application specific task that is difficult to model in a one-sized fits all. We won’t be able to model every sizing situation, but are planning some future enhancements intended to help you self-evaluate.

I want to thank everyone in the community for their input on this tool and helping us to deliver a better product over time. Keep the ideas coming. Feel free to respond with comments here.

Chris

twitter: @chris_p_intel

Cash for Clunkers? Yes – It’s called Server Refresh.

bryce.olson@intel.com — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:32:07 GMT

You’ve seen it on the front pages of the papers lately. The program that offers consumers incentives to trade in older used cars for more fuel-efficient new cars is pushing auto sales into overdrive. The $1B in govt. funding for it was burned through in less than a week. The U.S. House of Representatives rushed through an additional $2B in emergency funds just to keep the program going, but will need Senate approval if it’s going to extend beyond Tuesday August 4^th. My guess is to make a continuation of the program palatable to the U.S. taxpayer, the incentive will need to be cut (from $4500 for a new fuel-efficient car to somewhere in the $1-2k range) but it’s great to seen people buying cars and stimulating part of the economy – while getting older fuel-inefficient cars off the roads.

I saw an interesting article talking about whether a similar program for servers would work…and though I think it’s a creative idea, I’ll argue that Intel and our OEM partners have been offering “Cash for Clunkers” for quite some time now – without any U.S. taxpayer help. How? Through promoting the benefits of server refresh, a strategy that is proving to be one of the most beneficial investments to IT and business. Using the Xeon ROI Estimator I spent 2-3 minutes modeling potential savings by comparing 4-year old 2P Intel Xeon based servers to new 2P Intel Xeon 5500 based servers – and this is what I found:

An investment in one Intel Xeon 5500 based server (~$8.5k including purchase price, migration cost, and software validation) enables up to 10x performance per server, a 10:1 server consolidation opportunity vs. 10 older servers purchased 4 years ago that as an IT manager I can now get rid of. So where’s the cash for the clunkers? Well, I would save over $4k a year in energy costs and over $11k a year in server / software maintenance costs by cutting out the old and putting in the new. The 4-year total savings is about $38k, with a break even period of about 9 months. Not bad…and that doesn’t even take into consideration software licensing costs that I probably can save by cutting down the server count. Try modeling this yourself and check out the new PowerPoint report that you can generate from it – really explains the benefits in a way that the finance and facilities folks will find useful.

I also found this link that explains why Intel IT decided to move ahead with server refresh in 2009 after current economic conditions forced Intel to re-evaluate the strategy. Analysis found that delaying server refresh for a year would increase costs by USD 19 million.

And a refresh strategy also applies to the bigger 4 Socket and above servers as well, as documented in this server refresh brief.

Server Refresh is a strategic investment for IT – the cash for clunkers program that keeps on giving.

bryce

Nehalem-EX will bring a lot to the RISC party

eoin.j.mcconnell@intel.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:17:32 GMT

I wrote a while back about how the Xeon 7400(Dunnington) processor series compared to RISC. Since then I have shared information through other blog posts and sharing content about how Xeon 7400 and Xeon 5500 will compare to both SPARC and POWER.

Xeon 7400 and Xeon 5500 are the current products shipping into the marketplace today. I.M.H.O they offer a pretty compelling alternative from both a performance and TCO perspective Vs SPARC and POWER. But I will not try and repeat all the reasons here

What I wanted to share with you was some thoughts about what the next product to succeed Xeon 7400 will bring to the RISC party. Nehalem-EX is the code-name for our next generation of product designed to serve workloads currently serviced by Xeon 7400 today (i.e. Database, ERP, BI etc). EX btw is what we all would traditionally call MP or multi processor servers

Don't stop reading now, here is why I'm EXCITED about what Nehalem-EX will bring to the RISC party.

My excitement is actually based on real customer discussions about what Nehalem-EX will do for them and why it delivers some new stuff (my code for features and benefits) which they see as a pre-requisite to make the move from RISC to Xeon. For some customers the TCO and performance of products have been enough to convince them to move. For some other customers there are still some checkboxes remaining which I believe Nehalem-EX will address

Here is a snapshot of some of the cool new stuff which is actually convincing customers (from some real deals that I have worked)

Improved bandwidth. Up to 9 times memory bandwidth of previous generations
Introduction of Quickpath Interconnects to the EX systems
Add new RAS features previously seen on Itanium products to Xeon products
Significant improvement in performance vs previous generations e.g. Database 2.5xe
More scalable platforms through 8 OEMs offering >8S. These platforms are key to manage large databases and for large scale consolidation
Mainframe class availability in scalable platforms

For more information check out the press briefing from May. See more the details in the presentation

Nehalem-EX goes into production later this year and I am pretty excited about how it will change the game. What do you think?

Cisco Live 2009: "Xeon 5500 Processor Series Demo"

william.h.lea@intel.com — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:13:10 GMT

Mike Lafferty (Intel) demonstrates the Xeon 5500 Processor series, code-named Nehalem. Check out the video....

Competition: The Spice of Life .... even for IT

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:55:04 GMT

Competition, Comparison, Self Improvement, Benchmarking.

We do them in business. We do them in our careers. We do them in our leisure. ... and if you are like me you like to watch them on TV or live as well. Who is watching Lance Armstrong? or Tiger Woods? or their favorite sports team compete regularly.

IT professionals are no different. Today, one of the business emhpasis points for IT is energy efficiency. Now there is a way for you to quickly compare your own IT organization against itself and others. This IT self-assessment tool takes about 2-3 minutes to complete and will answer these three questions

How efficient is your server infrastructure today?
How do you compare to your peers?
How much more efficient could you be?

The Community Window: Server Efficiency is a tool hosted on the Intel Premier IT Professionals website (http://ipip.intel.com) where registration is free and so is the information and best practices shared by other IT professionals throughout the industry. Join and conduct your Server Efficiency self assessment today. Chris

"You’ll never forget your first"

emma.hitzke@intel.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:51:53 GMT

Your first server, that is. There’s nothing like a real server to help your business become more competitive. While some small businesses can get away with using a desktop as a server, there’s really no substitute for the real thing. With the ability to more efficiently handle more users, accommodate the latest applications, and deliver greater reliability, having a real server will make all the difference.

Aren’t you ready for the real thing? A server built on an Intel® Xeon® processor has a lot to offer your business, so be prepared for dramatic performance and productivity improvement. If you want to be able to handle the demands of more customers, more data and more staff, an Intel Xeon processor based server is the way to go.

Can you afford downtime? Of course not! Maximize business uptime with technology that’s ready to work all day, every day. And protect your critical digital assets with error correcting memory and support for RAID storage.

And just to build the IT excitement for your first server, check out this animation to see what a real server can do for your business:

So, if you’re flirting with transitioning to a real server, I would just advise that you make sure that your first really is the best. Talk to your IT solutions provider [ http://premierlocator.intel.com/] about implementing an Intel Xeon processor-based server. And remember, once you go Xeon, you’ll never go back!

HP Tech Forum '09: "Amazing ROI with Intel & HP"

william.h.lea@intel.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:45:20 GMT

I was out at HP Tech Forum last week and had a chance to catch up on all the latest technology advancements with HP and Intel. What I saw was staggering, over 17 new HP-Intel designs, the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD), and lot's more that I will be sharing with you in coming days as I add more video from the event and help to tell the story if you couldn't be there. First off, I caught up with John McAtee from Intel's HP account team. He was showing a cool demonstration on why now is the right time to invest in XEON 5500 processor series technology. Check out this video and find out how you can start saving in your datacenter today !

If you want more information on how the XEON 5500 processor series can starting saving in the datacenter, check out this ROI Calculator tool. Also, if you are looking for detailed information or are just looking to gain more knowledge, you can always "Ask The Professor" in our Server Learning Center.

Consolidating multiple Unix environments to Industry Standard Xeon

eoin.j.mcconnell@intel.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:01:50 GMT

Running multiple Unix environments across a range of locations adds increased complexity and cost to the IT environment. I came across an interesting case study and wanted to highlight some of the key findings

YPF SAis the largest company in Argentina operating in the Oil and Gas industry. The company has 29 gas plants around Argentina running different Unix environments such as HP-UX, AIX and Solaris.

YPF SA consolidated their SAP ERP and Oracle DB environment from multiple Unix environments to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization running on Intel Xeon based platforms from IBM System X

Some of the key findings to highlight

Key requirement from Unix Administration Team that "migrating from old RISC/Unix and proprietary servers to open and flexible platforms would pose no risk to the reliability, availability and performance of the systems"
Positive impact on cost and performance; Lowered costs, simplified management and increased compatibility
Reduction in costs especially when compared to license costs of RISC based platforms
Increased performance and availability drove decision to scale with RHEL and Xeon
Ability to leverage Redhat integrated virtualization. Free up internal hardware and technical resources for other projects

I guess the combination of Redhat and Intel deliver the business results that customers are seeking. What do you think?